Comment by gwbas1c
4 days ago
Many years ago I met Eliezer Yudkowsky. He handed me a pamphlet extolling the virtues of rationality. The whole thing came across as a joke, as a parody of evangelizing. We both laughed.
I glanced at it once or twice and shoved it into a bookshelf. I wish I kept it, because I never thought so much would happen around him.
I only know Eliezer Yudkowsky from his Harry Potter fanfiction, most notably Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
Is he known publicly for some other reason?
He's considered the father of rationalism and the father of AI doomerism. He wrote this famous article in Time magazine a few years ago: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no...
His book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies comes out in a month: https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuma...
You can find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky
You didn't mention LessWrong, the rationalist website he founded and the reason he got famous in the first place.
Is he trying to distance himself from it now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong
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> He's considered the father of rationalism
[citation needed]
Even for this weird cult that is trying to appropriate the word, would they really consider him the father of redefining the word?
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He writes scare-mongering books about AI doomerism such as If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.
I short, another variant of commercializing the human fear response.
Do you spend much time in communities which discuss AI stuff? I feel as if he's mentioned nearly daily, positively or not, in a lot of the spaces I frequent.
I'm surprised you're unfamiliar otherwise, I figured he was a pretty well known commentator.
I’m just joking around, I’m well aware of who he is.
I never miss an opportunity to highlight his magnum opus, it delights me that so many people take him seriously when he’s at best a second-rate fanfiction author who thinks robots from the future are going to torture copies of him forever or some such nonsense.
imo These people are promoted. You look at their backgrounds and there is nothing that justifies their perches. Eliezer Yudkowsky is (iirc) a Thiel baby, isn't he?
Yep. Thiel funded Yudkowsky’s Singularity Institute. Thiel seems to have soured on the rationalists though as he has repeatedly criticized “the East Bay rationalists” in his public remarks. He also apparently thinks he helped create a Black Pill monster in Yudkowsky and his disciples which ultimately led to Sam Altman’s brief ousting from Open AI.
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Huh, neo-Nazis in HN comment sections?? Jeez. (I checked their other comments and there are things like "Another Zionist Jew to-the-core in charge of another shady American tech company.")