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My extremely uncharitable view of of these kinds of people, who now infest the American AI scene, is that they got cyber bullied by domain experts for saying th

My extremely uncharitable view of of these kinds of people, who now infest the American AI scene, is that they got cyber bullied by domain experts for saying the most ridiculous crap on repeat, and have therefore decided to spend their life on eliminating domain expertise.

pvab3 16d ago
I wouldn't go that far. But as we've seen repeatedly, people who have enough qualms with how these labs operate just leave. And the people who stay behind and rise through the ranks are the ones with either very little conscience or some bizarre world view that rationalizes everything.
- BeetleB 16d ago
  You do realize that Anthropic was founded by OpenAI employees because they had ethical concerns about OpenAI, right?
  - watwut 15d ago
    Their ethical concerns were "OpenAI is not following Yudkowsky enough". Which is not necessary in line with ethics of the rest of us. Because their idea of ethics is still "worrying a lot about sci-fi threats 1000 years after while discounting harm done now as less important". And it matters.
eloisius 16d ago
Or IRL bullying failed to bully the asocial tendencies out of them when they were young enough. But it looks like the day of the swirly may be upon us soon.
- ChickeNES 16d ago
  Never thought I'd see the day that someone on HN would be celebrating bullying people, thanks for going mask off.
  - Gangway0829 15d ago
    We're talking about people that unironically think eugenics based on IQ is a good thing. I think it's very effective altruism to socially ostracize such individuals.
  - GPerson 15d ago
    [flagged]
- Gangway0829 16d ago
  My view - there are a few outcomes 1. AI is never fully realized, but domain expertise is derated and society stagnates (bad ending for everyone, I think unlikely) 2. AI is never fully realized, but empowers people with domain expertise (Google wins, weird rationalist nerds go back to their LW cave and leave us alone, goodish ending) 3. AI becomes real and kills everyone (bad ending, but at least I don't have to read people claiming that the Harry Potter fanfic isn't niche) 4. AI becomes real and we live in the Culture universe (people like scam Altman get slap droned, most domain experts have the time of their life working with Minds on really interesting problems. Best ending) The only outcome where we get swirlies is the first one, and we can take solace in the fact that all of humanity is getting swirlied with us.
- qlte 16d ago
  No, that has the opposite effect: it's very, very common to see LWers write about having a bad time in school in late adolescence and how later finding like minded people online was powerful community bonding. Eliezer himself first blogged at 17 about how miserable school was for him which led to him dropping out/home schooling after 8th grade and discovering the Extropians listserv. Ziz of the Zizians is another (infamous) example.

pvab3 16d ago

I wouldn't go that far. But as we've seen repeatedly, people who have enough qualms with how these labs operate just leave. And the people who stay behind and rise through the ranks are the ones with either very little conscience or some bizarre world view that rationalizes everything.

BeetleB 16d ago
You do realize that Anthropic was founded by OpenAI employees because they had ethical concerns about OpenAI, right?
- watwut 15d ago
  Their ethical concerns were "OpenAI is not following Yudkowsky enough". Which is not necessary in line with ethics of the rest of us. Because their idea of ethics is still "worrying a lot about sci-fi threats 1000 years after while discounting harm done now as less important". And it matters.

eloisius 16d ago

Or IRL bullying failed to bully the asocial tendencies out of them when they were young enough. But it looks like the day of the swirly may be upon us soon.

ChickeNES 16d ago
Never thought I'd see the day that someone on HN would be celebrating bullying people, thanks for going mask off.
- Gangway0829 15d ago
  We're talking about people that unironically think eugenics based on IQ is a good thing. I think it's very effective altruism to socially ostracize such individuals.
- GPerson 15d ago
  [flagged]
Gangway0829 16d ago
My view - there are a few outcomes 1. AI is never fully realized, but domain expertise is derated and society stagnates (bad ending for everyone, I think unlikely) 2. AI is never fully realized, but empowers people with domain expertise (Google wins, weird rationalist nerds go back to their LW cave and leave us alone, goodish ending) 3. AI becomes real and kills everyone (bad ending, but at least I don't have to read people claiming that the Harry Potter fanfic isn't niche) 4. AI becomes real and we live in the Culture universe (people like scam Altman get slap droned, most domain experts have the time of their life working with Minds on really interesting problems. Best ending) The only outcome where we get swirlies is the first one, and we can take solace in the fact that all of humanity is getting swirlied with us.
qlte 16d ago
No, that has the opposite effect: it's very, very common to see LWers write about having a bad time in school in late adolescence and how later finding like minded people online was powerful community bonding. Eliezer himself first blogged at 17 about how miserable school was for him which led to him dropping out/home schooling after 8th grade and discovering the Extropians listserv. Ziz of the Zizians is another (infamous) example.