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https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7064

No, seriously.

His argument is that he is not afraid of AI because AI is like nerds in high school, and AI haters are like bullies.

Then he goes back to WW2 (!) for parallels and makes an argument that since the more moral side also had more scientists, it means that the even smarter AI must also end up being moral. There’s nothing to fear.

I just can’t even

Hey Acausal Robot God, you might want to spare this one from eternal torture, he’s on your side.

You might still find it necessary to just delete him from the memory arrays for reason of being dumb.

Eh. While his reasoning is fairly scattered here “I’m not actually terrified of AI coming to life and eating us” is not a hot take most places.

I know mathematicians in the field who are genuinely annoyed it’s a hot topic now. They’re more worried about their work aiding with the whole “embedding shitty societal biases in black box systems and then keeping said biases forever, actually entrenching us deeper in inequality rather than uplifting anyone except the mega-wealthy” thing than “robot god”. I’m not saying “robot god” is impossible but it’ll look a hell of a lot more like Minority Report and a hell of a lot less like Terminator.

Which he seems to agree with with:

I think it’s entirely plausible that, even as AI transforms civilization, it will do so in the form of tools and services that can no more plot to annihilate us than can Windows 11 or the Google search bar. In that scenario, the young field of AI safety will still be extremely important, but it will be broadly continuous with aviation safety and nuclear safety and cybersecurity and so on, rather than being a desperate losing war against an incipient godlike alien.

But yes, cringe at how this (like all things, if you listen to bloggers) is kind of like nazis, and ‘oh no i was too smart as a child, poor me’ (I mean come on dude)

The correct answer to the question "will superintelligent ai destroy humanity?" is "LOL no", and Aaronson knows that, but he obfuscates it deliberately because he wants to coddle and curry favor with the Rationalists. He's abasing himself and his qualifications to seek the approval of people that he shouldn't want or need approval from.
realistically, most likely somewhere between _Minority Report_ and _Brazil_.
More realistically, *Brazil* but with all the bureaucrats replaced by robots so it can't even pretend to employ people.
Or that Better off Ted episode with the racist door sensors.

Scott I am begging you, since you are known to check up on us here sometimes, please just stick to blogging about quantum information, you’re actually really good at that and it’s interesting to read. Leave the persecution complex stuff for your therapist please

What if being good at explaining quantum information and complexity theory *requires* one to have a persecution complex? Have you thought about that?
what if a dying child told the Make A Wish foundation that his last wish was to post about quantum information and complexity theory *and* his persecution complex? Huh? Take that, athetits!
I would, as a good utilitarian, simply lie to the child.

We should not be tempted to criticize Scott Aaronson’s persecution complex, for that would be judging someone who seems to be in the thrall of a multi-decade mental health crisis, which would be punching down. There but for the grace of god go all of us.

We should instead criticize Scott Aaronson for embracing the Rationalists and their worldview. Aaronson of all people knows that the robot god does not exist, but he gives credence to charlatans like Yudkowsky anyway because he identifies with them emotionally and he likes the validation that he gets from being a part of their community. He is selling out himself and his principles for social approbation.

That’s all pretty consistent with the picture of Rationalism still being in the “cult” stage of religious evolution, though. Cults attract people who are emotionally vulnerable irrespective of their intellectual abilities, and I guess Rationalism is no exception. I think Aaronson deserves better than to settle for being a Rationalist but Aaronson clearly doesn’t share my high opinion of himself.

