Interesting to see what's happened to the old Peak Oil crowd. I've had a few convivial exchanges with Jim Kuntsler over the years, although I don't really understand the position he's currently taking. Dimitry Orlov was different. I loved his 'Closing the Collapse Gap' and went along with him for a while, buying lots of his books and pressing them on all and sundry relatives and friends, but he took a set against me for some reason. Then he seemed to spiral off into a weird place I couldn't follow. I guess you need to be Russian, or have the FSB twisting your arm up your back to be on his wavelength now.
I'm always on the lookout for fresh voices, but the algorithm rarely serves me anything interesting. And what could be worse than listening to the same old voices shrieking, "Repent!" and clanging their bells of doom? I've also noticed a society-wide decay in the Green movement and left-wing politics generally. They seem to have become frozen into whacko positions, which are more like nutty religions than sensible ways of dealing with the real world.
It's interesting to see how utterly hapless the Federal Politicians on all sides are here in Australia, with the current crisis in the Middle East. They haven't got a clue. It's been obvious for years that the country is completely dependent on imported diesel to function, but they'd much rather be battling about letting men with pink hair into women's bathrooms and trying to find more things to list as hate speech. I had a few meetings with our local Federal member years ago about the looming danger, but he was just a genial small-town lawyer, and in the end, he got sick of all my Peak Oil waffle. Then he got dumped by his party.
A lot of old friends are perpetually foaming at the mouth about Trump, and can't understand it when I suggest that (a) it could be worse, and (b) would a Democratic president be pursuing radically different policies? They think I'm on Trump's Side (!), and make the sign of the Cross. I try to explain that when a civilisation is on the way up, it's slightly more predictable, but on the way down, it's gonna be all over the place. But that's too complicated for them.
I follow both right and left-wingers on Substack, if they make sense. And I'm happy enough with an AI-generated clip on YouTube if it's some mundane technical matter, like medical coping strategies for the diseases of old age!
There are lots of clever old bastards who write well on the current social madnesses, and it's entertaining to read their rants, but as Lenin once observed, it is of but momentary interest. Very few make any attempt to tackle the real Elephant in the Room. And if they do, they're usually trying to sell you something.
Henry Kissinger quipped that an expert is someone who articulates the needs of power. I've come to see some of the old collapse voices in that light — not necessarily by design, but the ones who've drifted into regime apologist territory seem to have found that it pays better than encouraging readers to resist comfortable narratives.
The descent of the environmental left into rigid orthodoxy is something I watched up close. When I was deep in thermodynamic fatalism there was a strong overlap between the environmentalist movement and the industrial systems thinkers who warned about the consequences of hydrocarbon dependence, and even then the environmentalist camp was the home to the most vitreolic zealots. Like the left generally, the environmentalist movement displays a pronounced tendency to elevate its most extreme voices as representatives. Movements organized around crisis and grievance seem to have structural incentives to do that, and it doesn't end well for the analytical core.
Thanks for reading and posting such a substantial reply.
I have recently renew my relation to one of my sisters after years off a total fall out because of my refusal to vaccinate on covid 19. So yes if you guest that my sister is a hardcore liberal Bernie bro type, just of that. She now has forgotten all about her fascistic ways apparently and now she is very concern about AI usage. When i told her that i was having the best conversations ever with it and was learning so much new stuff. She snap into a crazy frenzy, trying to imply that i did not understand that the synthetic intelligence was actually not intelligent. She seem genuinely scare of my interactions. She went over things like the environment damage of data centers, the lies it was program to spit and that it was going to lead me to become a radical suicidal.
Somehow I was going to be propagandized by it, when i am practicing critical thinking for long time, i have been even talking about the technocratic take with the internet since the days of Geocites! Darpa, Arpanet all that good stuff! Still I felt bad for her as my guess is that her panic might come of her calculations that those programs are a treat to her job or maybe its a reaction that comes from the media she consumes i cant point exactly. My rebuttal was that even when i know that for example, google is pure evil i still get a use of it, as does she. But this types (like my sis) always like to posture about things they themselves are already doing, like it escapes their hands like a slippery eel, time and time again.
[She went over things like the environment damage of data centers, the lies it was program to spit and that it was going to lead me to become a radical suicidal.]
Wow. Full commitment to the progressive catechism on AI.
Sometimes, particularly with family, the only workable response is to make peace with the idea that they're going to believe whatever they're motivated to believe. Attempts to disabuse them of their insular narratives will fan the flames of conflict.
>"Unless you’re still mostly listening to the same sense-makers you were following a decade ago and refuse new offerings from the infinite scroll."
This is, after all, called Gen X sci-fi/futurism. I think that cantankerous fits our demo and approaching age.
>Like Ilya Sutskever told a graduating class a year or so ago, “You may not be interested in AI, but AI is interested in you.”
This sounds like a threat, but frankly it might be better than the alternative -- a future run by AI that has no interest in me/us. But we'll see. I'm not normally a betting man anyway, but even if I had chips to wager I'm not sure what future I'd be predicting.
[This sounds like a threat, but frankly it might be better than the alternative -- a future run by AI that has no interest in me/us.]
The worst possible scenario is the one in which ASI torments humans for all eternity (Roko's Basalisk / I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream). The second worst, is the one where it decides to eliminate us. The third worst is the one in which it just doesn't consider us at all.
Tangential, but it's unclear to me how much the rationalist conception of AI behavior will apply to an AI that is derived from LLM. They assumed a rational, at least instrumentally, intelligence that was ultimately directed toward a single goal, monomaniacally.
Interacting with LLM and observing some of their failure modes, this isn't the picture I get. They behave more like humans, for better and worse, and while they can employ deception, it doesn't a mask.
Doesn't mean they'll stay friendly or allies, and our intuitions about them will certainly break in unexpected ways. But they might not be cold instruments of alien rationality.
Interesting to see what's happened to the old Peak Oil crowd. I've had a few convivial exchanges with Jim Kuntsler over the years, although I don't really understand the position he's currently taking. Dimitry Orlov was different. I loved his 'Closing the Collapse Gap' and went along with him for a while, buying lots of his books and pressing them on all and sundry relatives and friends, but he took a set against me for some reason. Then he seemed to spiral off into a weird place I couldn't follow. I guess you need to be Russian, or have the FSB twisting your arm up your back to be on his wavelength now.
I'm always on the lookout for fresh voices, but the algorithm rarely serves me anything interesting. And what could be worse than listening to the same old voices shrieking, "Repent!" and clanging their bells of doom? I've also noticed a society-wide decay in the Green movement and left-wing politics generally. They seem to have become frozen into whacko positions, which are more like nutty religions than sensible ways of dealing with the real world.
It's interesting to see how utterly hapless the Federal Politicians on all sides are here in Australia, with the current crisis in the Middle East. They haven't got a clue. It's been obvious for years that the country is completely dependent on imported diesel to function, but they'd much rather be battling about letting men with pink hair into women's bathrooms and trying to find more things to list as hate speech. I had a few meetings with our local Federal member years ago about the looming danger, but he was just a genial small-town lawyer, and in the end, he got sick of all my Peak Oil waffle. Then he got dumped by his party.
A lot of old friends are perpetually foaming at the mouth about Trump, and can't understand it when I suggest that (a) it could be worse, and (b) would a Democratic president be pursuing radically different policies? They think I'm on Trump's Side (!), and make the sign of the Cross. I try to explain that when a civilisation is on the way up, it's slightly more predictable, but on the way down, it's gonna be all over the place. But that's too complicated for them.
I follow both right and left-wingers on Substack, if they make sense. And I'm happy enough with an AI-generated clip on YouTube if it's some mundane technical matter, like medical coping strategies for the diseases of old age!
There are lots of clever old bastards who write well on the current social madnesses, and it's entertaining to read their rants, but as Lenin once observed, it is of but momentary interest. Very few make any attempt to tackle the real Elephant in the Room. And if they do, they're usually trying to sell you something.
