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Technology is much more ideologically laden than science (at least ideally). Science on its own does not have a purpose other than the acquisition of knowledge. Once you choose what to do with it, and especially once you use it to make a consumer product, you are no longer in the realm of "pure advancement." You can use advances in scientific understanding to build something that makes people's lives much worse.

That's why I bristled at the whiggish march of progress you depicted. You can believe that science is an ever increasing grasp of the truth without being naive about what the outcome of that knowledge might be. We could all still nuke ourselves into oblivion, in the most extreme example.

I know people hate that kind of doom and gloom. I'm just saying that, when you make the jump from "wow, science is amazing, look at what we've discovered" to "wow science is amazing, look what technologies it has unlocked" you are implying an inevitability to technological progress that does not exist.

Nah, as long as you're good a sport about it, it's all good. In fact, it's refreshing to have someone make a mistake like that so confidently, and then own up to it immediately.

I don't think you understood the paper, to be honest.

You're conflating science and technology AND making a pretty bold predictive statement about the future of humanity that sounds extremely naive, to me at least.

Also, I find the kind of language you're using really grating. The attempt to mystify modern technology in order to strike awe always backfires. Yeah dude, I know what a cell phone is. Sure, they're very cool. But what's the argument you're trying to make?

Those are all technologies.

If you're so secure in your intelligence relative to your peers, why are you responding to me?

Personally, if I had to choose between a world of people with "low IQ" who are self-aware and one of people with "high IQ" or are extremely un-selfaware, I would choose the former every time.

I would say there are two explanations for group 2.

The first is that you aren't as smart as you think you are, because if you actually understood the people around you in any real way, you would instantly find them less frustrating. But instead you are using flawed heuristics, built out of your own insecurities, to interact with the world.

Possibility two is that you are smart, but you have developed a malformed coping mechanism whereby you take all your negative traits (social ineptness, anxiety, impatience) and treat them all as simple the nature outgrowth of your prodigious intelligence. This is a common coping mechanism, and the neat thing is, it has nothing to do with intelligence. You can be dumb as a brick and still feel like you're in a world of morons who are inferior to you.

In fact, I suspect these two explanations are one explanation.

It fascinates me how popular science is just a salve for people's fears and anxieties. Science does not provide the kinds of answers people want, so popular science steps in to make unfalsifiable claims about human immortality or whether or not aliens exist, or whatever else is gnawing away at people. I don't have any deeper analysis than that. It's just interesting.

Uhh, citations for all of these claims please.

We’re tired and bored. We're tired and bored. We're tired and bored. We're tired and bored.[0]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBngZh8H2FU

Consciousness is a term that doesn't have a single clear definition because it covers a range of phenomena that are linked by the concept of subjectivity. Qualia is the big one to me, but there are many other ancillary concepts that are all linked by their fundamental inability to be observed except in one's self.

There is nothing magical about this set of phenomena, and the majority of philosophers believe they in some way arise out of the substrate of the physical brain, but how they do so is up for debate. And just because they arise out of the brain does not mean they are strictly reducible to neural processes.

In fact, if you believe that AI could be conscious then that eliminates the kind of strict reduction that people tend to gravitate towards, because the rules of consciousness must be substrate independent.

Testability is a category mistake.

Misanthropy is not true definitionally. It is a value judgment, that causes one to be biased against other humans even when it is irrational.

And it is accurate to depict this kind of argument is misanthropic, because it is already directed at other people. Nobody says, "If AI is not X then what about the fact that I lack X." It's always other people. It's transparent. The person is always saying, "AI is useful to me because it can do X. Many people I interact with can't do X and it drives me crazy, because I view others as a means to an end and not as ends in and of themselves."

I think Turing was wrong because he was uncomfortable with ambiguity, and the Turing Test basically is a way to avoid philosophical argument, but it is ultimately a philosophical argument anyway. Plenty of computer scientists have followed in Turing's footsteps, terrified of ambiguity, relying on a kind of cheap functionalism as a salve. You can claim to just be doing science, but inevitably you dip into metaphysics and deny you are doing so. That's this thread in a nutshell. "I only believe what I can prove, but I suspect that if I can't prove it then I don't have to worry about it." My argument, is that you have to worry about it anyway.

