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Why talk about how nuts the AI rationalist sex cult is, and not just focus on the (very real) risks and harms of AI? Well, when we're discussing "who should get to regulate AI, and how," I think it's VERY relevant to talk about the antisocial, unsettling ways many people running US AI think.

If we want to actually get a chance to regulate AI sensibly, we have to get these crazy millenarian cultist weirdos out of the powerful positions too many currently occupy. To accomplish that, we absolutely need more normal members of the public to realize that they *are* crazy weirdos.

It becomes a LOT easier to argue to the general public that we shouldn't let the AI industry regulate itself when you can ALSO produce clear evidence that much of the AI industry appears to be steered by genuinely crazy weirdos with anti-social and anti-human ideas.

I am intensely in favor of regulating AI (and I have been advocating for and reporting on ethical tech and tech regulations for a long time). But I'm afraid we won't get a chance to do that if the wacko millenarian cultist faction is able to control the regulatory process (as they're trying to do).

The timing is good for this, because the public appears to be a lot angrier about mass surveillance, the unethical and pervasive use of AI, and general Silicon Valley overreach than they've ever been before. People are a lot more interested in hearing critiques of big tech than I can ever remember.

So no, I just don't think that talking about how weird these people are is some sort of galaxy brain propaganda distraction that actually benefits the same set of unethical big AI pushers. I think we do in fact need to talk about the weirdness if we want to get a chance to regulate AI.

I mean, i don't trust people who believe in race science to do much of any good, anywhere.

Also, what @queengwenevere.bsky.social said. Emphasizing how creepy and weird a lot of big AI has become is also a key way to convince politicians not to play footsie with them -