Many years ago I met Eliezer Yudkowsky. He handed me a pamphlet extolling the virtues of rationality. The whole thing came across as a joke, as a parody of evangelizing. We both laughed.
I glanced at it once or twice and shoved it into a bookshelf. I wish I kept it, because I never thought so much would happen around him.
Sorry, I considered it a given and didn't think to include it. That's my bad. That's definitely by far what he's most known for. He most certainly is not trying to distance himself from it.
I think that claim would be pretty uncontroversial among people who consider themselves rationalists. He was extremely influential initially, and his writing kicked off the community.
Less metaphorically, he was a prolific, influential blogger. His early blog posts are collectively known as "the Sequences" and when people asked what rationalism is about, they were told to read those.
So the community itself gives him a lot of credit.
The article you're reading is from the unofficial rationalist magazine and the author is a prominent rationalist blogger, so they (and I) obviously don't consider it a cult. But, yes, Yudkowsky is absolutely considered the founder of the modern rationalism movement. (No relation to the philosophical tradition also called "rationalism". Modern rationalism is mostly actually just empiricism.)
Name one other industry that has adherents that say its products will kill us all as a means to boost sales. Assuming you're actually claiming people are actually saying AI might kill us all to boost AI market share. Like this is absurd. Apply it to any other industry:
Oil companies: "Climate change will soon end the human race and we are pushing scary narrative here so that people will buy more oil"
Biotech: "Our lethal compounds can be synthesized to a degree to end the human race. Clearly me scaring you like this will boost sales"
Arms dealers: "We are selling bombs that will guaruntee end the human race with 90% certainty. Wanna buy?"
It makes no sense. Hundreds of top AI searchers with zero financial stake in the private sector have raised the alarm about AI posing a risk on the same order of magnitude as nukes, climate change and bioterrorism.
Saying this is all just commercializing the human fear response is the same sort of lazy dismissive reasoning I can imagine was used when the first warning signs from epidemiologists came out regarding covid-19. "You're just trying to get funding for your anti-covid-19 research or some other political reason & and you're just using covid-19 fear to get what you want, how dare you!"
How much risk their is I can agree is up for debate, but that the motivations of people bringing up thee is a risk is just to commercialize things is so blatantly false it is a comical view to hold at this point. One of the fucking founders of AI Geoffrey Hinton spent the entire time during his Nobel prize award speech warning AI has a significant chance of killing us all if trends continue.
Like what, you think his old ass really cares about boosting book sales or trending on Twitter for saying something contrarian or something? No, he sincerely believes what he is saying.
If none of this convinces you something is up, what will? What do you need to see for it to be reasonable to go from completely dismiss to consider it as possibly serious?
Do you spend much time in communities which discuss AI stuff? I feel as if he's mentioned nearly daily, positively or not, in a lot of the spaces I frequent.
I'm surprised you're unfamiliar otherwise, I figured he was a pretty well known commentator.
I’m just joking around, I’m well aware of who he is.
I never miss an opportunity to highlight his magnum opus, it delights me that so many people take him seriously when he’s at best a second-rate fanfiction author who thinks robots from the future are going to torture copies of him forever or some such nonsense.
imo These people are promoted. You look at their backgrounds and there is nothing that justifies their perches. Eliezer Yudkowsky is (iirc) a Thiel baby, isn't he?
Yep. Thiel funded Yudkowsky’s Singularity Institute. Thiel seems to have soured on the rationalists though as he has repeatedly criticized “the East Bay rationalists” in his public remarks. He also apparently thinks he helped create a Black Pill monster in Yudkowsky and his disciples which ultimately led to Sam Altman’s brief ousting from Open AI.
Huh, neo-Nazis in HN comment sections?? Jeez. (I checked their other comments and there are things like "Another Zionist Jew to-the-core in charge of another shady American tech company.")
I glanced at it once or twice and shoved it into a bookshelf. I wish I kept it, because I never thought so much would happen around him.