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They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

theguardian.com

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Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#21

Post by CaffeineLD50 »

The cult elements of isolation (boat/van life), alienation from self (trans, split brain), false moral superiority (vegan), demands for purity in action (vegan), sense of false higher purpose (AI basilisk), false possession of method for empowerment (rationalism) are there. The hatred of landlords et al (anarchism) and use of drugs (psychedelic, others?) seems to be my guess for the violence part.

Lots of highly exploitative groups don't get to violent assaults. That's got me wondering why.

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#22

Post by ryao »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #20
ryao wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wanted to read a novel, I would read an actual novel. I actually read foreign novels for fun, so that is not hyperbole. That said, this stylistic choice works for computer security related things (e.g. the spy genre of news). It feels like a waste of time everywhere else.

"If I wanted to read a novel, I would read an actual novel." As parent mentioned. You do have a choice not to read novels, or to read novels. That doesn't make a novel bad because it is a novel.

I don’t have a choice if I want to know the 5 W’s here. If every news article was like this, nobody could know the news because they would still be reading yesterday’s news when today’s news is published.

Perhaps AI could help here by rewriting the article into the format it should have used, but then you risk hallucinations.

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#23

Post by CaffeineLD50 »

tomaytotomato wrote: post #17

For a group that applies rationalism, they appear to have ended up committing very horrible and irrational acts. The article could have done more to condemn this group and line of thinking. Also the part of the story on Curtis Lind is both sad and impressive, that old man was built of true grit: "As he bent to look, something hit him on the head and he blacked out. When he woke up, at least three of the Zizians were…

Don't mess with cowboys.

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#25

Post by 9283409232 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #19
ryao wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such sentiments have been expressed so many times that I have lost track of all of the times variations on them have been expressed. I think it started with Socrates who claimed the written word would damage human recall. When nobody believed him and he became popular because of the written word, people inverted “literacy is bad” into “literacy is good”. In more recent times, I believe radio and TV were said to be th…

Yes. People forget that Charles Dickens was considered trash, pulp, un-intellectual. That people were reading such trash would lead to the downfall of civilization. Basically what everyone says today about whatever latest media type.

Literacy rates have fallen in the past 20 years and something tells me that Dickens is not responsible.

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#27

Post by rsynnott »

> They found some crew members [for a rationalist boat], including one, Dan Powell, who had nautical experience from a stint in the US navy. On 20 July, they set out from Alaska. It went mostly without incident, though one crew member who found Ziz’s assertiveness off-putting debarked early.

What is it with cults and boats? L Ron Hubbard did this, too (albeit for different stated reasons).

> The Coast Guard declared the ship a “threat to the public health” and demanded an improvement plan.

Ah, see, they should have adopted the Hubbard approach of just completely ignoring authorities' complaints about his various dubious boats (this, somehow, tended to more or less work out for him).

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#28

Post by PaulHoule »

CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #21

The cult elements of isolation (boat/van life), alienation from self (trans, split brain), false moral superiority (vegan), demands for purity in action (vegan), sense of false higher purpose (AI basilisk), false possession of method for empowerment (rationalism) are there. The hatred of landlords et al (anarchism) and use of drugs (psychedelic, others?) seems to be my guess for the violence part. Lots of highly expl…

I think about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manson_Family but I know a lot of people use psychedelic drugs and don't resort to violence.

With the hyperbolic rhetoric about false threats, I'm surprised we haven't seen more violence from "rationalists"; if they really believed we were in that imminent danger, violent attacks would have been the rational thing to do.

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#29

Post by relistan »

ryao wrote: post #22
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If I wanted to read a novel, I would read an actual novel." As parent mentioned. You do have a choice not to read novels, or to read novels. That doesn't make a novel bad because it is a novel.

I don’t have a choice if I want to know the 5 W’s here. If every news article was like this, nobody could know the news because they would still be reading yesterday’s news when today’s news is published. Perhaps AI could help here by rewriting the article into the format it should have used, but then you risk hallucinations.

There are various kinds of news articles. This is what’s known as a feature article: in depth coverage of a particular topic. Those topics are not usually the daily headline stories and are not read-it-today urgent. If you don’t want to read features, don’t. There have been other articles on the topic.

Re: They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed

#30

Post by FrustratedMonky »

9283409232 wrote: post #25
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People forget that Charles Dickens was considered trash, pulp, un-intellectual. That people were reading such trash would lead to the downfall of civilization. Basically what everyone says today about whatever latest media type.

Literacy rates have fallen in the past 20 years and something tells me that Dickens is not responsible.

The point is, that when Charles Dickens came out, people also blamed him on lowering the literacy rate. Called something different back then.

But maybe, it's not population wide.

More people were reading Dickens, so rate of reading in population was increasing. But the elites that thought everything should be in Greek/Latin, thought everyone reading Dickens was a downgrade.

Every generation argument.

Weren't Egyptian hieroglyphs basically emoji's.

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