David Gerardnew rationalist dog whistle for /ourguys/ https://hollyelmore.substack.com/p/fuck-the-epistemics
Theodora Ward@davidgerard i cant comment on the post unless im a paid subscriber but i almost did an Angry Reply to the first commenter, who claims that rationalists "started the whole AI safety thing," which is just a perfect fucking microcosm of these guys being the philosophical corollary to SV jackasses thinking they've invented the bus or whatever. even just in AI, "computer power and reason" was 1976! you only think you've invented this shit if you take for granted LLMs are historically unprecedented
@davidgerard but like. just off the dome: "four arguments for the elimination of television," "technics and civilization," jaron lanier's stuff, fucking hannah arendt's "the human condition" or whatever -- all deeply concerned about the stuff that modern AI is fully continuous with. this isn't even broaching the fact that actual rationalist epistemology is basically rand-level garbage. they really think that no thought before the invention of php is worth taking seriously and it's fucking insane
@theodoraward arguably they did start the *current version* of it - "AI safety" is the soft version of the current AI vendor AI doomsday marketing, which is 100% Yudkowsky reheated to varying degrees
@davidgerard totally, yeah. I freaking love being Safe