(Cross-posted from my website. Podcast version here, or search "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.

This essay is part of a series I'm calling "Otherness and control in the age of AGI." I'm hoping that the individual essays can be read fairly well on their own, but see here for a brief summary of the essays that have been released thus far.)

Becoming God

In my last essay, I wrote about "deep atheism" – a fundamental mistrust towards Nature, and towards bare intelligence. I took Eliezer Yudkowsky as a paradigmatic deep atheist, and I tried to highlight the connection between his deep atheism and his concern about misaligned AI.

I'm sympathetic to many aspects of Yudkowsky's view. I'm a shallow atheist, too; I'm skeptical of moral realism, too; and I, too, aspire to be a scout, and to look at hard truths full on. [...]

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Outline:

(00:25) Becoming God

(01:58) Moloch and Stalin

(10:56) Wariness around power-seeking

The original text contained 22 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 8th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fPajcaopbQ7pxztf4/when-yang-goes-wrong

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“When ‘yang’ goes wrong” by Joe Carlsmith

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“When ‘yang’ goes wrong” by Joe Carlsmith