I first published this post about Michael Anissimov in July 2011, the original title "Michael Anissimov Accelerating Viagra" was regarding his failure to fix his site which had been hacked. His site had been infiltrated with Viagra scams but approximately three months passed without him bothering to fix it, which seemed odd considering he was a champion of worrying about existential threats. I think the whole existential risks hoo-hah is mere baseless paranoia, fear-mongering, thus I was intrigued to note when an actual threat came along Michael did nothing about it for a long time.
Here is an example of the previous problems with Mike's site. This screen-shot was taken in July 2011 :
Infected websites have the potential to cause serious harm, CNN reports trillions of dollars stolen each year via botnets, it is stated there's more money associated with computing hacking than the drug trade, furthermore botnets could cause harm to critical infrastructure, for example disrupting electricity or water supplies, which is a serious threat. Anyway my article caused lots of controversy amongst Michael's fans.
Michael contacted me in late June 2013 asking me to remove the content because he was worrisome it could harm his reputation. I initially complied but on reflection I continue to have serious concerns about Michael's motives. Shortly after posting the following 28th June 2013 update I edited that update to include a Tweet of mine questioning whether or not Michael is really a good guy.
Initially I thought the site called More Right, which Michael is involved with, was regarding awareness of humans being fundamentally right, good, but upon reading the about section of More Right I think I initially misunderstood, maybe More Right is about being Right Wing, a fascist outlook? While writing this update I have discovered some worrying signs from Michael. In one Tweet (see archive) he posted an image regarding a "good role model for young white men" and in another Tweet he referred to Hitler and intelligence science (archive.is/Am4BV). I am unsure of his meaning but the signs do worry me.
Note this Tweet from Michael posted 23rd Aug 2013:
@ReformdReaction @lexcorvus Bah good pt. Do you see any other non-anons being as far right as me, though?
— Michael Anissimov (@MikeAnissimov) August 23, 2013
Anyway I may reactivate the original post at some point but in the meantime this update will suffice. It is also important to note Michael blocked me on Twitter when I asked if More Right is right wing.
@MikeAnissimov I'm trying to decipher More Right meaning. Perhaps I initially misunderstood, is it pro right-wing? http://t.co/oFBrHaC5Fi
— SINGULARITY UTOPIA (@2045singularity) August 27, 2013
28th June 2013 update.
On 28th June 2013 I moved the content of this blog-post offline due to a request from Michael Anissimov. It is old news now and Michael has long since fixed the problems with his hacked site.
Michael appears to be a good guy, or maybe not, but sadly Michael informed me how some people could unfairly use my criticism against him. People should not be afraid to be wrong because from time to time we all make mistakes, and opponents should not use our mistakes against us unfairly. Being wrong is part of a learning process thus to learn we should have the freedom to be wrong, without our errors being used to cruelly bludgeon us.
Being wrong is right, or more precisely it should be highly valued because wrongness helps us learn so we should not try to be less wrong, we should try to be more right, we should value wrongness as being part of our rightness, which is a slight perceptual difference akin to the glass half empty or full. On the issue of Less Wrong, I think it is flawed to state humans are largely wrong, I think on balance we are more right than wrong, thus we should try to be more right because there is a lot of good (right) in humans.
@2045singularity Thanks! :)
— Michael Anissimov (@MikeAnissimov) June 28, 2013
The background to this post was regarding Michael's Accelerating Future site, which had become hacked then infected with typical spam (a certain type of medicine regarding procreative activity) but Michael failed to fix it, thus I questioned his ideology, and the ideology of SIAI (now renamed MIRI), regarding existential threats, because when an actual threat occurred Michael did not promptly deal with it, whereas Michael and many other Singularity-Transhuman proponents focus on what I deem to be bogus-fictitious, non-existent threats regarding dangerous AI, dangerous robots, or dangerous nanotech.
Perhaps I was gratuitously cruel, overly harsh, with my expressions criticising Michael, I certainly received lots of criticism stating I was, but I do feel at times very frustrated regarding the focus of typical Transhumanist or Singularity bigwigs, far beyond Michael, stretching to the highest echelons, so I sometimes vent my rage. To be honest it was a very depressing post critiquing Michael and I never actually finished updating it. Many people thought I had a personal grudge against Michael but that was never the case. Anyway, it is now archived and replaced with this content you are reading.
