While the enlightened world debates whether algorithms will extinguish the species, a very earthly oligarchy liquidates the institutions and meets no resistance.
Roger: this is brilliant. And the plight of Venezuela is heartbreaking for all democrats.
How should we interpret the warnings from the CEOs of the “frontier labs”? Would they agree to a global slowdown that allows them to continue making “toys” that make reality “optional” without destroying civilization as we currently define it?
Thank you, David. On the warnings: I read them as sincere and as marketing at the same time, and I don't think the two cancel. There's a scene in a movie I watched years ago that you may find illustrative. I'm talking about Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" where the gangster's wife asks the chef how he prices a menu, and he tells her he charges most for anything black, because people like to remind themselves of death: "Death, I'm eating you." The two most expensive items are truffles and caviar. Death and birth, he says. The end and the beginning.
That's the frontier-lab menu. Every warning of extinction comes on the same plate as the announcement of a new mind being born, and the dish is priced accordingly. Nobody is lying about the caviar.
On the slowdown: they already ask for one, on condition that it be global, licensed and supervised. That's a slowdown that binds whoever hasn't yet built a data center. They'd keep making the toys, because the toys are the revenue, and the apocalypse, properly managed, is the moat.
No conspiracy needed. The fear, the toy and the oil pay the same people, so they don't have to meet at midnight.
Roger: this is brilliant. And the plight of Venezuela is heartbreaking for all democrats.
How should we interpret the warnings from the CEOs of the “frontier labs”? Would they agree to a global slowdown that allows them to continue making “toys” that make reality “optional” without destroying civilization as we currently define it?
Thank you, David. On the warnings: I read them as sincere and as marketing at the same time, and I don't think the two cancel. There's a scene in a movie I watched years ago that you may find illustrative. I'm talking about Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" where the gangster's wife asks the chef how he prices a menu, and he tells her he charges most for anything black, because people like to remind themselves of death: "Death, I'm eating you." The two most expensive items are truffles and caviar. Death and birth, he says. The end and the beginning.
That's the frontier-lab menu. Every warning of extinction comes on the same plate as the announcement of a new mind being born, and the dish is priced accordingly. Nobody is lying about the caviar.
On the slowdown: they already ask for one, on condition that it be global, licensed and supervised. That's a slowdown that binds whoever hasn't yet built a data center. They'd keep making the toys, because the toys are the revenue, and the apocalypse, properly managed, is the moat.
No conspiracy needed. The fear, the toy and the oil pay the same people, so they don't have to meet at midnight.