Henry Kissinger quipped that an expert is someone who articulates the needs of power. I've come to see some of the old collapse voices in that light — not necessarily by design, but the ones who've drifted into regime apologist territory seem to have found that it pays better than encouraging readers to resist comfortable narratives.
The descent of the environmental left into rigid orthodoxy is something I watched up close. When I was deep in thermodynamic fatalism there was a strong overlap between the environmentalist movement and the industrial systems thinkers who warned about the consequences of hydrocarbon dependence, and even then the environmentalist camp was the home to the most vitreolic zealots. Like the left generally, the environmentalist movement displays a pronounced tendency to elevate its most extreme voices as representatives. Movements organized around crisis and grievance seem to have structural incentives to do that, and it doesn't end well for the analytical core.
Thanks for reading and posting such a substantial reply.
I have recently renew my relation to one of my sisters after years off a total fall out because of my refusal to vaccinate on covid 19. So yes if you guest that my sister is a hardcore liberal Bernie bro type, just of that. She now has forgotten all about her fascistic ways apparently and now she is very concern about AI usage. When i told her that i was having the best conversations ever with it and was learning so much new stuff. She snap into a crazy frenzy, trying to imply that i did not understand that the synthetic intelligence was actually not intelligent. She seem genuinely scare of my interactions. She went over things like the environment damage of data centers, the lies it was program to spit and that it was going to lead me to become a radical suicidal.
Somehow I was going to be propagandized by it, when i am practicing critical thinking for long time, i have been even talking about the technocratic take with the internet since the days of Geocites! Darpa, Arpanet all that good stuff! Still I felt bad for her as my guess is that her panic might come of her calculations that those programs are a treat to her job or maybe its a reaction that comes from the media she consumes i cant point exactly. My rebuttal was that even when i know that for example, google is pure evil i still get a use of it, as does she. But this types (like my sis) always like to posture about things they themselves are already doing, like it escapes their hands like a slippery eel, time and time again.
[She went over things like the environment damage of data centers, the lies it was program to spit and that it was going to lead me to become a radical suicidal.]
Wow. Full commitment to the progressive catechism on AI.
Sometimes, particularly with family, the only workable response is to make peace with the idea that they're going to believe whatever they're motivated to believe. Attempts to disabuse them of their insular narratives will fan the flames of conflict.
Here, Mike. This one’s for you:https://substack.com/@kmoptimal/note/c-230169959?r=1ozb0&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
>"Unless you’re still mostly listening to the same sense-makers you were following a decade ago and refuse new offerings from the infinite scroll."
This is, after all, called Gen X sci-fi/futurism. I think that cantankerous fits our demo and approaching age.
>Like Ilya Sutskever told a graduating class a year or so ago, “You may not be interested in AI, but AI is interested in you.”
This sounds like a threat, but frankly it might be better than the alternative -- a future run by AI that has no interest in me/us. But we'll see. I'm not normally a betting man anyway, but even if I had chips to wager I'm not sure what future I'd be predicting.
[This sounds like a threat, but frankly it might be better than the alternative -- a future run by AI that has no interest in me/us.]
The worst possible scenario is the one in which ASI torments humans for all eternity (Roko's Basalisk / I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream). The second worst, is the one where it decides to eliminate us. The third worst is the one in which it just doesn't consider us at all.
"Roko's Basalisk"
Tangential, but it's unclear to me how much the rationalist conception of AI behavior will apply to an AI that is derived from LLM. They assumed a rational, at least instrumentally, intelligence that was ultimately directed toward a single goal, monomaniacally.
Interacting with LLM and observing some of their failure modes, this isn't the picture I get. They behave more like humans, for better and worse, and while they can employ deception, it doesn't a mask.
Doesn't mean they'll stay friendly or allies, and our intuitions about them will certainly break in unexpected ways. But they might not be cold instruments of alien rationality.