This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
No, it isn't. Superintelligence does not exist yet.
Superintelligence doesn't exist yet, and something that knows
is superintelligent. That's what they were discussing. They even distinguished it later with "the AI isn't quite good enough yet".
Disliking Trump's new definition enough to object to the same word in its original definition is one of the milder cases of TDS I've seen.
And I've seen some unhinged accusations of "TDS" before, but this is pretty out there.
No, buddy. Superintelligence has a definition in AI research, and none of our existing AI is superintelligence. Trump literally issued an Execute Order requiring the federal government to call AI "SI." Federal agencies are being required to scrub references to "Artificial Intelligence" and replace it with "Super Intelligence" in all their documentation. It is absolutely retarded.
That is what I am objecting to. It's not "TDS" because I hate anything Trump does. It's annoyance that Trump issued a "deer horse" EO.
Correct. That definition was stated in the comment you're objecting to, and followed through the rest of the argument. You are the one who brought Trump's use into this subthread.
Again, correct. A comment starting with "I think that we will eventually..." is talking about the future, not the present.
...and you presumably brought up the executive order when someone was talking about arbitrarily-intelligent minds because you're overfocused on Trump.
Come on, now. I'm trying to be generous here, but "the Trump guy" who goes off using Trump phrases is noticeable, and it's not my overfocus to notice this in a thread that is largely about Trump. He's not using "superintelligence" in its normal sense, but in its Trumpian sense. I don't think you are being serious, I think you just like saying things like "TDS." There is a flip side of TDS, you know, where any criticism of Trump or Trumpish memes or Trumpish coinages triggers a knee-jerk "TDS!" response.
Fair enough. I don't track usernames enough to have caught that.
The arguments fit a lot better with Culture Minds or Asimov's androids than with GPT-6 Astra or Claude Fable 5.1, IMO. There are still a lot of problems beyond the capacity of current-gen (or even next-couple-gen) LLMs, including some of the listed examples.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I am speaking in the hypothetical. Yet-to-be-built compute will be used because demand for Superintelligence approaches infinity.
If Trump were talking about a hypothetical future when SI exists, I would shrug and think he's being optimistic and grandiose, as usual, but he literally issued an Execute Order requiring the federal government to call existing AI "SI." You calling it "superintelligence" just reads like you using Dear Leader's newly-minted buzzword. I mean, I don't recall you ever using that phrase until five minutes after Trump's EO.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link