Post by @blakestacey@awful.systems

2026-09-16 05:27 UTC

Unsurprisingly, the Coxon dipshit who is getting all the press for quitting his cushy AI-industry job is a MIRI fanboy: I’ve been associating with rationalists for almost a decade. Their ideas were compelling and you can’t deny their foresight. The founders of every superintelligence effort are all bound up in the rationality sphere. Sam Altman and Greg Brockman used to frequent the MIRI offices. If MIRI was Sam Altman’s old stomping ground, and the AI industry is so evil he can’t work in it, isn’t this an argument that MIRI was either a failure or bad all along? The way I relate to rationalists is it’s like the bizarre hypertrophied physiques on specialized athletes. In my opinion they have weirdly specialized minds that make them uniquely correct about topics removed from daily experience. These “specialized minds” can also make them off-putting to many people. I don’t know if I’d consider myself a rationalist. I am intuitively opposed to polyamory, veganism, and consequentialist intuitions. But I certainly trust them to be correct about factual questions. “I’m intuitively opposed to culinary traditions that people have been developing for hundreds of years, but gosh dang it, when they talk about the Machine God torturing a billion simulated copies of me unless I tithe my income to a Harry Potter fanfiction writer, I’m sold!” Every time this dorkus is in the news, remember, he’s an absolute wanker.

Replies (5)

@lurker@awful.systems 2026-09-16 06:14

Least surprising news of the week If MIRI was Sam Altman’s old stomping ground, and the AI industry is so evil he can’t work in it, isn’t this an argument that MIRI was either a failure or bad all along? Plus Anthropic-the company he quit for being irresponsible-being heavily tied to EA/rationalism. Not exactly the best endorsement These “specialized minds” can also make them off-putting to many people. The eugenics endorsing also does a pretty good job with that

Open ##4718270
@Soyweiser@awful.systems 2026-09-16 08:39

Their ideas were compelling and you can’t deny their foresight Ah yes, the AI did almost kill everyone with custom bacteria.

Open ##4721832
@BioMan@awful.systems 2026-09-16 08:50

Is there a place to see this other than getting an account on that site?

Open ##4722037
@swlabr@awful.systems 2026-09-16 09:02

you can’t deny their foresight. skill issue

Open ##4722184
@lagrangeinterpolator@awful.systems 2026-09-16 12:40

It is very funny how the rhetoric from the rationalist doomers has been one of the main forces propping up the AI industry. If they’re saying AI will be powerful enough to kill us all, they’re still saying that AI is powerful! They are so high on their own supply (and the fame and wealth from finally being in the spotlight) that they have not realized just how much they have undermined their own cause.

Open ##4724836