So, The Possessed Machines. There's been some discussion already. It is a valuable piece -- it has certainly provoked some thought in me! -- but it has some major flaws. It (sneakily!) dismisses specific arguments about AI existential risk and broad swaths of discourse altogether without actually arguing against them. Also, the author is untrustworthy at the moment; readers should be skeptical of purported first-person information in the piece.

This image comes from a different "book review" of Demons. It's an excellent piece. I highly recommend it.

Before getting into it, I want to praise the title. "Possessed" has four relevant meanings: demonic; ideologically possessed; frenzied/manically/madly; belonging to someone. "Machines" has three possible referents: AI; people; an efficient group of powerful people/institutions. There are twelve combinations there. I see the following seven (!) as being applicable.

1. Demonic machines; machines that are intelligent and evil.

2. Machines that belong to us; AI is something humanity currently possesses.

3a. Frenzied, manically productive people (AI-folk).

3b. Demonic, machine-like people.

3c. Ideologically possessed people. (They are machines for their ideology).

4a. The accelerationist AI industry.[1]

4b. The out-of-control technocapitalist machine.[2]

4c. The cabal of AI tech elites [...]

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Outline:

(02:06) Dismissal of pivotal acts

(06:22) Dismissal of calm, rational discourse

(11:06) Can we trust the author?

(11:17) 1. I think the author is being dishonest about how this piece was written.

(12:34) 2. Fishiness

(14:06) 3. This piece could have been written by someone who wasnt an AI insider

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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