3 ms·

I'm not sure if this is what you are getting at or not, but Yudkowsky is a fiction writer and of course Hubbard was known as being a science fiction writer who

I'm not sure if this is what you are getting at or not, but Yudkowsky is a fiction writer and of course Hubbard was known as being a science fiction writer who pivoted to claiming his new writings were literally true. I can see similarities there as Yud is essentially pointing at various science fiction concepts from the last 100 years about AI and proclaiming those things are actually going to happen on our current path. That said I don't think any of his ideas offer much new thought and his schtick is mostly alarmism, so suggesting he's a "genius" is going way too far. Oh man, see this comment for more L Ron parallels: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35429692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35429692

PaulHoule 4y ago
Some comparisons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski ran an organization promising to help people debug their minds from an approach that is reminiscent of "lesswrong", it's fairly hard to judge Korzybski because his seminal work has been effectively out of print for a long time. The remnants of his organization are rather rag-tag and disorganized and managed to produce a terrible new edition of Science of Sanity. Folowers include science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt and S. I. Hayakawa, the first Asian-American senator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology in that many of Korzybski's followers abandoned general semantics for Dianetics and Scientology. Scientology has numerous front groups (ABLE, Narconon, Criminon, ...) just as Yudkowsky does (lesswrong, Effective Altruism, longtermism, ...) Many coercive groups have a history of making numerous turns to ensure that only true believers are left behind: Effective Altruism jumping into longtermism which invalidates the whole idea that you can measure the results of your giving is a good example, although Lyndon LaRouche and the 3rd international also provide great examples (e.g. Stalin through his support behind Chiang Kai-shek just before Chiang Kai-shek attacked Mao's organization in Wuhan in 1927) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UFO_religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UFO_religions In the 1970s there was a fad for UFO cults which were generally preoccupied with some form of higher intelligence taking our problems away; Timothy Leary notably gave a lecture in jail on the topic which is talked about in this great book https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/406348 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/406348 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin If you think that "it's getting better all the time" you might think the universe evolves to higher forms of order in which case God is at the end of the Universe as opposed to the beginning. Unlike anyone else on this list I'm not going to pin any crimes on him, but if you imagine humans are going to create some higher intelligence and have a religious orientation towards it he's the best example you can pick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult At best you have the Millerites who thought it would end in 1848 and became the inoffensive 7th day Adventists, they hate it when you compare them to the Jehovah's Witnesses but you can easily find examples like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_gro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple that should have you perceiving apocalyptic talk as a "bad smell".

PaulHoule 4y ago

Some comparisons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski ran an organization promising to help people debug their minds from an approach that is reminiscent of "lesswrong", it's fairly hard to judge Korzybski because his seminal work has been effectively out of print for a long time. The remnants of his organization are rather rag-tag and disorganized and managed to produce a terrible new edition of Science of Sanity. Folowers include science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt and S. I. Hayakawa, the first Asian-American senator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology in that many of Korzybski's followers abandoned general semantics for Dianetics and Scientology. Scientology has numerous front groups (ABLE, Narconon, Criminon, ...) just as Yudkowsky does (lesswrong, Effective Altruism, longtermism, ...) Many coercive groups have a history of making numerous turns to ensure that only true believers are left behind: Effective Altruism jumping into longtermism which invalidates the whole idea that you can measure the results of your giving is a good example, although Lyndon LaRouche and the 3rd international also provide great examples (e.g. Stalin through his support behind Chiang Kai-shek just before Chiang Kai-shek attacked Mao's organization in Wuhan in 1927) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UFO_religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UFO_religions In the 1970s there was a fad for UFO cults which were generally preoccupied with some form of higher intelligence taking our problems away; Timothy Leary notably gave a lecture in jail on the topic which is talked about in this great book https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/406348 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/406348 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin If you think that "it's getting better all the time" you might think the universe evolves to higher forms of order in which case God is at the end of the Universe as opposed to the beginning. Unlike anyone else on this list I'm not going to pin any crimes on him, but if you imagine humans are going to create some higher intelligence and have a religious orientation towards it he's the best example you can pick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult At best you have the Millerites who thought it would end in 1848 and became the inoffensive 7th day Adventists, they hate it when you compare them to the Jehovah's Witnesses but you can easily find examples like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_gro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple that should have you perceiving apocalyptic talk as a "bad smell".