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In the context of the rest of the piece, I read this as sarcasm. The author is making fun of the species of narcissistic silly con valley techbro who actually b
by jcgrillo 8mo ago
In the context of the rest of the piece, I read this as sarcasm. The author is making fun of the species of narcissistic silly con valley techbro who actually believes such nonsense.
- FloorEgg 8mo agoAh, I struggle with sarcasm sometimes and I was a bit distracted while reading. I'll give it another chance.
- kerblang 8mo agoI suspect the author is struggling with their own sarcasm.
- TSiege 8mo agoIt is not sarcasm he is fleshing out this sentence earlier in the paragraph, "One of the pervasive new doctrines of Silicon Valley is that we’re in the early stages of a bifurcation event"
- jcgrillo 8mo agoRight, but in the context of this article about these wretched enfents terribles, and later when we get to the rationalist termite colony, it's clearly something to chuckle at. Like, the fact that people think this "bifurcation event" idea is real is legitimately funny.
- TSiege 8mo agoI see your point, but I don't think he's being sarcastic in this paragraph. To me this paragraph isn't sarcasm rather he's presently a serious factual recounting of the logic driving AI evangelists that he then undermines by contrasting it with the callousness, messiness, and illogic of the people pushing this narrative. (I too had a good chuckle at the termite description) But this is veering into lit crit territory, so agree to disagree
- jcgrillo 8mo agoYou may have a point! And you've given me a great excuse to read this one again later this evening :)
- zozbot234 8mo agoIt's a really bad take because AI is already "superhuman" in general knowledge, but it still has trouble figuring out whether I should drive or walk to the car wash place.
- moritzwarhier 8mo agoDeclaring something as "superhuman" requires a hierarchy of inherent human value. I'm not saying this for social reasons, just for the definition: "superhuman intelligence" at what? Calculations? Puzzles? Sudokus? Or more like... image classification? ("is this a thief?", "is this a rope?", "is this a medical professional?", "is this a tree?") Oh, applying the former to the latter would be a pretty stupid category error. It's almost as if people had this figured out centuries ago...
- moritzwarhier 8mo agoThere's no worth in sarcastically repeating memes like "giga nerd" or whatever except for propagating this line if thinking / the meme. Imagination knows no negation.