TechTakes

1489 readers

32 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

dgerard@awful.systems

161

Eric Schmidt: ‘We’re not going to hit the climate goals. I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem.’ With "alien intelligence"! (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 2 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] eatthecake@lemmy.world 36 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] rook@awful.systems 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Jesus 2.0 is an AI, and he's American

[–] cstross@wandering.shop 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

@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

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 9 points 2 months ago

oh yeah

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

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 8 points 2 months ago

Yes some sort of brainiac. Worked well for krypton.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 8 points 2 months ago

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

[–] lefaucet@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 months ago

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