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Once more unto the breach

Roose does a very nice job signaling in the second paragraph what sort of book this will be. He decided to write it the night after partying with ketamine-snorting effective accelerationists. He isn’t e/acc himself, but he hangs with that crowd and accepts their premises as newsworthy,

That is a very distinct type of book. I expect it’ll tell me things about Bay-area AI circles that I don’t already know (because I’m not there, and I don’t run in those circles). I also expect it’ll project their confidence while leaving it unchallenged, in ways that frittata the hell out of me.

Page 5. This is also the type of book that takes Amanda Askell completely seriously. I am not sure I can do that, personally. But I will try my best. (IYKYK)

(Still page 5) “Today, it’s clear not only that AGI is possible but also that, in some sense, the hard part is already done.” 🤯😡 Okay, so the problem for me here is that my book pub date is 2.5 months from now. And the thesis of my book is (basically) “no it fucking is not. See: history.”

(I swear this isn’t going to be a hype thread for my own book. But, also, here’s the preorder link): bookshop.org/p/books/vapo...

"Hey Kev, quick question for you, seeing as you've published your book almost 2 years after hearing that line about AGI coming in one or two years - any updates or caveats you'd like to make regarding that timeline"

Roose is a Dupe who has been told he’s Smart and On the Cutting Edge. Per the first sentence in that prologue that you ScreenCapped (thanks, btw) he is sitting on the SF BB in Feb 2025 thinking he’s living in the “strangest time” ever. I’m like: Bit*h, do you know what happened in SF in Nov1978? 🤦🏽‍♀️

*tbc: Roose writes, “…strangest time I’ve ever known.” He qualifies it but my point stands: Does he know and contextualize SF’s contemporary history pre-BigTech? Yeesh.

A lot of Musk lore is well-enough-known that you can read something into a writer’s choice of how they characterize it. Roose tells us that Musk helped launch OpenAI because he was concerned that Larry Page had radical beliefs about digital life replacing humanity. That’s Musk’s narrative. (…)

What does "radical " mean in the context "radical beliefs"? (Unsolicited opinion: "radical" is a word contributing no value to a sentence on any topic other than roots.)

Left unmentioned is that this was a philosophical argument they got into at a party, probably on a lot of drugs, in which Page made Musk look dumb and then Musk got all mad about it. These are less serious people than the text would lead you to believe.