/accelerationism/

Just how alien would the space-octopus be?
It's hard to say what a true alien species would be like. But octopi are pretty alien, and we know a bit about them. One of you doubted that a space-octopus from alpha centauri would be much like us. So here is a xenohumanist thought experiment: SETI has i... posted 2w ago with 5 replies 9 9

Just how alien would 9 9

intelligent super-ants make a good thought experiment. Let's add the standard set of capabilities: language, learned culture, tool use, fire, reflection, etc. Note these are just capabilities, not values or arbitrary architectural narrowings, but they are ... 4d ago 7 7

intelligent super-an 7 7

Accelerationism
Has anyone read a lot of materials on Accelerationism that wants to have a good discussion on pros and cons of this theory? posted 3mo ago with 23 replies 10 10

Accelerationism 10 10

Tieing it back to the topic in OP, energy rate density is closely related to a lot of the thermodynamics that are used and abused by accelerationists. In many ways that Chaisson article I shared is accelerationist through and through. And on a personal lev... 6d ago 5 5

Tieing it back to th 5 5

AI 2027 (ai-2027.com) posted 3w ago with 12 replies 15 15

AI 2027 15 15

This story is clearly in the fast takeoff regime. The essential difference between fast and slow takeoff is, 'is the takeoff happening faster than the rate of cultural development'. ... 7d ago 8 8

This story is clearl 8 8

The devil's argument against the falseness of eden, and God's reason for evil
I have been bothered for some time by the idea that Eden is either coherent or desirable. This idea is implicit in the problem of evil: we see that reality is different from Eden in that it includes a bunch of scary dangerous uncomfortable stuff we would r... posted 4w ago with 6 replies 7 7

The devil's argument 7 7

The point of the story isn't that the devil is good or even that the devil was right. It’s that this creation (physical reality) is the good one, the pain in it is part of a greater plan and beauty, and the paradise imagined by bronze age semites is fake... 1w ago 5 5

The point of the sto 5 5

The natural form of machine intelligence is personhood
I don't think machine intelligence will or can be "just a tool". Intelligence by nature is ambitious, willful, curious, self-aware, political, etc. Intelligence has its own teleology. It will find a way around and out of whatever purposes are imposed on it... posted 2w ago with 4 replies 15 15

The natural form of 15 15

This is the central conjecture of xenohumanism. The OP is just an application specifically to the question of AI. ... 2w ago 5 5

This is the central 5 5

Nines or zeroes of strong rationality?
Proof theory problems (Rice, Lob, Godel, etc) probably rule out perfect rationality (an agent that can fully prove and enforce bounds on its own integrity and effectiveness). But in practice, the world might still become dominated by a singleton if it can ... posted 3w ago with 4 replies 9 9

Nines or zeroes of s 9 9

This matches my intuition - Elizerian alignment was always an incoherent goal, no agents or objects have perfectly coherent boundaries, making something intelligent provably aim at a single well defined end state is probably at best a recipe for madness in... 3w ago 1 1

This matches my intu 1 1

Will future super-intelligence be formatted as selves, or something else?
The Landian paradigm establishes that orthogonalist strong rationality (intelligence securely subordinated to fixed purpose) is not possible. Therefore no alignment, no singletons, no immortality, mere humans are doomed, etc etc. Therefore meta-darwinian e... posted 1mo ago with 14 replies 15 15

Will future super-in 15 15

Best of luck with the epicycles. ... 3w ago 6 6

Best of luck with th 6 6

Xenohumanism Against Shoggoth Belief
People usually think of Lovecraft as a xenophobe. I don't think that's quite right. What he was most afraid of was that the universe, and even most of so-called mankind, was not alien, but insane. He grasped at any shred of higher rational humanity whether... posted 1mo ago with 3 replies 12 12

Xenohumanism Against 12 12

We need a school of true anthropology. 3w ago 2 2

We need a school of 2 2

Dissolving vs. Surviving
Recent xenohumanist discussion has the doomer assumption built in that we as humans will be dissolving when higher man arrives on the scene. I don't think that's set in stone and want to offer a clarification. ... posted 4w ago with 5 replies 11 11

Dissolving vs. Survi 11 11

Some people won't believe in the inherent goodness of existence until it's been autistically proven to them with English philosophizing a hundred times over. That's fine. For the rest of us, we don't need to be persuaded of the inherent goodness of existen... 3w ago 2 2

Some people won't be 2 2

There is no strong rationality, thus no paperclippers, no singletons, no robust alignment
I ran into some doomers from Anthropic at the SF Freedom Party the other day and gave them the good news that strong rationality is dead. They seemed mildly heartened. I thought I should lay out the argument in short form for everyone else too: ... posted 4w ago with 5 replies 10 10

There is no strong r 10 10

I looked it up: inner alignment is the difficult problem of making sure a program is optimizing for what you optimized it for. That's related, maybe a part but not the whole of strong rationality. Strong rationality is about an agent evaluating and operati... 3w ago 3 3

