fnix

More of a pet peeve than a primal scream, but I wonder what's with Adam Tooze and his awe of AI. Tooze is a left-wing economic historian who’s generally interesting to listen to (though perhaps in tackling a very wide range of subject matter sometimes missing some depth), but nevertheless seems as AI-pilled as any VC. Most recently came about this bit: Berlin Forum on Global Cooperation 2025 - Keynote Adam Tooze

Anyone who’s used AI seriously knows the LLMs are extraordinary in what they’re able to do ... 5 years down the line, this will be even more transformative.

Really, anyone Adam? Are you sure about the techbro pitch there?

well, Zen buddhism

Yeah, this is the Valley after all. Some have used Buddhism as a building block for constructing “metarationality”.

The irony being that rather than writing good SCP themselves, they'd make for even better subjects of containment & study.

Oh you thought TESCREAL sounded fancy huh? Well I'll raise you a BIGGER word!

Searching Reddit has really become standard practice for me, a testament to how inhuman the web as a whole has gotten. What a shame.

Many ordinary people lost their jobs and homes during the Great Recession, while no one at the top was ever held individually accountable. Knowing the dynamics of the tech world, a hard crash would likely end up playing out the same way.

Absolutely. We already sanction Russian oligarchs for the same reasons, why should we treat the American ones any different honestly.

Wow, the term 'epistemically humble' is ingenious really. I don't have to listen to any critics at all, not because I'm a narcissist, oh no, but because I'm so 'epistemically humble' no one could possibly have anything left to teach me!

How much money would be saved by just funneling the students of these endless ‘AI x’ programs back to the humanities where they can learn to write (actually good) science fiction to their heart’s content? Hey, finally a way AI actually lead to some savings!

That’s an AI governance PhD right there!

Bill Gates is having a normal one.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/26/bill-gates-on-ai-humans-wont-be-needed-for-most-things.html

Yeah, I suppose academia and the tech industry are quite different things, for all their problems.

Still, there’s a way to critique systemic issues without mixing it up with self-aggrandizement and the implication that all your coworkers except a few friends are idiots. He really reminds me of Nassim Taleb in that regard, who (among other things) has made some valid criticisms of IQ but whose style is just a bit too much for my sensibilities. ‘Benevolent griftiness’ seems just the right descriptor here. =)