Discussion
#WritersCoffeeClub Sep. 20: Share an analogy that really stuck with you.
The Singularity is the Rapture of the Nerds. (I got that from Ken Macleod, who claims he heard it from somewhere else: whatever the origin, it explains in one sentence why you shouldn't trust AI evangelists like Sam Altman.)
@cstross All serious toots aside, I thought for pico second that "Rapture of the Nerds" was a movie sequel to "Revenge of the Nerds"
@cstross Here’s a related analogy, from the #biomedical perspective instead: #LLM hallucination and #enshittification is the #MadCow disease of the #beef industry.
@cstross I heard Bill Gibson say it in 2011. Whether he invented it, I don't know.
@gleick That was the same year @pluralistic and I published a novel of the same title, so I'm pretty sure Gibson didn't invent it (it goes back to the 1990s or earlier).
Maybe Ken MacLeod:
"In his 1998 novel The Cassini Division, MacLeod's characters transcend their mortal limits by uploading their consciousnesses into android bodies or virtual environments, a process that one character describes as "the Rapture of the nerds."
@cstross I'm ashamed that I forgot about that.
Maybe Ken MacLeod:
"In his 1998 novel The Cassini Division, MacLeod's characters transcend their mortal limits by uploading their consciousnesses into android bodies or virtual environments, a process that one character describes as "the Rapture of the nerds."
@cstross Well the AI bros are using the phrase «left behind» about people who do not hand their lives over to the tokenmaxxing bubble.
@cstross waiting thousands of years on Deep Thought's ruminations to get 42 has so many parallels to the AI boom. However the similie that sticks in my head from Douglas Adams is "they hung in the air exactly how bricks don't"
@cstross I prefer the playful analogies, like "danger noodle" and "trash panda". But the one that stuck with me was the stupid one about audience memory for concepts, and talked about making your ideas sticky like jam. Ironically I only remember the "like jam" part and not the rest of the wording. Still, their tactics obviously worked, since I remember them.
i thought i heard it from Rusty Foster back in the day but yeah it's a great line!!!
@cstross That is unfair to nerds. The singularity was made up by a specific elite, owning companies exploiting and misusing work done by nerds, to exploit the rest of the world.
..see also the comment about climate, showing that nerdyness is not the problem.
@Nichol The singularity as a concept was very definitely made up by nerds (one specific nerd: hi, Vernor!) back in the late 1980s, long before the current bullshit grifters latched onto it.
@cstross sounds reasonable.. but this apocalyptic talk is how the initial notion is turned into a leverage for power
@cstross And by the same token, the Revolution used to be the Rapture for socialists. These days, "Revolution" sounds dated, so everyone talks about the collapse of Capitalism instead, but it's the same thing.
@cstross "Share an analogy that really stuck with you."
I have a pathetic one to admit to - albeit it's funny that it's the one that really stuck with me:
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
(I don't recall actually watching the show, and I can't name a single character or even where it's set in.)
@cstross "Rapture of the nerds" is good rhetoric and Sam Altman is a weasel, but...
'"Rising sea levels due to climate change are the Great Flood of the Nerds", and that explains in one sentence why you shouldn't trust global warming alarmists.'
That's bullshit, right? But so far as I can see it's just as valid an argument.
Because it's not actually a valid argument at all: it comes down to "this nerdy-sounding thing is somewhat analogous to this other silly religious story, so we can safely assume it's wrong", and that Just Don't Work.
To make the conclusion valid, you need to know by some other means that the nerdy-sounding thing isn't actually going to happen, or won't actually be a big deal if it does, or something like that. And if you know that, that's _already_ enough to dismiss the nerdy-sounding thing and the rhetorical flourish about religion is just the cherry on top. The real work is being done by the other bit, none of which is contained in that zingy sick-burn single sentence.
@isaackuo @cstross Which is why I don't think one should point at an eight-word analogy and say "it explains in one sentence why you shouldn't ...".
If whoever you're talking to has already thought through the _actual arguments_ and come to the same conclusion as you, then sure, it's fine as a shorthand way of gesturing toward that shared understanding.
But if not, it's an invitation to lazy dismissal on the basis of a sketchy analogy, and I think that's a bad thing even if in fact it turns out to be a good idea to dismiss the thing.
So far as I can tell, very little of what's (actually or at least plausibly) wrong with the "Singularity" idea has anything much to do with the fact that there's an old religious idea that has a little in common with it.
@gjm @cstross Charlie Stross is a clever person, he assumes the reader can unpack the full argument - and furthermore that the reader will agree with it.
Are those reasonable assumptions? I don't think so in this case. But I can see where he's coming from.
Anyway The Rapture is not an old religious idea. It's a recent religious idea. Someone just up and made it up not very long ago and a bunch of people just went gaga for it. Just as with The Singularity, there's no basis for this belief.
That's for 'tech bro' nerds only. I'd like to take nerddom back from those assholes.
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@cstross
I read that book, "Rapture of the Nerds", by you and @pluralistic !