Written with Humzah Khan. This post is crossposted from Substack. Original here.

The AI takeover story, so we are told, is the supreme pinnacle of rationalist theory-crafting. The idea of unstoppable intelligence is so emotionally appealing, so theoretically compelling, so damn good at raising money from billionaires, that the hundreds of Ivy League graduates dropping all other pursuits to work on it are just the most tragically roastable examples of a nerdish, youthful tendency to ignore the banalities, the slowness, the thinking-doesn't-get-you-anywhereness of the real-world. An entire generation of youths oneshotted by straight lines on graphs.1 AI takeover, in the 21st century, has taken over from scholastic God-contemplation as the canonical form of speculation.

But what if I were to tell you there was a precedent for the sudden, violent overthrow of an entrenched ruling class by alien servants of their own creation? And further, what if I [...]