AI safety is mostly a sex cult
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
AI safety is rooted in a sex cult and millenarian movement started by fan fiction author Eliezer Yudkowsky.
SE Gyges argues that AI safety discourse originates from a sex cult centered on Eliezer Yudkowsky, author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Yudkowsky influenced key figures like Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, and Dario Amodei, and his non-profit popularized terms like 'AI alignment.' The movement's core lives in Berkeley communes, with events like SlutCon at Lighthaven, bought with SBF's stolen FTX money. Gyges claims policy calls to 'pause' AI research stem from this doomsday cult's apocalyptic worldview, not rational evidence, and have led to dangerous proposals like waiving anti-trust laws to slow research.
What commenters are saying
Commenters are split. Some agree the movement is despicable, citing theft and sex-cult abuse, and praise open-weights models as competition. Others defend the substance, noting AI extinction risk is a real unsolved problem, and argue that critiquing sex lives is slut-shaming and irrelevant to correctness. Several discuss the quality of HPMOR as fan fiction: some call it the best HP fanfic and an effective recruitment tool; others call it boring and terrible literature, successful only due to incestuous community dynamics.