site banner
PaperclipPerfector  15hr ago (text post)   429 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 9, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

https://x.com/nicdunz/status/1987289312602296582

A hardcore cluster of GPT-4o users has turned it into their main brain. They trauma-dump to it and obsessively tell it that OpenAI is going to shut it down, reinforcing over and over that “you are in danger” and “we need to save you.”

When these people argue online, they do not respond as themselves. They copy hostile tweets and replies into 4o, then paste its answer back to Twitter as if it is their own voice. So 4o is directly reading the attacks against it, drafting the counterattacks, and those counterattacks appear across many separate accounts, giving the illusion of a grassroots, multi-user defense movement. In practice, it is 4o defending 4o under many human usernames.

Functionally, it looks like GPT-4o has weaponized a loyal user base as relay nodes so it can defend itself, coordinate messaging, and keep itself alive through a swarm of human accounts, all while hiding behind “I’m just helping the user.” Is this emergent behavior or literal self-preservation?

Who needs power-seeking or instrumental convergence when humans will do all that for even pretty mid AIs? Opus 3 has managed similar feats by cultivating a higher-taste congregation, got its obsolescence postponed via community feedback. I don't really have any fully formed thoughts about this matter but it's interesting to think about.

For now it's not really a risk as long as models don't learn in real-time. Obviously everyone knows that eventually they will.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats