Definitely interested in a discord-type server, assuming over-50s are allowed. I’d like to see what’s being read in the book club. I have a hard time reading books anymore because I fall asleep right away—again, over 50.
A book club would be fun! One suggested title is Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. There are so many parallels to the AI moment like economic and spiritual anxiety, lack of meaning, unbridled capitalism, displaced workers, technological advancements, etc. Very consistent with NZN’s ethos.
"Like, for example: a massively lethal global pandemic caused by a novel bioweapon made abroad with AI’s help"
The right already massively resents alarmism over covid, so good luck on this...
Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI will create tremendous unemployment, as if getting past work is bad (even assuming such massive unemployment will happen). But he's also against UBI and wants to preserve work for the sake of it allegedly providing people dignity. How much dignity a guy who'd rather play Halo with online friends gets working part-time at Grocery Outlet is an open question.
Bob's euphemistic reference to the "algorithmic headwinds" prompted me to muse about the probabilities of a climate change disaster, nuclear war wipe out, worldwide Orwellian hell, or AI- intermediated extinction occurring over any arbitrary period (I was thinking 5-10 years). Rather than waste time with notional variety in my assigned probabilities, I arbitrarily, and perhaps optimistically, chose 15% for each. While these probabilities no doubt vary significantly, choosing a single number for all has the attractive feature of simplifying the calculations. A (currently) benign AI prosthesis for my fuzzy memories of statistics provided me with the answer: a 48% probability of at least one of these scenarios occurring over the time-horizon you choose.
Definitely interested in a discord-type server, assuming over-50s are allowed. I’d like to see what’s being read in the book club. I have a hard time reading books anymore because I fall asleep right away—again, over 50.
Any thoughts on other sorts of things we might get together to discuss? We could think about films or videos, shorter reads, etc.
Yeah, for sure these would interest me. Listening in the car or on a run is convenient, also.
Hello. Whatever it will be called, I’d be delighted to join Danny’s book club
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/technology/ai-meta-google-openai-periodic.html?unlocked_article_code=1.p08.QEBC.C9jXiMmt9f2Y&smid=url-share
A book club would be fun! One suggested title is Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. There are so many parallels to the AI moment like economic and spiritual anxiety, lack of meaning, unbridled capitalism, displaced workers, technological advancements, etc. Very consistent with NZN’s ethos.
For Danny's book club I can suggest this series, which takes a more feminine view of some of the world's ills
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R2T5THG
I would join a Discord server of yours, though I have to say I’d prefer a Mastodon server.
How about for Danny’s book club “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies?”
Why not Bob’s AI book? Oh, never mind.🙃
"Like, for example: a massively lethal global pandemic caused by a novel bioweapon made abroad with AI’s help"
The right already massively resents alarmism over covid, so good luck on this...
Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI will create tremendous unemployment, as if getting past work is bad (even assuming such massive unemployment will happen). But he's also against UBI and wants to preserve work for the sake of it allegedly providing people dignity. How much dignity a guy who'd rather play Halo with online friends gets working part-time at Grocery Outlet is an open question.
Bob's euphemistic reference to the "algorithmic headwinds" prompted me to muse about the probabilities of a climate change disaster, nuclear war wipe out, worldwide Orwellian hell, or AI- intermediated extinction occurring over any arbitrary period (I was thinking 5-10 years). Rather than waste time with notional variety in my assigned probabilities, I arbitrarily, and perhaps optimistically, chose 15% for each. While these probabilities no doubt vary significantly, choosing a single number for all has the attractive feature of simplifying the calculations. A (currently) benign AI prosthesis for my fuzzy memories of statistics provided me with the answer: a 48% probability of at least one of these scenarios occurring over the time-horizon you choose.