ESSAYS

Follow my essays on artificial intelligence, ethics, and the transition to transhumanism.
You Must Be an Idiot

You Must Be an Idiot

In 1985, Microsoft was an underdog "good guy" - standing against big evil corps like IBM. In 2003, Google was an underdog "good guy" in a world of big evil corps like Microsoft. In 2016, OpenAI was an underdog "good guy" in a world of big evil corps like Google. In...

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Ambitious Tech – The Price of Productivity and Power

Ambitious Tech – The Price of Productivity and Power

This essay draws upon a longer and more business-related article on Emerj.com titled Ambitious AI, which may be of interest for readers who want to go deeper on this topic. Ambition has always required sacrifice. Anyone who strives to be powerful (in business,...

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The Death of Sardanapalus and the Birth of AGI

The Death of Sardanapalus and the Birth of AGI

We assume that the tech founders who are building artificial general intelligence (AGI) care about safety. The firms closest to creating AGI sure to talk about it a lot. If not for the safety of others, certainly for their employees. Even if they were recklessly...

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Closing the Human Reward Circuit

Closing the Human Reward Circuit

Today, Fulfilling Our Reward Circuits is "Hit or Miss": Our daily lives are an amble from one reward circuit to the next (from hunger, to boredom, etc), what we constantly desire is a change in our emotional state. Very frequently, the actions we take to satisfy our...

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Setting a Direction for AGI Ethics

Setting a Direction for AGI Ethics

How should we influence the "values" or "ethics" or "morality" of a future AGI? I'm not sure this kind of direction setting is possible, and it may be entirely futile, but it's worth thinking about. I'd argue that there is no perfect answer to this question, but there...

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Your “Dystopia” is Myopia

Your “Dystopia” is Myopia

I’m writing to you as a friend. Beliefs about the future are limiting your potential, and they're working against your future wellbeing and power. I don’t want that for you. Follow me for a minute. Imagine traveling back in time 60 years and telling your grandmother...

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Spires of Form – Emerson on Humanity Overcoming Itself

Spires of Form – Emerson on Humanity Overcoming Itself

Many of my favorite quotes of Ralph Waldo Emerson seem to point to an important overarching idea: We exist as an arbitrary point in a grand scheme of intelligence and development - and that if there be “sacredness” at all, it is more in our ascension than in our...

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