Relevant: Émile Torres posted a “TESCREAL FAQ” today (unrelated to this article I assume; they’d mentioned this was in the works for a while).
I’ve only skimmed it so far, but here’s one point that directly addresses a claim from the article.
Ozy:
However, Torres is rarely careful enough to make the distinction between people’s beliefs and the premises behind the conversations they’re having. They act like everyone who believes one of these ideas believes in all the rest. In reality, it’s not uncommon for, say, an effective altruist to be convinced of the arguments that we should worry about advanced artificial intelligence without accepting transhumanism or extropianism. All too often, Torres depicts TESCREALism as a monolithic ideology — one they characterize as “profoundly dangerous.”
TESCREAL FAQ:
5. I am an Effective Altruist, but I don’t identify with the TESCREAL movement. Are you saying that all EAs are TESCREALists?
[...] I wouldn’t say—nor have I ever claimed—that everyone who identifies with one or more letters in the TESCREAL acronym should be classified as “TESCREALists.” … There are some members of the EA community who do not care about AGI or longtermism; their focus is entirely on alleviating global poverty or improving animal welfare. In my view, such individuals would not count as TESCREALists.
Having followed Torres’s work for a while, I felt like Ozy’s characterization was accurate—I’ve shared the impression that many uses of TESCREAL have blurred the boundaries between the different movements / treated them like a single entity. (I don’t have time to go looking for quotes to substantiate this, however, so it’s possible my memory isn’t accurate—others are welcome to check this if they want.) Either way, it seems like Torres is now making an effort to avoid this (mis)use of the label.
Yeah, I think Ozy’s article is a great retort to Torres specifically, but probably doesn’t extrapolate well to anyone who has used the TESCREAL label to explain this phenomenon, many of whom probably have stronger arguments.
Relevant: Émile Torres posted a “TESCREAL FAQ” today (unrelated to this article I assume; they’d mentioned this was in the works for a while).
I’ve only skimmed it so far, but here’s one point that directly addresses a claim from the article.
Ozy:
TESCREAL FAQ:
Having followed Torres’s work for a while, I felt like Ozy’s characterization was accurate—I’ve shared the impression that many uses of TESCREAL have blurred the boundaries between the different movements / treated them like a single entity. (I don’t have time to go looking for quotes to substantiate this, however, so it’s possible my memory isn’t accurate—others are welcome to check this if they want.) Either way, it seems like Torres is now making an effort to avoid this (mis)use of the label.
Yeah, I think Ozy’s article is a great retort to Torres specifically, but probably doesn’t extrapolate well to anyone who has used the TESCREAL label to explain this phenomenon, many of whom probably have stronger arguments.