Comment by roenxi

1 month ago

I mean, this is a rather fun article to read but I'm not entirely sure about the thesis.

> AI Safety Is Mostly A Sex Cult.

> I don't think these people should make policy. (1/?)

One of the learnings from things like the whole Epstein saga has been there are a lot of sex cults in the policy making world and, yes, the people making policy generally shouldn't be. But I'm not sure this article actually comes up with a good explanation of why these particular people shouldn't be making policy. People having active sex lives isn't a disqualifying trait. Being in a cult doesn't disqualify people from being in politics. It is routine and expected that fields will have a lot of similar people in them (as I recall the overlap between security researchers and the furry community is unusual too, and that is hardly more important than justifying a passing comment).

It is more routine than the article writer seems to think for all the people in a small field to know each other and get on really well.

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roenxi

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delis-thumbs-7e  1 month ago

You do understand what a cult is? There’s a reason why we don’t let the Scientologists run the military no?

  • roenxi  1 month ago

    Because they don't get enough votes to control the military. If they put a convincing pitch in for why they should then they can. Being a cult doesn't rule them out.

    > You do understand what a cult is?

    Pretty much any religion and a few other organisations beside. Basically people who believe something strongly. What do you think a cult is, in the sense the article is using it?

    • tsimionescu  1 month ago

      No, a cult is any closed-off fanatical group that is deemed harmful to its members and sometimes to outsiders as well. The group who launched a sarin gas attack in Tokyo's metro, Aum Shinrikyo, was a cult. The Jonestown group was a cult. Scientology is often considered a cult, though this is less widely accepted (especially since Scientology is much larger).

      No one considers Catholicism, or Protestantism, or Baptism cults. There may be specific communities that are cults that claim to be parts of these churches, but that doesn't mean that "pretty much any religion is a cult".

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