So, the other "godfather" of AI, Turing Award Winner Yoshua Bengio has decided to FULLY align himself with the #TESCREAL bundle, writing a thing about "rogue AI" and prominently citing people like Nick Bostrom.
Take a good look at this text here. This is written by non other than Nick Bostrom, prominently featured by so many of these fathers and godfathers and sons and brothers and nephews of "AI" (given that its all men you know).
@timnitGebru Sam Altman: I want to get the smartest people in a room together
Narrator: he then proceeded to fill a room with cryptocurrency conmen
@timnitGebru believing that "IQ tests" (terminology hardly used any more) measure "intelligence" accurately is, at this point, foolish and it is only a tiny minority of psychologists who believe that any more. (It was never all that widely believed by psychologists, most of whom regarded the tests as tools of narrow scope.)
How does he not know this? Why is this person intellectually credible?
@pygy @timnitGebru @pygy Probably not, but the critiques of intelligence measurement go back decades before. For someone versed in statistics, it's a false statement as well as one using judgemental language.
Has Prof. Bengio repudiated the statement in the intervening years?
@timnitGebru
Say what you want about Skynet, at least it wasn't a white supremacist.
We can't have nothin' good. It appears we can't even have anything that's slightly less catastrophic.
@timnitGebru For those not aware of what #TESCREAL stood for (I didn't), this is a good thread about it
https://twitter.com/xriskology/status/1635313838508883968
It stands for "transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism".
Super handy way to sum up the Silicon Valley tech elite! Thanks Torres and Gebru!
@durchaus @mempko @timnitGebru quite the opposite: Their understanding of "long-term" is "millions of years", not "a few hundred".
According to EA, the climate crisis (please, don't use the term "change"...) would be considered a good opportunity to "thin out" the human population in a way that only the "fittest" survive. Keep in mind that EA apologetics are most likely to be able to afford surviving the effects of the climate crisis.
@timnitGebru
It’s behind a paywall for me but one of the authors, Julia Black, was the guest on this excellent episode
She was a great guest. Fair and humble despite impressive accomplishments. She’s very relatable. Approaches all this as an intelligent regular-person. Discusses Altman as well as Musk and more. #tescreal and associated ideas Musk, Andreessen, & others (perhaps not Altman?) are into blew my mind.
What is pronatalism and how does it fit into the broader plans of tech billionaires? Julia Black explains the industry’s shift to the right and how they’re using rationalist ideologies to try to defend their privileges.
What is pronatalism and how does it fit into the broader plans of tech billionaires? Julia Black explains the industry’s shift to the right and how they’re using rationalist ideologies to try to defend their privileges.
@timnitGebru most racists don't know what "heritable" means in the context of social sciences / population studies. You can "inherit" what most would call environmental factors (wealth, unleaded water, epigenetic markers, etc), but they read "heritable" and think it means "genetics"
Reading research outside your field is dangerous. The amount of information required to properly contextualize & interpret a study is FAR greater than what can fit in a paper
I find this very upsetting, esp. coming from someone in academia who is supposed to base opinions on fact, not "feelings of superiority".
Damn how I hate nazis...
@timnitGebru It's an impressive leap of idiocy to write "I like that sentence" but then get upset that people think he has some type of emotional connection to the second clause of hatred.
Even if you're trying to make some superficial, dog-whistling point about logic...you said you LIKE that sentence
@timnitGebru Sorry, this got me rant-y. (Thank you for everything you do, by the way!)
"It's just that based on what I have read, I think it is probable that black people have a lower average IQ than mankind in general, and I think that IQ is highly correlated with what we normally mean by 'smart' and 'stupid'."
Fucking hell. Other than a little bit of opposition research, I don't care to read things with that much of a racist tone. 😬
Do Black people possibly score poorly on IQ tests? I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest. If that were the case, should our takeaway be "well, clearly that means Black people are less intelligent?" HELL NO. My takeaway is that we need to take a second (and third, ...) look at how we got to those tests' structure.
The "based on what I have read" has a more insidious undertone, to me: these are the same cognitive biases that the industry is gleefully feeding into AI models, and all the while accepting what they churn out as unquestionable gospel.
Garbage in, garbage out. 🤮
@timnitGebru “it’s ‘just’ based on what I have read”.
His opinion, which is evidentially refutable, is not based on:
1. “Scientific research”
2. “Cited sources” that he read
3. What he’s personally experienced
Just some vague statement of what he has read. What did he read?
lukashess
Timnit Gebru (she/her).
Cher Tailor
Raven Onthill
Ьλ∂λ
ApisNecros
Uneek
Doug Warren
mempko
Stephan
Lupino
Steven Zekowski
toolbear#🪧
strwbrryJen
Thomas Depierre
Resuna
Cykonot
Tormod Halvorsen
Steve Torrente
Jeremy Kahn
Michal Migurski 🍉
keeps vis.social running
rikw
Raineer 
🦆
Full Metal Archaeopteryx
InterstelarLA
Jima 
John Stoner (he/him)
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
alarmed feet operative: kimothy siddon
Sam Leibowitz
Noah Gibbs
Jake in the desert
Court Cantrell does not comply
Lyndee
Tess Arnold
Juan Jiménez A.
Jesse
Dawn Ahukanna