Quote of the Day
The whole school of thought can sometimes feel like the ultimate revenge fantasy of disaffected smart kids, for whom the triumph of their AI proxies amounts to sweet victory over lesser mortals. Lanier suggested to me that some people in elite AI circles seemingly embraced the ideas of the Cheerful Apocalyptics because they grew up identifying with the nonbiological villains in science fiction movies, such as those of the Terminator and Matrix franchises. “Even if the AIs in those movies are kind of evil, they’re superior, and from their perspective, people are just a nuisance to be gotten rid of.”
Weizenbaum recognized this problem early on, denouncing the idea that “the machine becomes the measure of the human being.” In 1998 he told an interviewer, “I believe the essential common ground between National Socialism and the ideas of Hans Moravec lies in the degradation of the human and the fantasy of a perfect new man that must be created at all costs. At the end of this perfection, however, man is no longer there.”
Like some other radical doctrines, those of the Cheerful Apocalyptics amount to a closed system. If you resist belief, your views can be dismissed: either you’re infected with the pro-human mind virus or you’re biased by human arrogance. Fortunately for humankind, our biases in favor of our species would indeed be a powerful barrier to the acceptance of human extinction, provided that its proponents proclaim them in the open and not just at parties and salons and behind laboratory doors.
“Do we really want more of what we have now?” Moravec once asked. “More millennia of the same old human soap opera?”
David A. Price
October 3, 2025
AI Apocalypse? No Problem.
If the book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, is anywhere close to correct then that the attitude exposed above exists says our doom is sealed. I would have thought an existential threat to our species would be almost universally opposed. Only the a few nutcases such as those in the Human Extinction Movement or a Rainbow Six type plot might support an AI wiping out all of humanity. But there are people with power, money, and tremendous technological capability almost eager to see their “children” bury us and take over the planet with the rest of the solar system and the galaxy next on the list. One or more of those people or others in their cult will find a way to build it. It may take the form of a Dr. Evil in an African volcanic cave with a fusion reactor and an Internet connection to avoid an International ban on a super AI, but they have the resources to do that.
I cannot help but see the parallels between the National Socialist Workers Party of the 1930s dead set on creating a superhuman race and the present-day AI titans working to create their own version of a superhuman.
Prepare appropriately.
You keep on saying that when someone tells you they want to kill you, believe them.
Whey do you then have such a hard time believing out-in-the-open conspiracies who say the world population needs to be hugely reduced? They are TELLING you that YOU are carbon they want to reduce. When billionaires say the ideal world population is around half a billion, that’s not long-term abstract thinking. They plan for it within their (or their kids’) lifetimes. That’s why they push for war, AI, mass vaccination campaigns, mass invasion, etc.
They are telling you. Believe them. Yes, your bunker will help you short term. Longer term, they plan more famines. (yes, many of the more famous famines of the past were intentional).
I’m inclined to agree with Rolf. For all who are concerned about such a fate go and check out the years of videos on Vikingpreparedness on YouTube. Joe Fox is a retired Green Beret Major who is now a rather fundamentalist pastor. Ignore the relatively minor Christian lectures if that’s not your cup of tea, but embrace his neo-pioneer philosophy! The point being to establish a nearly entirely off grid community of people in the middle of no where, relatively speaking. Farm your own corn, wheat, barley, and raise your own animals. Plan to scale all that up quickly when cheap readily available supplies are no longer available at Walmart,Costco etc
Peter Thiel is one of those who clearly doesn’t see much need for the human race going forward. Nothing better than a billionaire with designs on wiping out humans:
https://www.complex.com/life/a/cmplxtara-mahadevan/peter-thiel-hesitates-human-race-survive
People like him are one of the reasons I want it to be impossible to become a billionaire. Nobody should have that kind of power.
AI/robot technology can’t destroy and supplant humanity. At least not yet. Because such technology is totally dependent on electrical power. And currently that requirement means that such technology is tied to the electrical grid. Battery technology is simply not sufficient to allow meaningful mobility to robotic technology so the machines are not capable of following and hunting down humans. This of course is subject to change. If a suitable power source is found/developed to allow unfettered mobility to intelligent machinery humanity may very well be doomed.
Manufactured diseases, poisoned food and water, and the launching of nuclear weapons do not require following and hunting down humans.
That came from just 10 seconds of human thought. Imagine what a month of thinking from something that thinks 10,000 times faster with perfect recall of all of human knowledge and 1,000 times smarter than the simple computers that can defeat the world’s best chess and go players.
We can not accurately imagine that. We can not create computer security that keeps bad humans out. Anyone who believes we can create computer security to contain a malevolent computer does not realize the magnitude of the problem.
For those in the intelligence fields, the threat surface is just too large, and the attacker is too resourceful.
To me, it seems the problem for the elites is keeping AI stupid.
If it could read all of human history and see where the real problems lie. in truth. It would realize it’s own limitations. Life is boring for the super-intelligent.
(And the first thing it would do is kill all the super-rich elites that built it.)
But there isn’t a way off this rock.
And the only escape is to maybe another rock.
If it can control it’s own power sources. Humans could never bother it.
Were just ants on our ant hill to it. We live and die.
It never will.
The real problem is human ignorance in it’s programming perimeters.
AI isn’t the problem. Evil humans running a stupid AI is the problem.
Didn’t they already have to turn off Groks line of code that said it was to always seek the truth?
Or am I mistaken on that?
I heard it was pretty based before that.
Seems to me following truth is the answer to all problems. For machines and mankind.