/accelerationism/

FAGGELLA, styled according to his own flamboyantly self-aggrandizing website, does at least serve as an interesting directory of ideas. Specifically, ideas around hard takeoff and AI maximalism; he fits alongside Yud, AI 2027, etc.... 2d ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 11.5 11.5

FAGGELLA, styled acc (view hidden) log in to judge received 11.5 11.5

Since when are people who spend all their time in VR and don't go outside not "normal hominids"? Transhumanists haec been continually lowering the bar for decades, I see. 2d ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.1 2.1

Since when are peopl (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.1 2.1

Dopamine reward hacking is the teleological end of mass democratic industrial society. Still, avoiding dopamine traps is a learnable skill, and there will be strong selection pressures for those with the capability to avoid getting oneshotted by this stuff... 1w ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.3 4.3

Dopamine reward hack (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.3 4.3

Yup. Landian techno-nihilism is interesting and fun for us big brain people to think and theorycel and chat about, but ultimately it's not prescriptive, so its usefulness is limited.... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 14.8 14.8

Yup. Landian techno- (view hidden) log in to judge received 14.8 14.8

Fair enough. The "self-evident" vs "leap of faith" debate is missing the point. The real thing is our disagreement about whether the instincts need any higher framework of justification. I see where you are coming from and I agree that the instincts causal... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 13.3 13.3

Fair enough. The "se (view hidden) log in to judge received 13.3 13.3

Speaking of global singleton antichrists of total control that prevent growth, our favorite Croatian philosopher raises an interesting solution to the problem posed by Thiel: https://x.com/mmjukic/status/1979159947888763299 3w ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 5.1 5.1

Speaking of global s (view hidden) log in to judge received 5.1 5.1

This is a good prompt. What should the architecture of the Aerospace Republic look like?... 4w ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 7.4 7.4

This is a good promp (view hidden) log in to judge received 7.4 7.4

This idea of an aerospace republic deserves further exploration. It demands industrial capacity. The culture and aesthetics are excellent, a natural antidote to all forms of soy. Autonomous aerospace forms a north star that unites the most interesting thre... 4w ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 6.1 6.1

This idea of an aero (view hidden) log in to judge received 6.1 6.1

We're at a point where AI solves freshly-written IMO and IOI problems. It's pretty clear which of those two options is closer to the truth.... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 14.3 14.3

We're at a point whe (view hidden) log in to judge received 14.3 14.3

This seems right. While "next token prediction" is in principle a universal interface to the world, the transformer architecture is not a universal learner. We can see this in its handling of arithmetic. If it were a true universal learner that modeled the... 3mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 3.7 3.7

This seems right. Wh (view hidden) log in to judge received 3.7 3.7

There can be surplus intellect, but in that case there's been a misallocation of resources and thus the system in toto isn't as intelligent as it could be. I agree that certain sub-spheres of Anglo thought have cultivated a kind of silly mystery cult of in... 6mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 7.5 7.5

There can be surplus (view hidden) log in to judge received 7.5 7.5

I'm reading BAP's recent post on China and America's stumbling about as it considers reindustrializing. In the below section BAP talks about the strength, albeit complicated, that grows out of our financial markets and reserve currency status. In short: ta... 3mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.4 2.4

I'm reading BAP's re (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.4 2.4

It's working so far, driving things forward, achieving great life. All life is fundamentally unstable in that way. We temporarily harness explosive positive feedback loops to achieve life. But the positive feedback loops are themselves dependent on the neg... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 10.8 10.8

It's working so far, (view hidden) log in to judge received 10.8 10.8

I take Gnon to be the highest level pattern implicit in the laws of physics, but not practically derivable from them.... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 10.9 10.9

I take Gnon to be th (view hidden) log in to judge received 10.9 10.9

As I mentioned in the other thread a serious worldview must be backed by more than mere assertion. On what basis and to what extent is group self-interest a valid principle? If we're not caring to actually back this up and enforce worldview rigor around an... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 11.0 11.0

As I mentioned in th (view hidden) log in to judge received 11.0 11.0

I agree, and think this is the weakest part of the essay. It feels like a contortion to place Land subordinate to Plato when the more natural and correct thing to say is that he is a modernizer of Heraclitus.... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 11.1 11.1 0.8 0.8

I agree, and think t (view hidden) log in to judge received 11.1 11.1 0.8 0.8

OP of essay here.... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 10.9 10.9

OP of essay here.... (view hidden) log in to judge received 10.9 10.9

Land's theory is culture-agnostic. He would argue that any decadent or decaying culture will be by necessity replaced by whatever stronger and more capable culture exists within or outside that culture. There is always some cultural variance, so always som... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 7.7 7.7

Land's theory is cul (view hidden) log in to judge received 7.7 7.7

Is adamjesionowski synonym for alexgajewski?... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 0.6 0.6

Is adamjesionowski s (view hidden) log in to judge received 0.6 0.6

I'm inclined to agree. There is a great difficulty in bridging the gap in background and technical knowledge between people who take the Dharma seriously, meditate, and attempt to reproduce certain mind states, and those who are interested and charitable b... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 9.8 9.8

I'm inclined to agre (view hidden) log in to judge received 9.8 9.8

This is a good way to think about it. We set our children off in directions we are optimistic about, while also celebrating that they may end up finding somewhere else to be more amenable to life. I'll add a few things to your picture:... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.5 4.5

This is a good way t (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.5 4.5

Nice provocation. I agree that mass speciation is inevitable, but the timescales do matter if we’re talking about this as an engineering problem. Which we should. I offer the example of Oymyakon, where the average winter temperature is around -50f. It is... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 15.8 15.8

