I was tempted to write this up for Pivot but fuck giving that blog any sort of publicity.
On the one hand, I can see you not wanting to give the fucker attention, on the other hand, AI's indelible link to fascism is something which needs to be hammered home and shit like this gives you a golden opportunity to do it.
To paraphrase one of South Park's more infamous jokes (because I'm not giving this shit any dignity):
Looks like we're getting a lotta sneer material here! The topic is "People Who Annoy Scoot".
- following on from 1, it’s kind of funny that the EAs, who you could pattern match to a “high school nerd” stereotype, are intellectually beaten out by an analog of the “jock” stereotype of sports fans: fantasy league participants who understand the concept of “intangibles” that EAs apparently cannot grasp.
On a wider note, it feels the "geek/nerd" moniker's lost a whole lot of cultural cachet since its peak in the mid-'10s. It is a topic Sarah Z has touched on, but I could probably make a full goodpost about it.
Honestly, I think we need another winter. All this hype is drowning out any decent research, and so all we are getting are bogus tests and experiments that are irreproducible because they’re so expensive. It’s crazy how unscientific these ‘research’ organizations are. And OpenAI is being paid by Microsoft to basically jerk-off sam Altman. It’s plain shameful.
If an AI winter does happen, I expect it'll be particularly lengthy/severe. Unlike previous AI hype cycles, this particular cycle has come with some serious negative externalities (large-scale copyright infringement, climate change/water consumption, the flood of AI slop, disinformation, etc).
Said externalities have turned the public strongly against AI, to the point where refusing to use it has become a viable marketing strategy.
You want my suspicion, any further AI research will probably be viewed with immediate distrust, at least for a while.
what the heck EA forum doesn’t have a block feature? That’s just… ew.
You don't need a block feature if you're as insufferable as the average EA /j
Granted, this was back when Musk's public perception was at its most positive - it would take until the Thai cave diver incident in July 2018 before we saw the first hole being blown in Musk's "IRL Tony Stark" image.
Somewhat fittingly, that incident played out on Twitter, whose acquisition by Musk has done plenty to showcase his true colours.
Just say he's yapping, because that's all this dipshit's doing
"Not Like Us" was less scathing than this. Fucking hell.
This Is Financial Advice would've been a much better video to make that point with - that video was about a financial doomsday cult centered around a dying mall retailer, and doesn't start going into anything particularly heavy until near the end.
The Fake Nerd Boys of Silicon Valley isn't directly about TESCREAL, but its dissection of Silicon Valley's complete and utter misunderstanding of sci-fi/fantasy does still work wonders against Yudkowsky et al's views IMO.
A piece like this would dovetail nicely with Baldur's deep-dive into AI's link to esoteric fascism. Hope to see it get finished.