How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time

Very little I disagree with there, so just nibbling at the edges.

> a scheme that’s flexible enough to sustain belief even when things don’t work out as planned; the promise of a better future that can be realized only if believers uncover hidden truths; and a hope for salvation from the horrors of this world.

Sometimes 90% of the "hidden truths" are things already "known" by the believers, an elite knowledge that sets them apart from the sheeple. The remaining 10% is acquiring some McGuffin that finally proves they were Right-All-Along so that they can take a victory lap.

> Superintelligence is the hot new flavor—AGI but better!—introduced as talk of AGI becomes commonplace.

In turn, AGI was the hot new flavor—AI but better!—companies pivoted to as consumers started getting disappointed/jaded experiencing "AI" that wasn't going to give them robot butlers.

> When those people are not shilling for utopia, they’re saving us from hell.

Yeah, much like how hatred is not really the opposite of love, the "AI doom" folks are really just a side-sect of the "AI awesome" folks.

> But what if there are, in fact, shadowy puppet masters here—and they’re the very people who have pushed the AGI conspiracy hardest all along? The kings of Silicon Valley are throwing everything they can get at building AGI for profit. The myth of AGI serves their interests more than anybody else’s.

Yes, the economic engine behind all this, the potential to make money, is what really supercharges everything and lifts it out of niche communities.

I very much dislike the way this article blurs religious and doomsday thinking with conspiracy theory thinking. There’s nobody conspiring on the other side of AGI. Other than that it makes many good observations.

> And there it is: You can’t prove it’s not true. “The idea that AGI is coming and that it’s right around the corner and that it’s inevitable has licensed a great many departures from reality,” says the University of Edinburgh’s Vallor. “But we really don’t have any evidence for it.”

That's the most important paragraph in the article. All of the self serving excessive exaggerations of Sam Altman and his ilk, predicting things and throwing out figures they cannot possibly know. "ai will cure cancer, and demetia! And reverse global warming! Just give more money to my company which is a non profit and is working for the good of humanity. What is that? Do you mean to say you don't care about the good of humanity?" What is the word for such behaviour? It's not hubris, it's a combination of wild prophecy and severe main character syndrome.

I heard once, though i have no idea if it's true that he claims he carries a remote control around with him to nuke his data centres if they ever start trying to kill everyone. Which is obviously nonsense but is exactly the kind of thing he might say.

In the meantime they're making loads of money by claiming expertise in a field which doesn't even exist and in my opinion never will, and that's the main thing i suppose.

today is the day i stopped reading opinion pieces from the technologyreview. not for presenting an opinion i don’t agree with, but for mistaking word soup for an argument.

Only those who made the mistake of not using a content filter like uBlock Origin or something equally effective. I just visited the site and got neither pop-ups nor ads.