Since American society's future is in the hands of people whose average level of moral maturity is that of a middle schooler, the future of humanity is likely to be determined by who wins the perennial battle between the snarky, rich cool kids and the earnest, nerdy kids who get elected to the student council.
From a NY Times article this morning about Effective Acceleration, e/acc, a group of techies that wants to take the brakes off of AI development:
Rochelle Shen, a start-up founder and biohacker, said she was welcomed by the e/acc crowd after being turned off by the stuffiness and insularity of Effective Altruism.
“E.A. is so 2019,” she said. “You go to their parties, the guys don’t know how to dress, and the conversations are totally controlled by these one or two thought leaders.”
E/acc, she added, is “fun to be around.”
These are, of course, verdicts on e/acc’s vibes, not its ideas, some of which are still too extreme for many people to swallow. Critics have pointed to the fact that some of e/acc’s leaders, including Mr. Verdon, seem to actually agree with the Effective Altruists that a rogue A.I. could wipe out humanity, but aren’t bothered by the idea, since superhuman A.I. could represent a logical next step in evolution. And some have noticed that the movement has gotten more partisan and serious as it has grown.
“I liked it when it was an ironic countermovement instead of what seems to be transforming into an earnest libertarian movement,” said Aidan Gomez, the chief executive of the A.I. company Cohere.
Sam Altman, such a charming, smart, young man, was president of the student council for a while, but he wanted to party with the cool kids, so they kicked him off. But the cool kids got their revenge. They asked their rich parents to pressure the principal to kick out all the nerdy kids instead and replace them with cool ones. And the student body is fine with that.
Some might argue that it's more complicated than that, but is it?
The prospect of AGI doesn't frighten me, but anarcho-capitalists terrify me.
See also "Sam Altman and How Great It's Going to Be".
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