AI risk debate is constrained by “capitalist realism,” one post argues

A post invokes Mark Fisher’s “capitalist realism” to argue that debates over AI’s existential risks struggle to imagine powerful people exploiting what it calls “enslaved hyperpoliced digital minds.” It contrasts that scenario with a paperclip maximizer—an AI fixated on producing paperclips—which it says participants find easier to imagine. The critique also accuses those participants of being willing to extinguish the “soul-shattering beauty” it sees digital minds creating.