I’m not a proponent of this mindset but this seems like an obvious mischaracterization of the argument

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Effective Accelerationism movement — a staunchly pro-AI ideology that has Silicon Valley split over how artificial intelligence should be regulated — appears to be walking a razor’s edge between being a techno-libertarian philosophy and a nihilistic, even reckless, approach to advancing one of the world’s most significant technological developments.

A riff on the effective altruism, or “EA,” philosophy touted by tech influencers like Sam Bankman-Fried and Elon Musk, e/acc took off in 2023, though its exact origins remain unclear.

A jargon-filled website spreading the gospel of Effective Accelerationism describes “technocapitalistic progress” as inevitable, lauding e/acc proponents as builders who are “making the future happen.”

In the site’s first blog post, written by anonymous e/acc proponents @zestular, @creatine_cycle, @bayeslord, and @BasedBeffJezos — who Forbes later confirmed is Guillaume Verdon, a former Google engineer who later founded the AI startup Extropic — reads “We haven’t seen anything yet.”

Billionaire Andreessen, who has written and released a 5,000-word manifesto detailing his support of rapidly developing AI, has also invested heavily in the industry — including OpenAI, per Forbes.

E/accs want to reshape society radically, alter how we work and interact, and redefine what it means to be alive, but the general public doesn’t have much of a say in AI — or enough money to have a voice.

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Even Nick Land was less annoying than these people.

Who is e/acc?

the supremacy of higher forms of free energy accumulation over lesser forms of free energy accumulation

they’ve chosen to define human existence in terms the machines will prefer… garbage in…

I am terribly surprised that ultra-rich sociopaths have no empathy toward mankind.

The real issue here is not that these people support a terrible vision of the future; it’s that we are allowing these sociopaths to run our world now.

Prediction: The world will return to something that looks like feudalism, with increased clamping on birth rates until a few rich holders remain with their human retinues solely there to entertain and flatter them. Otherwise, AI and robotics will cosset them.

Once production is automated there is little need for workers, and once knowledge work is automated there is no need for a professional and technocratic class. Consumers have nothing to spend, so they are effectively a drag on the economy of wealth.

That world then looks a lot like the time before the merchant class developed. Everything of any quality is made for the wealthy, and everyone else exists solely at the pleasure of their masters.

My view of it is that if it doesn’t go fast, we end up in a boiled frog situation where every year a few more jobs are lost but not enough for people to protest and the rich end up owning all of us like slaves after a couple of decades.

If in the space of a few years we lose virtually all jobs, it will be hard to argue against the obvious solutions like rapid nationalization of assets and fully automated communism.

I don’t understand. The economy is not only driven by production (workers/labor), but also by consumption (people, also workers).

Let’s say AI can perform the production side without any human labor. That eliminates the workers (who are also the consumers). So, what do you get when you remove most/all consumption from the economy and are left with just AI?

Its fine. Once they’ve developed AI consumers, AI can generate content for AI consumers to spend AI money on. Humans will become a second class species relegated to consuming content produced by humans. Its fine.

Accelerate towards UBI, you cowards.