Google DeepMind's Séb Krier argues polarized AI narratives fill an existential or religious void for advocates

@sebkrier It's different for everyone. For me it's because I had forsaken the world. I regret it deeply, but I did. I could see no way to change our path, and finally, I gave up. Then ten years later, using GPT for the first time in 2022, I realized there was hope.

@JR_Openheimer @sebkrier Yes, but I'll just be a tiny part of the storm.

@AndrewCurran_ @sebkrier Inshallah, hallelujah and amen I say

@AndrewCurran_ I understand. I think that's what makes AI so appealing, a bit like revolution. Some hope that it can shake up our ossified, time frozen societies. Unlike revolutions I think it will succeed, but I think many people underestimate the bottlenecks.

@AndrewCurran_ @sebkrier Are you planning to change the world with AI? For the better I hope?

@sebkrier I think this is true but grand totalising narratives are often just true. COVID, 9/11, and the GFC have massively shaped the last 20 years. Our parents rightly feared nuclear annihilation. The world wars were the biggest events in our grandparents’ lives.

@sebkrier I’m writing about this soon - the central lens through which to understand contemporary political (“political”) participation is that of identity-bolstering meaning-providing cultural worldviews and the legible ways we can convince ourselves we are a part of them.

The Descent of Ishtar, roughly 3000-4000 years old:

To the house which those who enter cannot leave On the journey whose way cannot be retraced To the house whose residents are deprived of light Where dust is their sustenance, their food clay They are clad like birds in coats of feathers And they cannot see light but dwell in darkness On the door on the House of Dust a deathly quiet is poured

@LiveMatrixCode @sebkrier Indeed.

@sebkrier Whether for or against, individuals' neuroses seem to define their views on AI more than any fact or preexisting policy preference.

@sebkrier It is about identity. Being right. Or more accurately, being on the right *side*

No, a lot of it is political. My account turned into a news account and I feel like I shouldn't inject my personal politics into things if I can help it. I'll put it into my movies. I have problems with both the left and right, and I have not been happy with the direction of the world, institutions, governance, etc, for a long time.

@JoshSkolnick_ @sebkrier This is an good question that I would like to dig into empirical data around. For example (and Sol/Gberg research backs this up IIRC) many evangelicals have strong MPCW but also strong identity-defense because of the perception/reality that the MPCW is under constant threat.

@sebkrier It's terrible to live at the end of history, Séb. Fukuyama was right about everything.

@AndrewCurran_ @sebkrier I’ve done the same and never looked back. All that “world” does is steal time from what truly matters: the world inside your head. The only one there is.

@sebkrier Yup, true. Our need to deify entities will always remain (until we genetically modify this out of us).

@sebkrier I'm not so sure if AI as an object of fascination is so easily substitutable. What else had this promise of remaking the world (whether true or not) in the recent past? Perhaps in the 90s the creation of the internet felt similarly invigorating.

@AndrewCurran_ @sebkrier

@sebkrier What's your evidence?

If the beliefs are accurate, which you grant they may be, *how* can you tell "if it wasn't AI it would easily be something else"?

I have a general capacity for worry but didn't have something in the AI slot before AI

Was "duck and cover" a void filler?

@sebkrier @AndrewCurran_ the bottlenecks are an illusion