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[–] [S] 45 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

The "AI safety" movement is largely built up around the personal whims of a guy called Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky is a man whose career trajectory was "Not going to high school and instead posting and consuming sci-fi -> Meeting a guy who founded a research institute just for him for no fucking reason -> Working for Oxford through a bunch of weird effective altruist guys -> Administrating a website and writing fanfiction -> Being one of the biggest voices on the subject of AI" and used every step of that to try to get laid, which has now meant that "AI safety" is largely tied up in his personal social circle, which means a sex cult.

Social advancement within "AI safety research" is built up around getting close socially with one of a few guys, and those guys exploit that position for sex and participate in and sponsor sex events like this

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  • [–] 22 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Wow this is completely outside of my sphere. Thanks for explaining, comrade!

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  • [–] [S] 31 points 2 days ago* (2 children)

    You may have heard of the Zizians. Who briefly became the subject of some notoriety because their leader, who had objected to the sex part of the AI safety sex cult, went off to start her own vegan cult. Which then committed a couple of murders

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago* (2 children)

    The whole story smells a bit like a transphobic satanic-panic so I wouldn't go all in on cult angle. And it's not clear that they commited murders, they attacked their landlord and the landlord shot and killed two of them, which for some weird legal reason is blamed on them.

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 2 days ago*

    Well, let me put it this way then: They rejected the sex part of the sex cult, aybe even the cult part too, and then spent a while messing around trying to get a compound going, people were shot, and weird shit was posted on the internet and some definitely really worrying social dynamics were involved

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I thought they killed a border crossing guard?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago*

    Three murders so far afaik:

    first the landlord by a group on the west coast, he had a gun and was threatening all of these trans kids with eviction

    then on the east coast one or more parent(s) of one of the zizians, this person was uninvolved with the first murder and allegedly killed their own parent(s)

    and a third group unrelated to the previous two incidents, who were near the Canadian border in the NE, pulled over by border patrol, and ended up killing the guard because one of these zizians was a foreigner on expired tourist visa and I guess they panicked

    The scenarios have logical and to me obviously unrelated motives, and didn't have much overlap of involved parties. Seems like a bunch of traumatized trans kids who were reacting poorly to what they truly felt were life and death situations, none of which have any clear connection to their philosophical or ideological fixations

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