One of the things that I can't help but notice as I read the comments here on HN is the extent to which we _want_ AI to be, if not a deity, than at least a gran

One of the things that I can't help but notice as I read the comments here on HN is the extent to which we _want_ AI to be, if not a deity, than at least a grand new chapter for humanity; we want this even more than we want the new chapter to be _good_. The desire has a narratival, almost religious quality -- I'm reminded of _Palo Alto_ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/books/malcolm-harris-palo-alto.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/books/malcolm-harris-palo... (Malcolm Harris, 2023) What I wish Alang had explored more was just this phenomenon; it worries me far more than paperclip maximization. Yet he does a good job characterizing the underlying social context, i.e. the Anderseenian view that all problems are soluble in sufficient technology (a position which, of course, is vacuously true -- the _real_ issue is what the cost is. For example, a universe-sized machine of infinite complexity could do absolutely anything; the cost, of course, is absolutely everything.) A machine that makes art and does taxes is one thing. A machine that _is tendentiously presented by its creators as divine_ is a theohazard.