Login

r/slatestarcodex

▲ 34 r/slatestarcodex

A few notes on a new strain of American Catholicism showing up around Bay Area tech

I grew up in an unusually Catholic household (one of my brother's books of amateur theology carried a preface by Pope Francis) and for a long time I was the only apostate in the family, so I'm perhaps unusually attuned to trends involving Catholicism. But over the past year or two I've noticed a lot more visible and vocal Catholics orbiting Bay Area tech (not to mention Anthropic's wooing of religious leaders). There does seem to be some data behind the impression, with Bay Area parishes reporting their highest adult-conversion numbers in years over the past few Easters.

A couple of things stand out to me. First there's the shift from conversion being a rejection of modernity (particularly in the 20th century anglophone tradition) to Catholicism being embraced by people building modernity. Then there are the related questions of moral authority, guilt and constraint.

I guess the question of which gods frontier AI engineers believe in is slightly less pressing than whether they're about to create one of their own, but I still find the trend intriguing and wonder if anyone else had noticed the same thing?

I jotted down some thoughts, but as you'll gather, more as an investigation of a rising vibe than a meticulous examination. https://morbidcuriosity.substack.com/p/is-everyone-catholic-now

If that all sounds too vague and irrational, my recent analysis of The Muppet Movie as a true Gesamtkunstwerk rests on a more empirical footing.

u/wnpwnp — 7 days ago
▲ 12 r/slatestarcodex

How did Scott find the time to write so much?

It's interesting how he managed to build such a following and write so many lengthy, well-researched articles while being in (what I assume is) a very demanding profession

reddit.com
u/deepad9 — 8 days ago
▲ 35 r/slatestarcodex

123 years ago today, a metaphor happened.

On October 7th, 1903, Charles Manly tested out the airplane engine he'd invented, known today as the Manly-Balzer engine. In accordance with nominative determinism, he himself climbed into the prototype plane while it was nestled in a catapult, sitting on a houseboat in the middle of the Potomac River. The plane had no steering or landing mechanism, but Manly assumed that even if it successfully flew, by default it would fly in a straight line, staying aligned with the river, so that he'd crash-land in the water and probably survive using his life jacket. This was incorrect. The smaller scale models had flown straight, but at human scale any plane will by default drift off course. Luckily for him, the plane was damaged by the catapult launch and fell into the water immediately.

I believe this to be an early example of performance art illustrating the dangers of neglecting AI safety.

reddit.com
u/honoredb — 8 days ago
▲ 12 r/slatestarcodex

Recommended resources on AI self-preservation and dominance drivers?

Hi, I've been reading Scott's response to Pinker, and I've found myself really interested in the three dominance drivers he briefly explains, but aside from Omohundro's 2008 article, I don't know of any other important bibliography in the field. Could anyone more knowledgeable provide me (and all others who are interested) with such references?

reddit.com
u/Committee-Academic — 8 days ago
▲ 8 r/slatestarcodex

AI and the Death of the Author

Submission statement:

Like many people here, I had an aversive reaction to a partially AI-written piece making the finals of the ACX book review contest.

But I'm also a strong believer in the death of the author: that once a piece of writing exists in the world, it ought to stand or fall entirely on its own merits. The identity and intentions of the author are irrelevant.

In this piece I try to reconcile my competing intuitions, and end up arguing that there are justifiable reasons to ban AI from writing contests that go beyond the usual ‘boo, AI sucks’.

thedeepdish.substack.com
u/richmead — 7 days ago