If Caroline Ellison hadn’t been in an actual relationship with a “high net-worth individual” I would have said it was just straightforward satire, but given the context I think she’s using mask of irony to pretend she isn’t revealing her true self.
Her words may be satirical, but her actions were more like “this but unironically”.
For thursday’s sentencing the us government indicated they would be happy with a 40-50 prison sentence, and in the list of reasons they cite there’s this gem:...
Fourth, the defendant may feel compelled to do this fraud again, or a version of it, based on his use of idiosyncratic, and ultimately for him pernicious, beliefs around altruism, utilitarianism, and expected value to place himself outside of the bounds of the law that apply to others, and to justify unlawful, selfish, and harmful conduct. Time and time again the defendant has expressed that his preferred path is the one that maximizes his version of societal value, even if imposes substantial short term harm or carries substantial risks to others… In this case, the defendant’s professed philosophy has served to rationalize a dangerous brand of megalomania—one where the defendant is convinced that he is above the law and the rules of the road that apply to everyone else, who he necessarily deems inferior in brainpower, skill, and analytical reasoning.
edit: The first draft of this comment was inaccurate, I was confused about what happened before because of a misleading tweet but I think I understand now. Anyways I found the background check tweet they’re referring to: nitter.net/mimi10v3/status/1737273351016525986
Since TPOT is defending sex offenders now I decided to go through more of Brent’s old livejournal and archive everything that seemed sufficiently creepy for the purposes of documenting it:
I apologize if you saw my post before the current edit, I was similarly confused.
To clarify, there are actually two sex offenders, Brent Dill ( @HephaistosF) and a friend of his, @chaosprime (haven’t discovered the real name yet). Someone recently posted @chaosprime’s criminal record showing that he was convicted of sexual assault in 2000.
Basically: use GPT to help copy an entire web site, then jack their search results, get profit. Aided by the fact that search engines are shit. This is something you could do before, GAI just made it faster....
My personal conspiracy theory (not sure if I actually believe this yet):
The idea that people would use generative AI to make SEO easier (and thus make search engine results worse) was not an unfortunate side effect of generative AI, it was the entire purpose. It’s no coincidence that OpenAI teamed up with Google’s biggest rival in search engines; we’re now seeing an arms race between tech giants using spambot generators to overwhelm the enemy’s filters.
The decision to make chatGPT public was not about concern for openness (if it was they would have made the earlier versions of GPT public too), it’s more that they had a business partner lined up and Google search had become enshittified enough that they thought they could pull off a successful “disruption”.
No, they’re able to grasp the near term risks, they just don’t want that to get in the way of making money because they know they’re unlikely to be affected.
I somehow missed this one until now. Apparently it was once mentioned in the comments on the old sneerclub but I don’t think it got a proper post, and I think it deserves one.
Epistemic status: Speculation. An unholy union of evo psych, introspection, random stuff I happen to observe & hear about, and thinking. Done on a highly charged topic. Caveat emptor!...
Weirdly rationalists also sometimes read this book and take all the wrong lessons from it.
Scott Alexander is a crypto-reactionary and I think he reviewed it as a way to expose his readers to neoreactionary ideas under the guise of superficial skepticism, in the same manner as the anti-reactionary FAQ. The book’s author might be a anarchist but a lot of the arguments could easily work in a libertarian context.
The review is mostly positive, but then it also has passages like this:
Well, for one thing, [James C.] Scott basically admits to stacking the dice against High Modernism and legibility. He admits that the organic livable cities of old had life expectancies in the forties because nobody got any light or fresh air and they were all packed together with no sewers and so everyone just died of cholera. He admits that at some point agricultural productivity multiplied by like a thousand times and the Green Revolution saved millions of lives and all that, and probably that has something to do with scientific farming methods and rectangular grids. He admits that it’s pretty convenient having a unit of measurement that local lords can’t change whenever they feel like it. Even modern timber farms seem pretty successful. After all those admissions, it’s kind of hard to see what’s left of his case.
and
Professors of social science think [check cashing] shops are evil because they charge the poor higher rates, so they should be regulated away so that poor people don’t foolishly shoot themselves in the foot by going to them. But on closer inspection, they offer a better deal for the poor than banks do, for complicated reasons that aren’t visible just by comparing the raw numbers. Poor people’s understanding of this seems a lot like the metis that helps them understand local agriculture. And progressives’ desire to shift control to the big banks seems a lot like the High Modernists’ desire to shift everything to a few big farms. Maybe this is a point in favor of something like libertarianism?
The Tech Baron Seeking to “Ethnically Cleanse” San Francisco (newrepublic.com)
The article doesn’t mention SSC directly, but I think it’s pretty obvious where this guy is getting his ideas
GabAI system prompt leaked (lemmy.world)
Source...
'It’s a common misconception that we recommend all EAs “marry to give,” or marry a high-net-worth individual with the intent of redirecting much of their wealth to effective causes' (web.archive.org)
An old post from Caroline Ellison’s tumblr, since deleted.
SBF's effective altruism and rationalism considered an aggravating circumstance in sentencing (www.citationneeded.news)
For thursday’s sentencing the us government indicated they would be happy with a 40-50 prison sentence, and in the list of reasons they cite there’s this gem:...
The current TPOT implosion
Is uh, anyone else watching? This dude (chaos) was/is friends with Brent Dill.
LOL, LMAO: Inside the first 'SEO heist' of the AI era. Web2 is going great! (www.businessinsider.com)
Basically: use GPT to help copy an entire web site, then jack their search results, get profit. Aided by the fact that search engines are shit. This is something you could do before, GAI just made it faster....
Reply guy EY attempts incredibly convoluted offer to meet him half-way by implying AI body pillows are a vanguard threat that will lead to human extinction... (nitter.net)
… while at the same time not really worth worrying about so we should be concentrating on unnamed alleged mid term risks....
"As always, pedophilia is not the same as ephebophilia." - Eliezer Yudkowsky, actual quote (www.lesswrong.com)
I somehow missed this one until now. Apparently it was once mentioned in the comments on the old sneerclub but I don’t think it got a proper post, and I think it deserves one.
The SSC subreddit ponders the difference between Bayesianism and plain old bias (old.reddit.com)
"Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions." (blog.samaltman.com)
From Sam Altman’s blog, pre-OpenAI
this week's LW chud who is the sort of anti-wokeist who says he isn't right wing writes about human interaction from first principles. 100 upvotes. (www.lesswrong.com)
Epistemic status: Speculation. An unholy union of evo psych, introspection, random stuff I happen to observe & hear about, and thinking. Done on a highly charged topic. Caveat emptor!...
LW: [Request]: Use "Epilogenics" instead of "Eugenics" in most circumstances - people just don't like the word itself yes that must be it. Coined by Aella. (www.lesswrong.com)
archive archive.is/8NW7e