this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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Do Novelists Need to Worry About AI? (In which I rant for entirely too long about Yudkowsky and his ilk.) (www.reddit.com)
submitted 1 year ago by JohnBierce@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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TL;DR:

I rant a bunch about how the silly eschatology of Yudkowsky and his cult have been hijacked by monopolistic corporate goons to push generative AI. Figured y'all might be interested.

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[–] self@awful.systems 5 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I finally got to reading this through after work and there’s so much good stuff in there! one thread I wanted to pick at in particular:

All of this AI doomer ideology being used? We can trace all of it back to the SFF community. To the delightful Singularity novels of the 80s, 90s, and naughts. (To their credit, all of the singularity fiction writers I've seen mention the topic are pretty repulsed by the Rationalists and their ilk.)

it’s really reassuring to see a science fiction and fantasy industry perspective on TESCREAL ideas alongside a deep dive into the history of how the rationalists took ideas they got from sci-fi and twisted them into a cult. to be honest, ever since rationalist ideas started capturing large portions of my industry (programming), I’ve felt kind of foolish reading the sci-fi I used to be a big fan of. I feel like reading the perspective in your post actually went a ways towards repairing my relationship with that fiction.

[–] JohnBierce@awful.systems 5 points 1 year ago

I mean, a lot of that fiction is just really good! Frankly, the rationalists tend to miss the point so hard, hyperfocusing on the cool gadgets and missing the commentaries on civilization, society, history, human nature, etc. Don't let their awful beige California ideology ruin your fondness of some genuinely entertaining, thought-provoking literature.

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