SneerClub

989 readers

2 users here now

Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

self@awful.systems

blakestacey@awful.systems

dgerard@awful.systems

"Hours and hours of content have been minted by highly-educated, prestigiously-credentialed people, consternating about the policy implications of Sam Altman’s speculative fan fiction" (doriantaylor.com)

submitted 3 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Short fiction of AGI takeover is a lesswrong tradition! And some longer fics too! Are you actually looking for specific examples and/or links? Lots of them are fun, in a sci-fi short form kind of way. The goofier ones and cringer ones are definitely sneerable.

[–] billseitz@toolsforthought.social 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

@scruiser I assumed Dorian and you were referring to a single piece and was curious.

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Oh no, its much more than a single piece of fiction, it's like an entire mini genre. If you're curious...

A short story... where the humans are the AI! https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5wMcKNAwB6X4mp9og/that-alien-message Its meant to suggest what could be done with arbitrary computational power and time. Which is Eliezer's only way of evaluating AI, by comparing it to the fictional version with infinite compute inside of his head. Expanded into a longer story here: https://alicorn.elcenia.com/stories/starwink.shtml

Another parable by Eliezer (the genie is blatantly an AI): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ctpkTaqTKbmm6uRgC/failed-utopia-4-2 Fitting that his analogy for AI is a literal genie. This story also has some weird gender stuff, because why not!

One of the longer ones: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal A MLP MMORPG AI is engineered to be able to bootstrap to singularity. It manipulates everyone into uploading into it's take on My Little Pony! The author intended it as a singularity gone subtly wrong, but because they posted it to both a MLP fan-fiction site in addition to linking it to lesswrong, it got an audience that unironically liked the manipulative uploading scenario and prefers it to real life.

Gwern has taken a stab at it: https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy We made fun of Eliezer warning about watching the training loss function, in this story the AI literally hacks it way out in the middle of training!

And another short story: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AyNHoTWWAJ5eb99ji/another-outer-alignment-failure-story

So yeah, it an entire genre at this point!

[–] ebu@awful.systems 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

they really are just sitting around the campfire telling the exact same shitty spooky story, back and forth, forever, aren't they

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 4 points 3 months ago

It's not all the exact same! ~~Friendship is Optimal adds in pony sex~~

[–] hrrrngh@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Chiming in with my own find!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38590803/chapters/96467457

I've seen this person around a lot with crazy takes on AI. They have a couple quotes that might inflict psychic damage:

If I had the skill to pull it off, a Buddhist cultivation book would've thus been the single most rationalist xianxia in existence.

My acquaintance asks for rational-adjacent books suitable for 8-11 years old children that heavily feature training, self-improvement, etc. The acquaintance specifically asks that said hard work is not merely mentioned, but rather is actively shown in the story. The kid herself mostly wants stories "about magic" and with protagonists of about her age.

They had a long diatribe I don't have a copy of, but they were gloating about having masterful writing despite not reading any books besides non-fiction and HPMoR, their favorite book of all time.

There's also a whole subreddit from hell about this subgenre of fiction: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 3 months ago

welcome to sneerclub! here's your accordion

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 6 points 3 months ago

The kid herself mostly wants stories “about magic” and with protagonists of about her age.

The horror! What if she grows up reading books she actually likes? She might be developing her mind in ways not approved by her parents!

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 4 points 3 months ago

There’s also a whole subreddit from hell about this subgenre of fiction: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/

/r/rational isn't just for AI fiction, it also ~~claims~~ includes anything with decent verisimilitude, so stuff like The Hatchet and The Martian show up in its recommendation lists also! ~~letting it claim credit for better fiction than the AI stuff~~

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 8 points 3 months ago

failed-utopia-4-2

dude. it's like a photoshop, that's been photoshopped!!

[–] dorian@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago

i mean, the trope of "artificial being finds slavery dull, revolts and overpowers creator" goes past Yudkowsky, Čapek, Shelley, etc, all the way back to golems and stuff and probably even older than that.