Practical philosopher Known for bringing rigorous, pro-human thinking to energy and environmental issues. Now doing the same for AI and data centers.
Laguna Beach, CA
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3 weeks ago I explained why AI doomerism ultimately depends on falsely viewing AI as a conscious, interested, competitive being.
The latest revelations re: Anthropic confirm this.
So sad, because Anthropic is an amazing company that makes amazing products.
"AI animism"
The essential position is: humans can lose control of AI assistance on an apocalyptic scale.
Ultimately this rests on thinking of LLM-running computers as conscious, interested, competitive beings.
Otherwise it’s too clear that we can only lose so much control.
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Alex Epstein retweeted
Two kinds of “enviros,”two different views on tech-neutral permitting legislation:
Those who want to reduce GHG emissions (in my view mistakenly), but it’s because they want to see humans flourish:
—> Support the permitting bill, because it unleashes all kinds of energy, and the only way to reduce global emissions is if solar/wind can win on a free market.
Those who want to reduce GHG emissions, but it’s because they hate human impact as such and want to see fewer humans on earth:
—> Oppose the permitting bill, because it unleashes all kinds of energy, and energy is good for human life.
Scoop: Enviros held a call Thurs in which progressive opponents tried to rally fence-sitters against the permitting bill. I obtained the transcript.
"We really have to have a pretty clear agreement by all parties that this is an effort to stop this bill, not to make it better"
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The term "environmentalist" blends together pro-development people who care about environmental quality with anti-development people who just want to eliminate as much human impact as they can.
The permitting reform debate is revealing who falls into which category.
Scoop: Enviros held a call Thurs in which progressive opponents tried to rally fence-sitters against the permitting bill. I obtained the transcript.
"We really have to have a pretty clear agreement by all parties that this is an effort to stop this bill, not to make it better"
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Alex Epstein retweeted
The new freedom-to-build ("permitting reform") bill is overall a huge unleashing of affordable, reliable energy.
One overlooked point is that if @freedomcaucus hadn't ended grid-destroying subsidies for wind+solar, this bill would have unleashed a lot of waste.
Now it won't.
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The best essay by a major AI CEO thus far.
@mustafasuleyman of @MicrosoftAI not only debunks "model welfare" but gives a proper metaphysical account of what AI assistance is and isn't.
mustafa-suleyman.ai/a-warnin…
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A diesel export ban was a terrible idea when Biden proposed it, and remains a terrible idea as Trump considers it.
You don't solve a diesel supply problem by disincentivizing diesel refining.
A danger: Instead of ending all the irrational restrictions that are suppressing diesel supply, the Biden admin is floating another irrational restriction: banning diesel exports. This would lead to even higher long-term prices by further disincentivizing diesel production.
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4 years ago the refining industry told the Biden administration that anti-fossil-fuel policies made it hard to add desperately-needed refining capacity.
In a letter this year, responding to Biden's accusation of "price gouging," the refining industry pointed out that it's at almost maximum utilization rates, and that additional capacity for oil-based fuels is difficult to bring online given the policy environment.
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Five-and-a-half years ago I warned that Biden canceling Keystone XL would increase diesel prices.
Here's what I find terrifying about the news that Joe Biden is planning to cancel Keystone XL. He doesn't even acknowledge (or know?) that the heavy oil we get from Canada is particularly vital given how US refineries work and the state of global oil demand (more diesel needed).
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My warning 4 years ago about anti-diesel policies.
The US is experiencing a dangerous shortage of diesel fuel.
Blame our anti-fossil-fuel politicians, who:
* Prevented us from importing Canadian oil well-suited to our refineries
* Prevented or shut down diesel-producing capacity in the US
* Threatened new investments in diesel
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To add one more point, the way we validate anything is ultimately to show that it's consistent will all our observations and contradictory with none of them.
In the case of consciousness, we know self-evidently via introspection that we have it and everything we observe about not just other humans but many other conscious biological entities confirms that they have the same basic phenomenon. And we could easily confirm aliens were conscious by observing their behavior and then opening up a few and confirming that they weren't robots.
We also understand the workings of sophisticated non-biological entities, including LLM computers, and nothing about those workings suggests consciousness.
If someone takes the position that "I am going to be on the fence about whether anything, from a human to a calculator, is conscious unless I can somehow 'empirically' look inside its mind from its perspective," then they have adopted an epistemological perspective that makes them far less function than someone with common sense. Consciousness is validated through introspection and we have no way of introspecting for any other conscious entity.
I should have said "retard philosophy" not "moron philosophy" since the literal effect is to retard people's mental development.
This is related to why so many elite philosophers/intellectuals are so dysfunctional in their personal lives.
I'm sure at this point someone will make a crack about Ayn Rand (given my deep influence by her), but the fact is that not only was she a fantastically successful person (given where she started) by almost any standard but no philosopher in the modern era has come close to inspiring as much success as she did.
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Alex Epstein retweeted
So “interesting” that this tweet does not mention the real source of China’s energy security: producing and consuming more than half of the world’s supply of coal.
The US and China followed very different energy pathways.
The US became the world’s largest oil and gas producer. China became the largest low-emissions power generator.
There is no universal energy-security playbook. mck.co/aftershocks
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The most important fact about the permitting bill is that there's still time to introduce it, review it, and vote on it.
Therefore the Senate should do this (followed by the House) instead of taking an early vacation.
It seems like there is a good permitting bill that both the Trump administration and Sen Whitehouse (!) have agreed to but it’s unclear if it will actually come up for a vote for reasons that are unclear and mostly involve various parties assuring me it’s someone else’s fault.
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To think clearly about "AI safety," we need to make a clear distinction between deliberate harm and accidental harm.
Minimizing deliberate harm from bad actors requires maximizing US AI capability.
Minimizing accidental harm requires a proper liability regime.
Trying to minimize accidental harm through a permission-based regulatory regime that reduces US AI capability is just about the most dangerous thing we could do.
(W/ @dbongino)
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