Article
The "Rational" Conclusion
Alexander Campbell
- Then cheap talk gets tested. Game theorists have a term for this: cheap talk is costless signaling that eventually meets reality. When you make the stakes existential for the human race, you can justify any level of extremism if it lowers the hallowed p(doom).
- They do not build AI systems or work on alignment engineering. They possess a particular kind of verbal intelligence that lets them construct elaborate arguments about risk, and they have convinced themselves this entitles them to a priestly authority over the technology. They can construct the argument. They cannot build the system.
- The Sequences build the liturgy: a small caste of correct thinkers, epistemically and morally superior, whose rationality entitles them to govern what the rest of humanity is allowed to build. It’s not a safety movement. It’s a priesthood with an origin story written in fanfiction.