From Balajis on X:

NO DECENTRALIZATION WITHOUT POLARIZATION

Haseeb is right. But this is good.

Because before the events of the last few days, we had only one dominant view — and it resulted in executive orders, compute bans, and well-funded coalitions for “responsible AI.”

But all can now see that responsible AI is mainly “responsible” for destroying $80B worth of AI.

So, all the investors who thought they could safely gain status by siding with EAs now realize that doing so will cost them enormous sums of money. Like, career-ruining sums of money.

And that is extremely good.

Until just now, the future cost of a possible AI Basilisk[1] was highly visible in sci-fi, while the immediate cost of insane regulation was invisible. But now it’s reversed: the immediate cost of insane regulation is highly visible. Thus does Bastiat’s unseen become seen.[2]

Put another way: the regulation of AI by EAs would have cost us untold trillions of invisible dollars. But now those costs are seen, and visible. We all now see these decels will destroy billions without blinking. Just like the degrowthers blocking roads and throwing paint on paintings.

So, Bastiat beats the Basilisk. The very visible damage of EA regulation (“Bastiat”) now outweighs the very theoretical damage of AI domination (the “Basilisk”).

And anyone who thought EAs were harmless will reallocate accordingly to e/acc. So now we get two factions, as we do in every other sphere of tech: those who worship the centralized state and those from the decentralized network.

We just can’t avoid this polarization at this time in history. We need to embrace it. The alternative is uniparty victory and totalitarian centralization.

And I prefer acceleration.


Terms: EA: effective altruist
e/acc: effective accelerationist
decel: decelerationist (close to synonymous with EAs)