alt Hacker NewsThere was a NYT piece about this recently. They are believers in a millennialist cult in which the arrival of an omnipotent machine-god is thought inevitable, and the only question is whether it will be "aligned" (good) or "misaligned" (evil).
They are the good heroes racing to make sure they bring forth the Aligned God because if they fail, surely the bad people will raise the Misaligned Devil.
Ref w/gift link https://x.com/sapinker/status/2096236079477096630
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Pinker unfortunately has very little clue what he's talking about here. I eagerly await Scott Alexander's inevitable essay response to him.
Thank you for that gift link, I had no idea that Altman and other "leading" (deep-pocketed) figures in American AI had such close ties to that raving lunatic Eliezer Yudkowsky. It explains so much about why China is approaching AI like it's a friendly technology but American CEOs keep blabbering on about the End Times.
This cult stuff was tired in 2010 (hey, at least back then there was One True Leader!) and not any less tired now.
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a god is a good guy with a god.