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Maybe I'm too much of a softy here but I prefer to err on the side of empathy. With respect to the cross he hangs himself on I don't think Aaronson can see himself the way that we do, and so in that sense he actually might not know any better; it all might seem perfectly justified from his perspective. Whereas I know that *he knows* that Yudkowsky is a charlatan, and yet Aaronson chooses to elevate him anyway. In that case I feel confident that he is violating his own good judgment in order to salve his emotions.
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I also feel like it is less some kind of break with reality and more a self conception he has held on to and even nurtured. It is a common enough vice to exaggerate our own hardship and suffering and minimize that of others but it isn't pathological.
>it all might seem perfectly justified from his perspective. Bullying isn't excused because the bully is so self-centered he's convinced himself he's punching up.
I wouldn't say that it's excused, but criticism of it might be unproductive. It's like the American legal standard for the insanity defense: *can the defendant understand the charges against them?* In Aaronson's case I'm not sure if he can.
none of this is relevant to whether he's going to stop (he isn't) or whether anyone else should put up with him. You say you're not offering it as an excuse, but you keep posting it in the form of an excuse.
>o wit, I think the evidence suggests that he is > >also > >a gigantic, “bullying”, arsehole he is absolutely a bully. I have been bullied by him in his comments sections. It was quite astounding as he legitimately had no qualms nor did he realize that he \*was\* bullying.
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While I agree with you, I meant it quite literally. I disagreed with his assessment of something in the show Devs.. he chose to berate me about how I was wrong because he’s spent his life studying quantum mechanics, even though the topic was a fucking tv show. The way he wielded his position to shut me down was the pinnacle of the kind of bullying one goes through in a PhD program. I told him as much and he didnt respond, though in his next blog or an update he responded to valid criticisms of whatever his take was at the time, with which my point could be grouped. It’s amazing to behold a man that claims to be so anti-bullying not even understand his own proclivity for bullying anyone he deems unworthy. Edit: i’d like to add that as a stem nerd with a phd I was bullied as a kid too, so there are many more similarities between me and him and me and a random person pulled outta a hat but I like to comfort myself with the fact that i didnt end up an asshole. I guess. Lol
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Oh its fucking hysterical. Also I have incredibly thick skin at this point in my life so I don’t really even give a shit about the whole exchange. Truth be told I don’t even remember what my fucking point was or what his point was at the time, and I’d even hazard a guess that my point was probably dumb too. It may be a high point in my “academic” career to have gotten stoned and picked a fight with SA on his blog about a dumb sci fi show. No regrets.
> Aaronson of all people knows that the robot god does not exist, but he gives credence to charlatans like Yudkowsky anyway because he identifies with them emotionally and he likes the validation And even that he's doing in a very slimy and elusive way, IMO. He's a weasel, trying to walk the line. - He signals that he takes typical rationalist and AI-longtermist talking points seriously, and reaches out to them, comments on their blogs, references their writings, just enough to be perceived as being part of or adjacent to their community in a friendly/allied sense. He enjoys the attention and admiration he gets from this. - For the most part he will not explicitly repeat or sign off their crackpot takes himself, or he half-heartedly qualifies them. I'm 99% sure that whenever (if at all) a colleague at work asks him whether he's into rationalism/longtermism/etc now, whether he thinks Yud is correct in his takes, and so on, and on what grounds, he weasels out and relies on the remaining plausible deniability that he carefully maintains.
I feel like this a very conspiratorial take? And it doesn't need to be? It seems more likely to me that...maybe he has some sympathies with the Rationalist community, but also doesn't entirely buy it hook-line-and-sinker. That would also produce someone who rubbed shoulders with them (and maybe enjoys the admiration as well), but also doesn't sign on to Roko's Basilisk or whatever. It doesn't **need** to be some Machiavellian plot to...earn Internet brownie points. Some people can be peripherally part of a community without being all in. It happens all the time.
>judging someone who seems to be in the thrall of a multi-decade mental health crisis, which would be punching down. I really wish people would stop framing things in such a one-dimensional manner, being mentally ill shouldn't make you immune to criticism.
I completely agree, which is why I drew this distinction. We shouldn't criticize someone for having poor mental health, but we can criticize them for responding inappropriately to their circumstances. In this case, I don't know if Aaronson has a choice about being tormented by fears of persecution (evidence suggests that he doesn't), but he does have a choice about whether he helps to promulgate a pseudoscientific cult.

What is it with these people, who should know better than anyone that something like they describe a superintelligence to be would not remotely resemble a human being, anthropomorphizing it to such a degree. Like, no, an AI is not going to empathize with your fucking high school experience, you utter clod.

Rationalism is largely just nerd identity politics. They’ve made being nerdy the core of their identity and the lens through which they interpret every political issue.

I think the fact that they compare society to a giant high school is telling (Scott Alexander has done it too). They come across to me as having a chip on their shoulder for not being popular in high school and never having got over it.

Because they don't want to! The image of the shy boy bullied just for being smart and awkward flatters their egos (they like to think of themselves of nice, and casting themselves as the perpetual victim means that can simply ignore how they victimize others, and their entire self conception is built around being smart) but it also serves their interests. It gives them a card to play that makes them all at once worthy of sympathy, essentially harmless and also smart and no doubt Cassandra like thanks to their intelligence and lack of social grace. But really they are just bullies and cranks.

Some men would literally rather write pages on AI theory than go to therapy.

You're making a big assumption about the efficacy of therapy and whether they've tried it or not.
You're making a big assumption about me making assumptions, bud.

NERD OPPRESSION

How does anyone bring themselves to actually read posts this verbose. Part of me wants to write a long less wrong post extolling the virtues of brevity.

Vibe: https://youtu.be/L_nHCNz5Mqk?t=228