[Vecr]

"Wordcel" is roon terminology, right? I highly doubt Aschenbrenner is an EA, and if he's a "wordcel" he somehow managed to do mathematical economics without too much problem.

Gwern's probably not a "wordcel" either, he can program, right? I've never seen any of his publications though.

It's called Situational Awareness too, not "Situation Report", and Yudkowsky said he didn't like it. Not that Yudkowsky is an EA either.

I think the situation is more complex than you think it is, or at least more complex than you're pretending.

Edit: oh, you're saying Gwern is an EA too? Do you have a source for that?

[throw05678931]

I didn't claim Gwern was a wordcel. He's clearly not. Dwarkesh, yes.

I didn't claim Yudkowsky was an EA. He's not. He's a rationalist who originated many thoughts about AI doom, which have influenced EAs.

Look, Gwern and Dwarkesh and Yud are all AI doomers, which is where the rationalists and the EAs overlap. Gwern is all over LessWrong, which kind of springs out of the rationalist community and has all sorts of EAs there now. But of course, the first rule of EA is the first rule of Fight Club. That's why Dario consistently denies he's an EA, even though his chief of staff was formerly running Sam Bankman-Fried's philanthropic grants.

The weird thing in these conversations between guys like Dwarkesh and Gwern is how much they wallow in the masochism of imagining a world taken over by AGI. Yud has a similar attraction to pain, but he channels it into his silly BDSM novels.

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Lords-Answer-Eliezer-Yudkowsky-e...

If that's how they wan't to spend their time, fine. Let's all just recognize it's an acquired taste, a self-indulgence, and the furthest thing from a rational act.

[Vecr]

I didn't know he wrote novels. Is there a list somewhere? I know he wrote an "autobiography" (before he did anything) and his various fan fictions (including the infamous one), but I thought everything else was either compendiums of his writings edited by others or books written by other people about him.

[Vecr]

I still don't have a list, but are you sure that's not an affectation to better mimic a combination of Atlas Shrugged and a Japanese light novel?

[throw05678931]

If affectation requires insincerity, I actually don't think Yud is insincere, at least not about his core beliefs. Do I believe it's a poorly wrought novel of ideas that fails to achieve a respectable aesthetic end? Yes. There are many ways to craft a novel of ideas and not all of them involve inflicting pain on scantily clad heroines. These are choices Yud made for the book, which coincidentally echo non-mainstream choices he has made for his lifestyle over the years.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00J6XXP9K/allbooks

[adiabatty]

> Gwern's probably not a "wordcel" either, he can program, right? I've never seen any of his publications though.

He does Haskell stuff (he mentions it on his website), but he’s even better at words than he is as a mid-tier (I guess) Haskell programmer.

Whether this counts as a “wordcel” is an exercise left to the reader.

[Vecr]

You're a "wordcel" if you can't program and you can't do math. E.g. Scott Alexander. I don't care what roon says.