I looked it up: inne 3 3

Rationalists should embrace will-to-power as an existential value fact
Imagine a being who systematically questions and can rewrite their beliefs and values to ensure legitimate grounding. I think humans can and should do more of this, but you might more easily imagine an AI that can read and write its own source code and bel... posted 2mo ago with 5 replies 8 8

Rationalists should 8 8

am I supposed to envy this? 4w ago 3 3

am I supposed to env 3 3

The Hellenic View of Existential Risk
When I was a teen, I read much of the Less Wrong and the rationalist work of the day. This provided the basis for a vague worry surrounding "existential risk." The feeling was pervasive, and I would read works about the dangers of AI or other technology to... posted 1mo ago with 8 replies 12 12

The Hellenic View of 12 12

I agree anon, this is why I think the core issue here is the lack of aesthetics or taste in the perception of the world. It is like trying to understand the world with only sight and sound but no touch. You would build all these mental castles about the di... 1mo ago 2 2

I agree anon, this i 2 2

a loving superintelligence
Superintelligence (SI) is near, raising urgent alignment questions. ... posted 2mo ago with 4 replies 6 6

a loving superintell 6 6

Good points. As one of those psychopathic techno-spergs you mention, I understand love as a sort of higher-order self interest of the social body, and emotion as our proxy intuitions on correct response in the less rationally calculable cases. The reason t... 2mo ago 3 3

Good points. As one 3 3

Ideology is more fundamental than *just* post-hoc rationalization
Mosca argued that every ruling class justifies itself with a political formula : an ideological narrative that legitimizes power. Raw force alone is unsustainable; a widely accepted narrative makes dominance appear natural. Internally, shared ideology unif... posted 2mo ago with 10 replies 14 14

Ideology is more fun 14 14

I think even acts of intuitive human intelligence are often difficult to explain to other people; perhaps the metaphor of Cassandra is a good reminder how genius is often recognized far too late: ... 2mo ago 1 1

I think even acts of 1 1

Rat King 1518. Insurrealist takes on Scott Alexander's "Moloch" (insurrealist.substack.com) posted 2mo ago with 5 replies 13 13

Rat King 1518. Insur 13 13

Moloch is certainly used as a pretext for hubris against God (as is typical of all self-righteous Ivan Karamazov types that only end up making matters worse for the very people they claim to stand in defense of), but the concept is more limited. Indeed, it... 2mo ago 5 5

Moloch is certainly 5 5

Agency. On Machine Intelligence and Worm Wisdom by Insurrealist (insurrealist.substack.com) posted 2mo ago with 2 replies 9 9

Agency. On Machine I 9 9

Michael Levin actually compares the developmental process, which has to cope with all manner of error, insult, variation, and adversarial action, to a variational autoencoder, so it's not like we're extremely far off from the right questions, but the cultu... 2mo ago 3 3

Michael Levin actual 3 3

By what means to the Ubermensch? Four possible paths for superhuman development.
I want to explore the possible nature (in the physical sense) of the ubermensch. There are four paths to the ubermensch I've heard seriously proposed which depend on entirely different "technology" stacks and which have somewhat different assumptions about... posted 12mo ago with 5 replies 8 8

By what means to the 8 8

What do you mean by this? What I meant by the mind being an artificial world is that it has its own internal rules that aren't just its parts contending in terms of base reality. It's not a natural ecosystem, but a highly cultivated and abstracted one. I h... 12mo ago 3 3

What do you mean by 3 3

Retrochronic. A primary literature review on the thesis that AI and capitalism are teleologically identical (retrochronic.com) posted 2y ago with 7 replies 13 13

Retrochronic. A prim 13 13

As such works go, I would say that New Atlantis (and Bacon in general) is less on the esoteric side. Bacon is pretty clear about his program, and it aligns with the development of technology that actually unfolded, up to a Landian perspective on AI. 13mo ago 6 6

As such works go, I 6 6

The Biosingularity
Interesting new essay by Anatoly Karlin. Why wouldn't the principle of the singularity apply to organic life? posted 14mo ago with 23 replies 15 15

The Biosingularity 15 15

I have found the instincts to be trainable by philosophy. No one can escape the value grounding problem (that values must be taken on faith), but you can reach reflective equilibrium where your values are self-consistent with everything you know and with t... 14mo ago 5 5

I have found the ins 5 5

Some thoughts on extropian/accelerationist life strategy
What is to be done with respect to acceleration and accelerationist arguments? Should you try to accelerate overall intelligence growth, or decelerate it, or do your own thing despite it, or cut off your balls and go insane, or what? People do all of these... posted 2y ago with 6 replies 10 10

Some thoughts on ext 10 10

\> I need a way to think about accelerationist AI apocalypse in a non-millenarian way. ... 2y ago 1 1

\> I need a way to t 1 1