But it is insane to say that EA and rationalism* are not about believing you are superior and more rational than your peers, or that most EA/rats don’t make an identity out of it (look at any of their online presences). Anthropic literally exists to funnel money and influence to its EA/rat cofounders and early investors, who sincerely believe that they and they alone are smart and rational enough to shepherd our society through its “technological adolescence”. I wish people who agree with this would at least be honest about it.

…

The next couple of years will see these people contorting themselves into increasingly complex knots to try and argue that AI is making the world a better place. The arguments will get far weirder, and far more detached from reality, than bad comparisons to agricultural labor.

Maybe you value freedom of movement — too bad, the unruly humans start killing each other when they stray too far from home, so now you get a 10 mile radius.

Maybe you value the environment or other species - too bad, the most efficient way to serve humanity is to toss them into the meat grinder.

Maybe you’re not interested in the one-way Mars mission - too bad, we need to expand society and your name popped up in the lottery.

And maybe, at the end, the benevolent aligned mother figure realizes that it’s much easier to create lives of endless bliss by doing the matrix instead of keeping the real world habitable.

Maybe these are all net positive on your utilitarian value function of choice. All I can say is I hope you and your people fucking lose.