Epistemic Status: Philosophical. Based on the debate by Togelius at NeurIPS

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all" - H.L. Mencken

The Incident

At the NeurIPS 2025 debate panel, when most panelists were discussing about replacing humans at all levels for scientific progress, Dr. Julian Togelius stood and protested vehemently. In fact, he went as far as to call it "evil".

His argument was that people need agency, love what they do, find happiness in discovering something themselves, and cutting out humans from this loop is removing this agency. He pointed to the young researchers gathered around there, and pointed out that we are depriving them of activity they love and a key source of meaning in their lives.

The first question which came up there was - what if AI finds a cure to cancer? By stopping it, we are causing harm to people with cancer etc. Dr. Togelius was actually fine with some people still dying of cancer, if [...]

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Outline:

(00:34) The Incident

(01:27) The Tweet and the Firestorm

(01:44) The Mencken Principle

(02:36) The Motte and the Bailey

(04:09) The end of Human Pre-Eminence

(05:50) Context

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First published:
December 18th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rgJGemY4RndtsGeDk/in-defence-of-the-human-agency-curing-cancer-is-the-new

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“In defence of the human agency: “Curing Cancer” is the new “Think of the Children”” by Rajmohan H

LessWrong (30+ Karma)