David Gross

AI Doomerism in 1879

I’m reading George Eliot’s Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879)—so far a snoozer compared to her novels. But chapter 17 surprised me for how well it anticipated modern AI doomerism. In summary, Theophrastus is in conversation with Trost, who is an optimist about the future of automation and how it will free us from drudgery and permit us to further extend the reach of the most exalted human capabilities. Theophrastus is more concerned that automation is likely to overtake, obsolete, and atrophy human ability. Among Theophrastus’s concerns: * People will find that they no longer can do labor that is valuable enough to compete with the machines. * This will eventually include intellectual labor, as we develop for example “a machine for drawing the right conclusion, which will doubtless by-and-by be improved into an automaton for finding true premises.” * Whereupon humanity will finally be transcended and superseded by its own creation, which can do anything we can do but faster, more precisely, and with less fuss. * Though Trost insists that such machines will require human skill to construct and operate and interpret, Theophrastus thinks there is no reason to believe that they may not eventually come to build, repair, and feed themselves, at which point this “must drive men altogether out of the field.” * In such a scheme of things, consciousness is an unnecessary and obsolete inefficiency. “[T]his planet may be filled with beings who will be blind and deaf as the inmost rock, yet will execute changes as delicate and complicated as those of human language, and all the intricate web of what we call its effects, without sensitive impression, without sensitive impulse: there may be, let us say, mute orations, mute discussions, and no consciousness there even to enjoy the silence.” I attach the chapter below: Impressions of Theophrastus Such Chapter XVII: Shadows of the Coming Race My friend Trost, who is no optim

139May 13, 2025

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Listing the virtues from Claude’s “Constitution”

Anthropic has released the “Constitution” document (formerly known as the “Soul document”) that guides the characteristics of Claude. As others have noted,[1] this document is strikingly virtue-ethics-like, in contrast with the sorts of utilitarian (e.g. maximize human welfare) or deontological (e.g. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics) guidance that are sometimes...

Jan 2620

FWIW: What I noticed at a (Goenka) Vipassana retreat

> tl;dr: I went to a typical 10-day Vipassana Center retreat. I had some hopes going in for what I might get out of it and those were mostly fulfilled. I had some worries that it might be creepy, icky, cringe, or in some other way awful, and for the...

Oct 26, 202538

Notes on Righteousness and Megalopsychia

This post examines the virtues of righteousness and megalopsychia. As with my other posts in this sequence, I focus less on breaking new ground and more on synthesizing the wisdom I could find on the subject. I wrote this not as an expert, but as someone who wants to learn....

Jul 7, 202512

AI Doomerism in 1879

May 13, 2025139

Existentialists and Trolleys

How might an existentialist approach this notorious thought experiment of ethical philosophy? > “Not only do we assert that the existentialist doctrine permits the elaboration of an ethics, but it even appears to us as the only philosophy in which an ethics has its place.” ―Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of...

Feb 28, 20255

The Philosophical Glossary of AI

> It is hard to know what to make of claims like “LLMs are intelligent”, “we have reached AGI”, or “AI’s outputs are biased” without a grasp of the definitions of the terms ‘intelligent’, ‘AGI’, and ‘bias’. And yet, many do just this. Interdisciplinary debate would be easier and more...

Jan 14, 202511

Notes on Altruism

This post examines the virtue of altruism. I’m less interested in breaking new ground, more in synthesizing the wisdom I could find about this virtue and how to cultivate it. Much about altruism on LessWrong and nearby sites concerns “effective altruism,” which takes altruistic motivation as a given and investigates...

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David Gross

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David Gross

AI Doomerism in 1879

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David Gross

Listing the virtues from Claude’s “Constitution”

FWIW: What I noticed at a (Goenka) Vipassana retreat

Notes on Righteousness and Megalopsychia

AI Doomerism in 1879

Existentialists and Trolleys

The Philosophical Glossary of AI

Notes on Altruism

AI Doomerism in 1879

Notes on notes on virtues

Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses.

Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil: A Report on the Beguilings of Evil

Listing the virtues from Claude’s “Constitution”

FWIW: What I noticed at a (Goenka) Vipassana retreat

Notes on Righteousness and Megalopsychia

AI Doomerism in 1879

Existentialists and Trolleys

The Philosophical Glossary of AI

Notes on Altruism