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AI Companies and Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like

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Re: AI Companies and Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like

#5

“Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.” Is he trying to dehumanize critics?

It's just a pure emotional manipulation attempt. The statement itself is illogical on its face, and presents the tech as having only upsides. It ignores the meaning of deaths caused by AI.

Any time I see appeals like this, my takeaway is that the person has no actual argument.

Re: AI Companies and Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like

#7
One emerging challenge with AI is that we are not seeing strong adoption outside of Chat applications. While every company has pivoted to trying to leverage GenAI - applications outside of OpenAI have ... mixed adoption.

This is not dissimilar to mobile in 2008, or cloud circa 2006. It's ok that new applications take time to emerge, but the valuation of firms implies that these technologies have already emerged. Perhaps this is fine for core AI development, but placing these valuations on SaaS firms could be problematic in the future.

Re: AI Companies and Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like

#8

“Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.” Is he trying to dehumanize critics?

Well yeah, it's just plain moral blackmail. If it wasn't so common in the discourse I'd say he should actually be stopped from doing it.

Re: AI Companies and Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like

#9
I was expecting more analysis of specific cult-like behavior, which I agree there is quite a lot of. After a close call with a borderline cult in the 2010s I spent a fair bit of time processing that experience and reading up on cult dynamics. Some of the stuff OpenAI employees were saying on Twitter during the weekend crisis raised a lot of yellow flags for me.

We should not fool ourselves into thinking that cult-like behavior is isolated to AI, though. It often pops up alongside new tech. On that note this is a pretty remarkable quote:

> “If your product isn’t amenable to spontaneously producing a cult, it’s probably not impactful enough.”

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