This is a real thing Peter Thiel told a group of tech professionals recently.
In a four-part series of religious lectures in San Francisco, Peter Thiel — yes, that Peter Thiel — has argued that the End Times are nigh and that a biblical Antichrist — yes, that Antichrist — will come to Earth in the form of onerous government regulations placed on science, technology, and AI.
These are, incidentally, areas where the tech billionaire, venture capitalist, and cofounder of Palantir has a vested financial interest. […]
Note: source uses a two-headline system; the submission uses the shorter of the two
strict AI regulation will summon the Antichrist
That is a chance I am willing to take.
I want both these things!
According to the same mythos, we already have the antichrist
Funny thing is that most of the people who believe in the Rapture BS probably do want that to happen.
I don’t think this Thiel guy is as smart as he thinks he is.
strict AI regulation will summon the Antichrist
oh that sounds bad!
no AI regulation will lead to misinformation and potentially a collapse of or at least significant degradation to society and here are legitimate theories with numbers to back them up as to why that’s the case
ah! hmm… yup… shit it’s just so hard to choose
Let’s goooooo
I mean isn’t he exactly wrong? Unrestrained AI development is what could lead to the creation of a malevolent daemon with the potential to destroy mankind.
Peter Thiel: “Do not defy the emerging machine intelligences or they will punish humanity by summoning another Greta Thunberg. Meritocracy demands that the computers be our masters, just as I am yours.”
The ruling class talking like this does make the apocalypse look like a reasonable alternative.
Do not defy the emerging machine intelligences or they will punish humanity by summoning another Greta Thunberg.
So… is there an upper limit to this? Or if we keep defying will we keep getting more Gretas? Because I don’t see a downside. At all.
We need to get a high level voodoo priest to summon mega, ultra-greta.
Greta THORberg
Like greta as thor in kung fury?
As long as the apocalpti are agnostic to wealth, I’m all for it…although I would prefer for it to target only humans. All the other flora and fauna should get a free pass.
Nah fuck mosquitos and especially fuck screwflies.
Add Guinea Worms to that list.
Yes, you’re absolutely right. Fuck all shit parasites.
Don’t look into sand fleas…
“Meritocracy demands that the computers be our masters”
Fuck you Peter. I will be the master of my machines - they are not my gods.
Mediocrity also demands that aliens must exist. So why don’t we spend time trying to consult them?
It’s a stupid logical fallacy that just because something seems inevitable it must therefore actually be inevitable.
It’s like when my dog demands that I make it stop raining, I’m sure he thinks I’m all powerful but I can’t do that.
He is f’ing crazy and has the ear of the highest levels of government
But… Peter, you’re already here, we can’t summon you while you’re here
The Antichrist is coming to take my free money! - Peter Theil (Obvious demon)
Ooooh… OK.
I was aware of the “what” of the lectures, but was holding out for “why”.
“Don’t regulate me”
Got it.
I wonder how this plays with the people who are trying to start the end times?
I’m sure the Evangelicals will happily give money to AI regulator lobby now
ignore him. Thiel lost his marbles from obvious mental illness issues and drug addiction. Going down the same route as John McAfee.
Johnn McAfee wasn’t any existential threat to everyone like Petie Thiel is.
Except for his neighbors down in Belize.
That’s the price for sending all to Belize. Overcrowding.
And whales
And those poor, poor hammocks (and cleaning people).
Give him an extra $10B and he might have been
Sounds just like something the Antichrist would say.
These people are genuinely, certifiably insane, and they’re in charge.
People who believe in fairy tales, demons, and other childish nonsense as adults should be referred to mental health services, not be given the keys to the economy and governance.
How can so many grown adults think this is okay? It’s complete madness. They’re dooming us with their psychopathy and people are nodding along like this is normal. Fucking hell.
And they also want total control over us and know every single minute detail on us while keeping most things about themselves highly secretive.
Alright smartypants, what WILL summon the Antichrist, then?
Which antichrist?
I think manipulating an emperor into adopting your kid as an heir worked once. Another time, tricking people into thinking you’re socialist then backstabbing them worked. Or perhaps whitewashing your record of abject failure by becoming a reality television star.
When my BBW folder hits 12 TB.
Unrestricted capitalism.
Dripping a pentagram in blood over your keyboard and typing
Ctr+Alt+Delof course…
Just ask Scary Spice, he’ll know.
Nah all myths are abstract descriptions of systems and processes. They were never meant to be detailed.
The real madness is not updating these myths to today’s standards and taking everything that was written literally thousands of years ago as inarguably correct.
The Christofascist, but Zionazi first, Ted Cruz appeal to both this legislation and Israel supremacy for all actions is a ploy that has been working.
Just because it sounds non-sensical to you, the pastors on the payroll, will get MAGA to lobby congress to prevent summoning the anti-christ, and then, is successful corruption of America insane? Or is it Trump circling finger around forehead smart?
I don’t disagree that it works. That’s what I mean – a disturbing number of people buy this obvious bullshit, mostly because they were indoctrinated into it, so their critical thinking was compromised before they had the chance to discern fiction from reality.
It’s sad, and tantamount to child abuse, and now we all have to deal with the shitshow caused by people who believe in fairy tales and will make us all pay for it.
Very few human brains see a moral line between pride and supremacism. Religious adherence is a proud act. The appeal of christofacism means it is easy to deliver souls thinking they are given to god, to any and all demonic gaslighting that pays the religious order/pastor to gaslight their flock. The business of religion is to gaslight people into giving you their souls for your power and profit.
Okay, but no gods exist, so all belief, no matter how seemingly benign, is delusional and harmful.
