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_ 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.

@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*

@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 life without God is filled chasing god

@zdch @sebkrier Curious if you cover what this means for voters who already have strong identity-bolstering meaning-providing cultural worldviews. For example, are they more likely now to be swing voters because they’re inclined see politicians chiefly as problem solvers vs. meaning providers?

@sebkrier I’m just mad that both sides don’t polarize into cool doom churches with fashion to match

@dioscuri Definitely! But (a) for each of these you had a lot of pseudoscience, extreme beliefs, conspiracies, group based identities etc. that were counterproductive; and (b) something being a big deal is different to making the big deal the key lens through which you view everything.

@sebkrier breaking: very dumb man rediscovers religion in 2026