literary criticism

carl feynman @carl_feynman · Jan 23 Talking about the AI industry: "The characters have various intentions—good, bad, mixed, confused—but the outcomes seem almost independent of them. The catastrophe happens not because anyone intended it but because the system had that catastrophe as its attractor." > QUOTED: Tim Hwang @timhwang · Jan 23 > Important essay dropping today on Dostoevsky's "Demons" and what's happening in AI safety and policy > > possessedmachines.com > [Link preview image: "The Possessed Machines — Dostoevsky's Demons and the Coming AGI Catastrophe — A close reading of prophetic fiction in the age of artificial superintelligence." Table of contents: Prologue, I. Topology of Madness, II. Architecture of Catastrophe, III. The Shigalyovist Turn, III-A. The Uniparty, IV. Sociology of Catastrophe, Interlude, V. Hermeneutics of Apocalypse, VI. Political Economy, VII. Our Condition, Epilogue. Quotes shown: "All my life I have been a liar. Even my truths were untrue—for I never once spoke for truth, only ever for myself." — Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, Demons. "The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else." — Eliezer Yudkowsky, Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk]