This post was cross-published on the author's Substack, Rising Tide.

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Historically, the way we’ve dealt well with rapidly evolving uncertain processes is classical liberalism.
-Dwarkesh Patel, X

I wasn’t expecting a book from 1998 to explain the 2023-2024 AI safety wars, but Virginia Postrel's The Future and Its Enemies — which I picked up at the recommendation of libertarian AI policy wonk Adam Thierer — does a surprisingly good job.

Postrel's book helped reframe something that had been bothering me. I think there's plenty to critique about AI safety ideas and the AI safety community, but when they come under fire — as has happened a lot over the past couple of years — the critiques often miss the mark. One common theme is portraying AI safety advocates as anti-technology, which is totally out of step with the nerdy, early-adopter, industrial-revolution-enthusiast crowd I know. Another recurring criticism [...]

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Outline:

(02:54) Stasism: Finding the One Best Way

(08:13) Advanced AI as a threat to a dynamic future

(10:40) Dynamism: An open-ended future

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Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.