There's a long and involved history of people in SV with wacky pseudo-religious beliefs. Back in the day it was Buddhist-influenced, then rationalism, now accelerationism is popular, and so on.
replyThere are earlier examples of eccentric religious beliefs in engineers too, like Jack Parsons and Thelema.
replyI believe most of this is just performative marketing that someone thought might be good idea... Getting big enough public persona to say that LLM is conscious at first thought sounds like very good sell...
replyThe parasitic rich are so out of touch they want to steal religions next. They also could recognize it makes sense strategically to gain the trust of the religious since that group is generally more vulnerable to manipulation.
replyman tech was about making human lives better
replyI miss the 2010s
It never was. We are reaping what was sowed years ago.
replyThe Thiel antichrist thing was a reverse Streisand effect to block out the idea from the internet that he himself is the antichrist.
replyThat idea is now ungoogleable
doesn't the antichrist say he's not the antichrist?
replyIt just automagically broadens your support base if you can get a religious justification going. It's an attempt at arguing yourself into more influence.
replyProbably the case. Makes me wonder if they're also consulting how to make a creature behave when you're a life creator, as in Anthropic is the god, and Calude is their Eve. Sort of like align the model by making it religious towards humans. I don't know, it's 2am.
replyReligion is a manipulation tool. It makes perfect sense that large tech companies occasionally find that a useful tool.
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