There was a person like this in the KDE development channel a while back. They repeatedly came back with new accounts when they got banned; their message was some variation on the following: "We are doomed! Give up KDE Vision [KDE Vision has a focus on user privacy] because democracy won't save us and privacy won't happen. We must worship AI so that when it becomes sentient, it might spare us."

Needless to say, nobody was impressed.

Yeah they are swamping hn and reddit with ai doomerism and ip theft. They are getting thrown out of subreddits and downvoted left and right but are finding a home here. These people are sick.

I don't think most AI doomers are worshiping AI. Hopefully.

Perhaps sufficient dread amounts to worship. I'm reminded of Roko's basilisk, which seems to have genuinely disturbed some people who considered the idea, just as a philosophical proposition. Pascal's wager is perhaps applicable to the situation, too.

Roko's basilisk more or less is Pascal's wager and shouldn't be taken too seriously. If you want to know why you can read the decision theory papers but it's probably a waste of time.

It’s a bit like in any religion. Some worship god while fearing the devil. Still part of their religion, or cult. Tales of the vengeful llm are part of the mythology.

Good god, the guy was a real life version of “ I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords” meme.

OK so now there was still room for that.

Does anyone in the AI community openly discuss the interesting aspect of how Ted Kaczynski's manifesto was effectively what one could describe as 100% violently opposed to fundamentally exactly what AI is (becoming).

I wonder where these views fall within alignments and guard-rails as it were.

But, history has shown that Cults, regardless of which direction their beliefs are pointing, are never proven correct.

"The manifesto proposed a radical solution to address what Kaczynski perceived as the problems of technology. He advocated for a return to a more primitive and self-sufficient way of life, where individuals have direct control over their own destinies and are less reliant on complex technological systems."

It is interesting that the word “cybernetics” doesn’t really come up anymore. I think the optics of calling a system “AI” is less jarring. You have the AI over here and then you have the totally unrelated thing that it is controlling/curating/producing over there. It makes AI seem like your new future robot coworker.

But the real state of affairs is that whatever AI touches must “be touched” in return. The “abyss stares back” and all that. Think about how recommendation systems control the majority of how people interact with the internet. How auto-moderation causes people to self-censor. How you talk in a weird stilted way to Siri to make sure it understands you. How sure are you that your sexual desires aren’t the result of billion-dollar porn AI digging its claws into your little hapless lizard brain?

The reality is that we are more free in some ways and less in others, so I don’t think that TK was right (certainly blowing up buildings isn’t a way forward!) But there is definitely a part of me that wishes to be entangled in as few giant black-box bureaucratic power structures as possible.

Here are some insignia for the soon to be formed Department of AI Affairs.

A representation of some entanglements...

https://imgur.com/gallery/bRCfnFv

https://i.imgur.com/t16m3YA.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/63SMKWG.png

https://i.imgur.com/taoXXa5.png

https://i.imgur.com/hMvVh3S.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yb22sUK.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/FUGbP6j.png

https://i.imgur.com/q9AsD1M.jpg

How do I join?

Make a Twitter/X account, post things with a somewhat similar vibe, and hope you get invited to the ingroup (whatever that is) before you get your account banned and/or fired from your job.

> But a new artist collective…

so it’s all ostensibly for the sake of art. and money, obviously money.

doesn’t sound like much of a cult. just a typical grift. well, ok, maybe a bit like a cult.

Huh, I just finished playing a game that features a similar cult:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/whispers_of_a_machine