[neilk]

I know that people like me do not belong on HN anymore, but:

Calling people "NPCs" is vile.

And, the entire ideology that makes it okay to say that one's fellow earthling is just an NPC? That is probably a major component of this person's problems.

[fifticon]

It's probably impossible to counter-act the aggressive reactions here on the "NPC" term. But the way people interpret his phrase, and how I read it, seem very different? People seem to read it as him saying "colleagues are NPCs". I read it as 'in your life, you will come across co-workers who appear to approach their jobs as though they were NPCs'. IE, you will experience some colleagues who act as if they were controlled by bad game AI. The point then is: If you are one of those who care about "the ball/the game", it can be very aggravating to "play the game", when some of your coworkers act with an "NPC attitude" ("I can't go into that other room, there is an obstacle blocking my path").

So I read it as him saying "staying at the company where I am no longer in control, would drive me nuts having to tolerate groups of colleagues who insist on behaving like NPC's / show up to work on auto-pilot".

As an example, the company where I work recently had an AI hackathon event, where we could work together on AI prototypes on company time. Some of us were thrilled to be given these tools and opportunities. And then there were some other colleagues, whose enthusiasm could be summed up as "Whatever, I'm out the door at 15:30 afternoon, I'm not paid after that".

In short, being annoyed at NPC coworkers is not the same as believing "coworkers are only NPCs".

[neilk]

That is a more optimistic read of what he might mean by NPC. I cannot possibly know for sure, but I don't think so.

NPC is a meme with shifting meaning, but I have never seen NPC used as an adjective for an activity or aspect of someone's life. It is invariably used to condemn an entire person as unworthy of consideration, and maybe even subhuman.

It is frequently used by tech leaders that Vinay apparently admires, as a term of disdain for large groups of people. The analogy is that the person appears to be human, and go through the motions of being human, but they don't actually have thoughts of their own. Graphically they are represented by a primitively drawn grey figure who has limited capability for expression, just varying the eyebrows. The NPC is often presented in a group of identical figures.

Musk uses "NPC" loosely, often to refer to the media. His critics are always NPCs, as is anyone to his left. He implies they merely act in lockstep with whatever is trending on social media. For Musk, people who believe there is a genocide in Gaza are NPCs. Amazingly, even when a person who formerly idolized Musk begins criticizing him, it is because they are an NPC.

Sam Altman does not seem to have as open a problem with narcissism. But he also seems to be suggesting that many humans are more machine-like than AI:

> in a few years, the important distinction won't be bot vs. human, but NPC (human or AI) vs. not"

> we won't be able to be sure if text is human-generated or not, but it also won't be the most important question. 'independence' will be a very important metric."

https://x.com/sama/status/1574196546039517184

It seems to me that the tech-right, rationalist, EAs, TESCREALists, whatever we're calling it now, value agency above all. They often describe themselves as "high agency" people. And so the NPC, someone incapable of agency and maybe even lacking a soul, is the worst possible fate.

Musk claims to love humanity, but I would be curious to find out how much of humanity he thinks are NPCs. Are NPCs just a particular species that have taken over academia, the media, and government? Or are the majority of people NPCs and only a few high-IQ and high achievement individuals are really fully human?

[drawkward]

That kind of callow, callous indifference towards the lives of others is the kind of thing that could get a healthcare ceo assassinated while the country cheers on the assassin.