iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The EAs are mad that Bostrom has stopped saying that doomsday is coming. He's now saying AI is great. Whether someone likes LLMs or not, it's a good thing if he's not in the doomsday machine god cult. Also, commenters saying AI is great is not new.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

They make an argument in the form of "I am not a transhumanist therefore I am not an EA", then they basically talk as if machine god is coming.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

This amounts to a distinction without a difference, they're still arguing for the same thing.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

There seems to be "I'm not a transhumanist" EAs who come up with... The same machine god type arguments, and who have close proximity to EAs.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

having this" (something that makes them longer lived, more resilient to disease, and so on).

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There's an argument that treats tech bosses as far more powerful than they actually are. They're not gods. While there have been times when a platform has censored something, that is not the same thing as this. A company can't just say, "Ah, just let the majority of people die from not

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

particular technologies and these technologies might not be here yet. I've seen an argument that it would be limited to a few people. However, I can't see that happening. If a company came up with a technology like that, they wouldn't be able to do that.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Someone said that transhumanism means everyone would die. That's not true. There has been an idea or two from commenters in Silicon Valley that aren't entirely thought out, but then, I have seen ideas that are more thought out. Where someone might be getting stuck is that specific ideas require

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

don't think works to run the grid, isn't that a human decision?

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I've seen an argument that it might be used to run the grid, but why is it needed to run the grid? Aren't there simpler algorithms that work well? This seems to assume that it would only be natural to use it everywhere, even where it doesn't make sense. Also, if someone uses an algorithm which they

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I've questioned whether I'm being a bit mean here but the machine god thing is just ridiculous. The algorithm has clever math to it (an application of calculus and matrices) but it's just that, an algorithm. When it does something stupid, it's due to it being stupid.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

works at Anthropic. Lately, his language has become more and more about machine gods. While he is vague about who was there now, I wouldn't be surprised, if he wasn't interviewing Eliezer before long.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

By his own words, Newton was at an event in Berkeley (notorious for the cult) where there was discussion of "x risk" (how AI doomsday cultists refer to themselves). He's known to be a shill for Anthropic. He only criticizes their competitors, not the wacky things they do. By his words, his fiancé

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Casey says he had a "meeting in Berkeley". A place that is notorious for AI doomsday cultists. Plus, he is known to be an Anthropic shill (and has a fiance who works there). #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Truth be told, this isn't the only area where I have seen someone saying that everything would happen at once. #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I've said this a number of times, but while a Singularity might work as a plot element in a fictional story, it is very unrealistic. #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

seems to have come up with a drug which treats a form of blindness (while pursuing longevity) and a device which makes the blind able to see.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I've also seen an odd argument which was along the lines of, "Oh, so Silicon Valley wants humans to be able to live longer. Well, I think humans should all die." On the contrary, if someone's aspiring to cure cancer or whatever, that is a good thing. And other than the AI thing, SV

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I think TESCREAL is going too far. It implies everyone in Silicon Valley is sitting there gleefully thinking about their imminently becoming a cyborg or a mind upload. I've also seen transhumanists who don't think a so-called superintelligence is imminent.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The AI Doomsday Cult is mad that people don't buy their pronouncements about the imminent arrival of a machine god.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A medical doctor with a bit of psychology knowledge (who has historically made fun of disabilities) is upset that someone wasn't cordial about his membership in an AI doomsday cult. EA. #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I'm reading a take from someone supposedly at OpenAI and it's bizarre control freak colonialism cooked up by a cultist. #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I don't think people questioned AI Doom earlier because: 1. We didn't think there was an AI doomsday cult. 2. It seemed like an abstract thought experiment.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Google launched a prototype satellite into space. It's similar to the one with the GPU from earlier this year from Starcloud.

