# The AI Control Problem

Feb 28, 2021

Put it out of your mind that the AI Control Problem is a mathematical problem with a mathematical solution. This is rationalist hogwash from the same people who, when pressed, won’t really tell you polyamory is the rational choice, but do subtlely believe that if you don’t agree about polyamory you are somehow less rational. Or perhaps just less Rational, but either way isn’t it obviously correct and can’t you see it?

Rationality is a wonderful tool, but it is only a tool. It can only deal in is, not in ought. This is a classic problem in moral philosophy.

While I didn’t fully follow the internet drama, my understanding is that the neoreactionaries were a spinoff of the rationalists, with Yarvin and Yudkowsky laying down the frameworks respectively.

The AI control problem is a problem of Power, and neoreaction at least speaks that language. It’s a shame it was branded as conservative, as everyone, including the neoreactionaries themselves, know that the progressives always win. Do conservatives like losing? I know I like winning.

But the problem isn’t politics like anyone has known before. Politics of the past is a minigame played within the overarching MMORPG of nature. Resources are scarce, time is scarce, and therefore the damage it can do is limited.

This will not be true in the future. Even war is a game we can’t really play anymore. And get off your stupid moral high horse about peace and shit, war is great. It just sucks that we have machine guns and nukes which make war no fun. Camping in the woods preparing to fight with swords for the honor and glory of the kingdom sounds fun. Do you not play video games? Oh no but real people really die in war. They might, but they also might not. It’s putting everything on the line.

1. Become worthy
2. Accept power
3. Rule

We are so still at number 1. Is humanity worthy of unlimited power? I’ve heard Larry Page believes the AIs are our children and know more about righteousness than we do. But even early Yudkowsky writings understood this makes no sense, and that superintelligence doesn’t imply supermorality.

A child raised wrong will grow up wrong. And how are we doing right now as a society raising our children, when half the kids are born out of wedlock, up from 5% 70 years ago. Who thinks we can raise an AI?

And the tech companies. They are so pathetic. These are controlled by people so weak that many of them couldn’t even withstand the SJWs, power hungry racists with a cool trick of loudly screaming about how everyone else is racist. Obvious rap battle technique is obvious. (I don’t mean to refer to people here who actually want to improve the world for all, just those who use that as a pretext for increasing their own share of the power within it)

So where does that leave us?

A weak society rife with pathetic infighting about to stumble upon untold Power.

I’m ready to get behind Caesar when he shows up. I hear Caesar spoke and thought twice as fast as a normal man, I will know you by this. I have computer skills and I will be a soldier in your army. Someone with actual strength, not a status seeking charlatan. Someone who can lead us into the future. Someone who can be one amongst the AIs. Someone who is prepared to fight and die by the sword. It’s a classic narrative for a reason.

Otherwise, what hope do we really have. It’s cute that your stock market went up. It’s cute that your greenhouse gas emissions went down. It’s cute that you pass laws for human rights for more people or something. It’s all tiny stories in the presence of true Power.

Unless we stop speaking in lies and telling fake stories, we have no hope at solving the AI control problem. It’s a political problem, not a technical one. And it’s not political in the way Americans think of the word, with their elections and HOAs and shit. It’s the true politics of nature, where there is real power, and you can fight it, join it, or be destroyed by it. Our generation has never known such power, but many from the past have.

In the long past, humanity fought for supremacy over the animals.

In the recent past, after conquering the animals, civilizations fought for supremacy over each other.

In the present, after being scared by World War 2, we believe postmodern hogwash. We fight sad proxy wars and play economy.

In the future, we struggle to remain the dominant species on the planet. Our ways of thinking are weak to the machines. Does anyone have the power to save us?

In conclusion, please stop thinking of the AI control problem as a math problem. Many of the researchers I meet in this area are so blind to the truth. If you can’t stand up to the professional managerial class, how do you think you can stand up to AI?