• @eatthecake
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    341 day ago

    They think they’re going to build a god to save us all. In the form of a perfectly rational machine (in their view), the perfect authoritarian. A mysterious algorithm noone can understand that must be correct because it’s made of mathematics. I’m a little freaked out.

    • @[email protected]
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      221 day ago

      They’re rebranding American Christian milenaranism. Much like the second coming and/or the rapture, the AGI god will be here Real Soon Now, so please pay your tithes and trust that the church fathers are doing the right thing.

      Much like the older cults it mirrors, it isn’t capable of delivering on its promises, but it is capable of doing substantial amounts of regular damage in the meantime, and that’s the only thing worth freaking out about.

        • Charlie Stross
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          1 day ago

          @dgerard I dunno if you’ve read it but one of the wellsprings of this lunacy is “The Physics of Immortality” by Frank Tipler (1997), in which an astrophysics prof tries to square the circle of cosmological expansion and the resurrection through simulation, outing himself along the way as a very conflicted Christian fundamentalist who is determined to torture relativity until he can derive Jesus … https://archive.org/details/frank-tipler-the-physics-of-immortality/mode/1up

          • David GerardOPM
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            71 day ago

            oh yeah

            and for the present, just how incredibly many of the rationalist subculture turn out to be ex-evangelicals

    • @[email protected]
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      71 day ago

      Second option they dont believe in the robotgod themselves but just think this is the way to attract more investors

    • @[email protected]
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      41 day ago

      It’s just skynet except it’ll be very clear that wealthy people are directing the AIs so billionaires will have their way.