I considered myself a longtermist, but climate change is the #1 risk to me, not AI, and I thought this prioritization was more common amongst the EA and longtermist communities. But my longtermist views come mainly from Derek Parfit, and it's probably the case that the contemporary longtermists are not of Parfit's kind, and unhealthily intertwined with billionaire weirdos (Theil, SBF).

> But longtermists have an answer to this conundrum: the so-called ‘value-neutrality thesis’. This states that technology is a morally neutral object, ie, ‘just a tool’.

This is indeed a stupid idea, but the writer's following examples don't show longtermists endorsing this view. What Toby Ord is arguing is about an incompatibility between technological advancement and public ignorance (invoking Sagan, as he should). As Margaret Mead said, you can have advancement in technology, but you "have to move the whole pattern". You have to change the social, political, and educational realms in concert with technological change. The editor of this piece really should have fixed this part of the essay, because it's obviously weak.