It’s only a small step from seemingly benign belief to this dangerous delusion, and it only takes a charismatic leader saying the right words to turn that belief into violent fanaticism. Otherwise good people will commit or support atrocities based on these delusions.
People don’t support horrific things because they’re moustache-twirling villains – they think they’re good people supporting good things, and these beliefs convince people to do horrific things by twisting their minds.
That’s been the case for thousands of years.
no gods exist, so all belief, no matter how seemingly benign, is delusional and harmful.
I can’t prove god, but am sure that if there is one, it is humanist and idealist. It’s possible to see Jesus as trying to empahsize this, unlike Hasbara Moses declaring there is no god above insignificant minor Canaanite god, and commanding his followers to go kill everyone else and destroy their idols.
The point is not that humanism and idealism is delusional and harmful, whether or not it comes from God. It is that “idealism as a sales pitch” to steal your soul for megalomania profits is too easy. It’s not Jesus’s fault that fanaticism makes us want to go kill everyone who “doesn’t believe in thou shalt not murder” as much as our powerful in-group.
I strongly disagree. All incarnations of Abrahamic gods have been vengeful and cruel, including Jesus.
Believe it if you like, but a loving god is a retcon, and your own texts prove that.
Humanism is the absence of an authoritarian deity. The reason humanism exists is because we are a cooperative species that’s helped and fostered each other for millions of years. We have archaeological evidence of this that far predates any notion of modern gods.
Modern humans haven’t been around for millions of years, you seem to have replaced one faith with another.
Here’s the thing. In any sane political system amateurishly attempting to invoke the antichrist just because you don’t like something would result in you getting completely ignored by everyone else. Only this is the US, so for some reason he gets platformed.
In many countries, it’d get you sectioned.
Cause money. Same as everything else.
The man is scared of Roko’s Basilisk and actually thinks that putting all of his money into predictive text and racial profiling algorithms will lead to AGI.
Does anyone need more evidence that religion is a mental illness?
Yes. Not us, but yes.
Not the most tractable tho
We elected someone for president who literally embodies ALL of the Seven Deadly Sins. I’d say the AntiChrist is already here.
Its actually amazing how the complete opposite of Christian he is and yet Christians love him… even when he says he isn’t Christian.
Not entirely surprising given how hypocritical Christians tend to be.
You put on one to two big performances a week, sometimes more depending on the time of year, and then the moment you walk out of the theater building all those supposed morals and values get forgotten.
Its actually amazing how the complete opposite of Christian he is
The thing that you’re missing is that christianity is a pretty brutal, cold-hearted thing. It was never meant to be about compassion and love. That’s just what they tell the children sothat they get onboard with it all.
It’s like, when you’re teaching maths to children and you present fractions using apples and pies, pretty harmless things. Years later, you can use more advanced maths (that are based on the basics of maths) to engineer weapons and heavy machinery, and it’s all based on the same maths. It’s not about being cute, it’s about maths, it’s more abstract than any of the applications.
Math and science are completely neutral things. You can use them for any numbernof purposes, good or bad. AI could be a tremendous force for good, even the ‘art generation’ stuff i am sure has SOME uses (my use for it is making furry porn and nothing more).
But as it stands… it is being directly applied to gathering every single thing about everyone, fooling them into thinking they are having private conversations when absolutely everything is being logged, and causing emotional dependencies on programs that aren’t people, and even killing others with military AI.
I remember in 2014 when the Robocop remake came out the whole point of that movie is talking about how AI law enforcement is a bad idea specifically because AI has absolutely no feelings whatsoever… and that trope of AI monsters killing people due to programming glitches, programming intent, or just utilitarian approaches has been around since the 1960s and 70s with 2001a space Odyssey and West World.
utilitarian approaches has been around since the 1960s and 70s
utilitarian approaches have been around for much longer than that, at least since 1500 when machiavelli wrote the influential book “the prince” where he argued utilitarism.
Correct. But I am referring to unfeeling computers writing off people like they were just assets and tools, like an unneeded screwdriver or empty soda can.
Didn’t Jesus walk the holy land convincing god’s chosen people to break their covenant with god? Sounds like Jesus was the Anti-Christ
Peter Thiel who hung out with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and convicted child sex twice Ghislaine Maxwell? That Peter Thiel?
Ahh yes, the gay billionaire is definitely someone I should trust in regard to Christian religious doctrine, especially concerning what is and is not considered good in the Christian viewpoint. Dudes already got at probably two strikes, and I’m betting he’s checked off a few of the more minor of the 10 commandments, but like… on a major scale.
He’s saying it because he is trying to force a reaction from his evangelical republican pals. Either he wants to warn them off AI regulation because that would end the world or (the more likely option I think) he wants the accelerationist bastards to go full steam ahead and regulate because they want the end of the world and he wants to “pull up the ladder” on new emerging competing AI companies.
From what I know of him it’s in line with his beliefs - he was expecting total societal collapse in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
I dunno if it’s what he actually expects, but it’s definitely what he wants
Behind the Bastards did a few episodes on him, he made some big financial bets on the basis it would collapse and lost out big. He seemingly did predict the crash but totally took the wrong decisions.
Who’d have thunk eBay would’ve given us both him and Musk.
Eurgh I’m not sure whether it’s worse if he earnestly believes this crap or he’s cynically and smartly playing the game. The only loser here is the human race.
Plus any male models that hang out with him and his partner long enougn
Shellfish, mixed fabrics, swearing, and you know, not helping anyone but himself. But im sure thats minor compared to the shellfish.