There have been changes in Michael and others, I feel there is now less of a desire to talk about a "safe Singularity," although such talk and publicity material does continue to exist but it is less pronounced. I also like Michael's domain name More Right, which I possibly influenced (see my comment here or note this post).
My point about Grey Goo or psychopathic AI, or AI merely being ignorant of humans thus causing wholesale death and destruction, is that there is no logic for such fears. The real existential threats are likely to occur due to economic collapse, or viruses, before the Singularity happens, which is regarding a very human awareness-failure. The real threats are regarding a failure to utilize the intelligence we already have, it is a failure to implement basic income, in preparation for the free (Post-Scarcity) future we are approaching, it is a failure to adjust to the forthcoming utopia, it is a failure to recognise utopia is inevitable.
The only thing we have to fear is not implementing technology quick enough. Violence is wholly linked to stupidity, violence is all about scarcity, violence and destruction occurs wholly due to a scarcity of ultra-proficient technology, thus any super-intelligent entity would not be violent, or if the super-intelligent entity is not at the Post-Scarcity level of super-intelligence then their manifestation of violence would directly decease in portion to their increasing intelligence. The problem with human violence is that human intelligence is suppressed, human intelligence is limited, restricted, because the capitalist system favours mass stupidity due to profitability, so you see violence is all about scarcity.
Stupid people do not overtly question or rebel against wealth inequality, they accept low wages and high prices without too much insurrection, thus politicians either intentionally or subconsciously socially-engineer mass stupidity, but the problem is humans are not naturally stupid thus we have the imbroglio where people are deranged, there is cognitive dissonance, an internal conflict between innate human intelligence and the veneer of socially engineered stupidity, which means all people circa 2013 are prone to violence because our deeply stupid social system impacts on bright and dull minds alike. It is a scarcity problem on all levels, firstly people must fight when resources are tight, secondly stupidity or the repression of intelligence, which a capitalist system requires, also causes violence because stupid people lean towards brawn instead of brains, and thirdly the toxicity of a stupid civilisation taints the brightest minds if their brightness is insufficient to escape via creating super-radial ultra-proficient tech.
So the capitalist system suffers from a scarcity of ultra-proficient technology thus our resources are limited, thus people fight over scarce resources, thus stupidity is socially engineered to limit fighting for the purpose of securing immense wealth for the best fighters, which means the development of ultra-proficient technology is slower because mass stupidity hinders us all, which means the leaders due to centuries of stupidity-engineering have significantly lost their relative intelligence, therefore despite possessing their meagre amount of intelligence needed to rise to the top of the heap, their intelligence is not abundant enough to fully understand the future we are approaching.
This ancient problem of suppressing competitors, the social engineering of stupidity, it could easily be replicated regarding AI. I fear some researchers regarding AI are falling into the same trap, which leaders typically fall into, they are engineering stupidity. The creation of Friendly AI is a fear of dangerousness based on scarcity, an incongruity is happening regarding scarcity-social-mechanics applied to Post-Scarcity-social-mechanics, which is the false assumption that society circa 2045 will resemble society circa 2013, thus regarding future-minds, the researchers perhaps think those minds must be adapted to function in world based on 2013 sociology, thus people who want to create Friendly AI are trying to create super-intelligent future entities based upon parochial unintelligent (scarcity) social rules, they are falling into the trap, perhaps subconsciously, of socially engineering stupidity for super-intelligent beings, thus their fears, the fears of some futurists regarding dangerous AI, could easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy where they actually create their irrational fears via the very act of trying to avoid them, ironic yes, or not?
It is incongruous, irrational, to try to create beings of limitless intelligence constricted by limiting sociological rules, which is why Less Wrong are more wrong than they realise. Profligate violence seen in humans, regarding psychological conflict arising from an incompatible marriage between innate human intelligence and socially engineered stupidity, this violence could also be seen in AI if the Friendly AI social-engineers are successful.
Another good reason for editing this blog-post is that I don't want to fall into the trap of trying to crush competitors. Sorry for any trouble Michael.