It's possible Kant was right about space-time (while also being wrong about space-time). It seems that space and time might be the fundamental laws on top of which the entire human perceptual apparatus operates. It's why somebody can lack senses and still be intelligent. As long as whatever senses you have allow you to build a spatio-temporal world model, you're good. If they can't (as it seems is the case for LLMs), then it's not clear what we're dealing with.

That is a grotesque misuse of the phrase "a priori." What you mean is, "It's obvious to me." Ok, good for you.

But the people who can easily afford the insurance in Florida can afford the new tax as well. And as an added bonus, they don't have to live in Florida!

But in all seriousness, they all already own homes in Florida.

Just to say the obvious, but gaining muscles gave you confidence. People aren't laughing at your jokes more because you're swole. I mean, I'm sure there is some of that. But with any virtuous cycle, it's never just one thing that makes a positive change. It's a reinforcing loop.

I've been calling it the "AI argument from misanthropy" but that's way more succinct. Thanks.

What really drives me crazy is how laden it is with negative emotions, and then people pretend it's just a rational assessment of the world. I was told growing up that if you're anxious or negative, it's just because you are smart and you understand how terrible everything is, while stupid people are happy. Seems like a lot of people got a similar message, and now they're shilling AI.

I don't think you've ever met anybody who worked for a non-profit in your life.

I actually originally wrote "technologists" but thought that the word sounded kind of odd. Now I realize it better captures what I was trying to convey.

Look who is more Catholic than the Pope.

I would replace the word scientists with engineers in that quote. People often conflate the two, but in my experience, scientists tend to be more cautious and there are built in checks and balances in the process (however flawed).

Engineers/technologists tend to have no such guardrails, and are also usually embedded into entirely profit motivated environments, whatever their own values might be.

Ok, but try the same argument with sedentary societies. Those seem "superior" despite all the negative side effects, right? But here comes one of a number of steppe nomad tribes to show up and decimate their "superior" neighbors.

The vast diversity of human societies refuses any kind of rigid hierarchy of development. There are many branching paths, and no paradigm wins for long.

History is a not a game of Civilization.

It's so funny when technological progress guys encounter YIMBYs. They can't even perceive that somebody would have a criticism of the impact of a technology on one's lived environment. "But, history is one big game of Civilization, and we replaced the little horses with tanks? What do you mean you don't like it?"

Whigs gonna whig I guess.

I've noticed that AI has caused this narrative to become more popular. "Nothing is original anyway, so why bother?" That's pure cope and you know it. A deep insecurity masked as bold truthtelling.

We talk a lot about the risks of AI in schools, but those same risks apply in any learning environment.

I recently started a new job and I find that AI is making it so much harder for me to onboard. I am adjusting to my role much slower than my peers who are using AI less. I am coding in a language I am unfamiliar with, which makes the lure of vibe coding stronger. I am at least skilled enough to recognize when Claude gives me an answer that either makes no sense or is unnecessarily verbose. But the more time I spend asking Claude to write code, the less I feel like I'm developing the skills that the job requires. Plus, when I submit a PR, I lack the necessary confidence in my own work, which just feels bad.

Honestly, another part of this is that I'm asking Claude to search through Slack and docs for answers to questions when I should just ask another person. The AI is feeding my social anxiety, luring me into avoiding human contact that I know will be good for my understanding as well as my general need for social interaction.

That all sounds like I am absolving myself of responsibility, but I think it's important to point out how a given technology is especially addictive for a certain type of person, and traps them in a negative behavioral cycle. If I hold off on relying on AI now, I suspect I can grow in my skills to the point that I can delegate tasks to AI that are rote and easy for me to verify their results. It feels challenging, but it's necessary.

Help, the whigs are loose on HackerNews again! Quick, grab even a rudimentary understanding of human history. It's their one weakness.

I survived two rounds of layoffs at a company. Each time there was a message from the CEO, and a drawn out process of learning who had kept their job and who hadn't. It was supposed to be more humane but it ended up making things much worse.

When I was finally laid off, there was no notice at all. Ripping off the band-aid was better (though it still sucked).

Ok, what do you believe?

I thought the Jews were creating pornography to keep gentile men down. Now they're also preventing access to pornography?

Don't tell me they're responsible for Bolshevism and Capitalism!?!

Damn, they don't call it the socialism of fools for nothing.