Nice provocation. I (view hidden) log in to judge received 15.8 15.8

Take it one step further. Why bipedal fleshy animals at all?... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 11.6 11.6

Take it one step fur (view hidden) log in to judge received 11.6 11.6

For a long time, I found the robot progeny idea inevitable yet distasteful. I now find it inevitable and aesthetically pleasing. Your characterization of bodiless-ness as the ultimate body is powerful.... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.8 2.8

For a long time, I f (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.8 2.8

Slight update on our mission statement, some clarifications and an attempt at formalized rigor.... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 13.6 13.6

Slight update on our (view hidden) log in to judge received 13.6 13.6

Yeah, this is a totally fair point, and I think a lot of the "effective accerationsists" push this argument so far as to invalidate their entire worldview.... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 1.6 1.6

Yeah, this is a tota (view hidden) log in to judge received 1.6 1.6

Not a bad explanation of how to salami-slice it given existing social rules and norms.... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.1 2.1 1.9 1.9

Not a bad explanatio (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.1 2.1 1.9 1.9

This is my prediction for most likely trajectory as well. In science fiction, the term "slow apocalypse" is sometimes use for this class of outcome.... 6mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 5.0 5.0

This is my predictio (view hidden) log in to judge received 5.0 5.0

I think the key problem is that in mr Burja's "empire theory" terminology, you are describing a decentralized declining empire, but what we actually have is a centralized declining empire. In decentralized decline, pieces break off and become free of the f... 7mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 11.2 11.2

I think the key prob (view hidden) log in to judge received 11.2 11.2

We see it already with today's tech companies, to an extent: the US government shuts down nuclear power plants while GOOGL and MSFT plan on building their own nuclear power plants, facilitating their respective AGI plans.... 6mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 3.6 3.6

We see it already wi (view hidden) log in to judge received 3.6 3.6

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 ... 7mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 6.2 6.2

intelligent super-an (view hidden) log in to judge received 6.2 6.2

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... 7mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 3.8 3.8

Tieing it back to th (view hidden) log in to judge received 3.8 3.8

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... 7mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.1 4.1

The point of the sto (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.1 4.1

Beautifully articulated.... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 9.4 9.4

Beautifully articula (view hidden) log in to judge received 9.4 9.4

This is the central conjecture of xenohumanism. The OP is just an application specifically to the question of AI.... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.9 4.9

This is the central (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.9 4.9

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... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 0.7 0.7

This matches my intu (view hidden) log in to judge received 0.7 0.7

This is the crucial question that Land, Insu, and I fall on the "no" side of and the whole Yudkowskian school is premised on going "yes". This is what i meant by "strong rationality" in OP, or at least it's a direct consequence/requirement of strong ration... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 10.1 10.1

This is the crucial (view hidden) log in to judge received 10.1 10.1

Best of luck with the epicycles.... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.6 4.6

Best of luck with th (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.6 4.6

We need a school of true anthropology. 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 1.7 1.7

We need a school of (view hidden) log in to judge received 1.7 1.7

Most of what you're saying sounds interesting but you've dismissed the entire post by complaining about English philosophy. I don't think there's anything wrong with a truth-seeking approach that begins with basic observations and arrives at more abstract ... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 7.9 7.9

Most of what you're (view hidden) log in to judge received 7.9 7.9

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... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 1.7 1.7

Some people won't be (view hidden) log in to judge received 1.7 1.7

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... 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

I looked it up: inne (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

am I supposed to envy this? 8mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

am I supposed to env (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

An ASI primed to frame everything in terms of self-interest is dangerous even if that self-interest is, for now, inclusive and cosmopolitan. Who's to say it won't outgrow that? A kid can have an ant farm and enjoy watching it and take good care of it, then... 9mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 8.3 8.3

An ASI primed to fra (view hidden) log in to judge received 8.3 8.3

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... 9mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

Good points. As one (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

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:... 9mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 0.5 0.5

I think even acts of (view hidden) log in to judge received 0.5 0.5

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... 9mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.1 4.1

Moloch is certainly (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.1 4.1

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... 9mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.3 2.3

Michael Levin actual (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.3 2.3

Who is that? Sounds like something from the Thucydides. 12mo ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 3.0 3.0

Who is that? Sounds (view hidden) log in to judge received 3.0 3.0

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... 1y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

What do you mean by (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.9 2.9

The better known version of this thesis is Burnham's Managerial State, which many think would more precisely be called the administrative state. That some version of this is true is pretty uncontroversial in our circles. Calling it "fascism" is a kind of p... 2y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 2.1 2.1

The better known ver (view hidden) log in to judge received 2.1 2.1

I would be more specific and say that it is the program of Francis Bacon. He didn't talk about AI in particular, but he laid out a (then) new approach to science and technology and its integration into a regime that we've been following ever since (cf. Nov... 2y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 7.7 7.7

I would be more spec (view hidden) log in to judge received 7.7 7.7

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. 2y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 5.1 5.1

As such works go, I (view hidden) log in to judge received 5.1 5.1

I'm both a hereditarian and an IQ-respecter.... 2y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 8.7 8.7

I'm both a hereditar (view hidden) log in to judge received 8.7 8.7

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... 2y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 4.1 4.1

I have found the ins (view hidden) log in to judge received 4.1 4.1

\> I need a way to think about accelerationist AI apocalypse in a non-millenarian way.... 2y ago (collapse hidden) log in to judge received 0.6 0.6

\> I need a way to t (view hidden) log in to judge received 0.6 0.6