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Reposted by @virski.bsky.social

virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Dramatic AI scenarios often assume people being incredibly stupid. What if we flip a coin to decide whether to fire the missile. And it assumes that after the missile misfires, that people will keep doing the same thing. #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If someone is concerned about this, then maybe they should question how it's being used, rather than talking about "AI Doom" which makes it sound like "the AI" is doing something (or that it's mystical). As mentioned previously, there are a number of reasons why this wouldn't happen. #AI

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For a few years now, there has been talk of synthetic data being used to train models.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For image generation, that might take the form of regurgitating the training data (if it's trained on like one image or something).

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Someone's talking about overfitting? Overfitting is when a model fails to sufficiently generalize from the training data. It winds up being useless in practice as it can't handle cases outside of that. I'm talking about generalizing in a class, such as doing x.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Google is seemingly savvier than Facebook though. Schmidt left the company in 2017.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think it's important to understand that Facebook had a politician like Sandberg. Sandberg has been referred to at times as the "Queen of Facebook". Google has someone similar, who had ties to politics, Eric Schmidt.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

At that time, Big Tech weren't as brazen in their anti-competitive antics as they are today (culminating in OpenAI and Anthropic making ridiculous claims about the end of the world). At times, they went further, like the time when Facebook tried to smear TikTok and got burnt.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Stanford was an early attempt at regulatory capture by Big Tech to try to undermine competitors. They followed in the spirit of former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who used to work in politics.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's actually worse than them saying by 1000%. They were saying that they were "more of a moderate" and that they spoke to someone who thought the GDP would grow by ten thousand times per year. Both numbers are dubious.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Another issue with Stanford is that there are times when someone is like "algorithmic censorship is fine" when arguing against a kind of privacy violation. It's like they're talking from the perspective of a Big Tech company.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Even when someone acts better, they might still look at something from the perspective of how a company did things. For instance, not having much of a reaction to algorithmic censorship (which is a big issue).

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

While there have been times when Stanford has been critical of government censorship, I am concerned about essentially PR rationalizations for policies making their way to Stanford (when quite a number of these policies are bad and censorious).

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

While I said Silicon Valley, as there are examples of that, like the economist, the ties between them and Big Tech is bigger.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

you can see what they were doing here). Meanwhile, a former Facebook executive at Stanford might "highlight the work that Facebook is doing" (in other words, talking up whatever it is that Facebook is doing).

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

When someone at Stanford attacks a company, we should be suspicious. We don't really know what the situation is there, or what kind of game Big Tech is playing. In 2022, Facebook tried to smear TikTok. Another time, a former executive tried to smear Parler (which even if you don't like Parler,

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

position with no authority shortly afterwards) argued to form a cartel, a few folks from Stanford lent them their support. #AI At times, Big Tech seemed to breathe their own exhaust, falling for their own anti-competitive arguments stemming from a former Big Tech executive at Stanford.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Stanford has close ties to Silicon Valley. From an economist making dubious claims that the GDP would grow by 1000% per year due to #AI to apparent attempts to trip competitors. When the former CEO of Google DeepMind (he was moved to a

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

There is a sense that this is more of a "we are going to take steps to improve our security" event but there was an open-ended aspect that I wanted to comment on.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This is not to say a company wouldn't take specific measures today to deal with these dumb systems that they've been dealing with.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Commenting on the SI Agreement. We should avoid associating "developing AI" with such and such measures. Something like that might be obsoleted at some point by a system (maybe, it'll be narrower in the areas that it covers) intelligent enough to do what the user wants.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Reminder that a number of media outlets were for anime, until Trump won the 2016 election, and they decided they hated the Internet. Doing that though only alienated people and made it more likely Trump would win again.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

ago, when a Western media outlet reported on a guy saying he married Miku, a, uh, hologram.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm not saying that people aren't fans of something, especially something popular. On the other hand, saying that everyone is fansexual or something esoteric. It seems to me that someone is looking for a box to put people into. This reminds me of a time a number of years

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

To be fair, Silicon Valley investing in immortality did lead to a treatment for glaucoma (which can lead to blindness) where there was none before.

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virski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Apparently, AI is being rebranded as SI.

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