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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe real AI fight - Cory Doctorow
Last week's spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between "Effective Altruism" (doomers) and "Effective Accelerationism" (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama.
Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete"
will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ "AI Safety" measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, nor an adversary.
Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine."
Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come?
This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive:
https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/
Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete"
![](/emoticons/wink.gif)
Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine."
Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come?
This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive:
https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/
Read More You Should!
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The real AI fight - Cory Doctorow (Original Post)
justaprogressive
Nov 2023
OP
RandomNumbers
(17,901 posts)1. Wrong link?
The link at the bottom of your excerpt is from 2020.
It is an interesting article for sure, containing this gem:
Look: when the pandemic crisis is over, 30% of the world will either be unemployed or working for governments.
This isnt after an Artificial General Intelligence Singularity in the distant future.
Its next year.
This isnt after an Artificial General Intelligence Singularity in the distant future.
Its next year.
Edit to add: Link I am currently seeing in the OP: https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/
justaprogressive
(2,317 posts)2. You are following the wrong link
Mr. Doctorow usually makes multiple references to his past articles.
The link to the quoted article is linked in the "Read More You Should" text.
RandomNumbers
(17,901 posts)3. Thanks. nt
justaprogressive
(2,317 posts)4. You're Most Welcome... n/t