A close reading of prophetic fiction in the age of artificial superintelligence
AI as Christian Heresy
A pocket history of the rise of artificial intelligence, and some strategies for resistance.
Michael I. Jordan on AI: “Superintelligence is science fiction”
AI as Social Technology
Our debates about ‘AI’ grow out of 1990s science fiction. Back then, Vinge (1993) wrote essays and novels urging us to face up to the oncoming “Singularity”: a moment of rapid change that would fundamentally transform the human condition. On that day, AI would rapidly evolve from merely human-level intelligence, what some now call ‘artificial general intelligence’ (AGI), into something super-intelligent with its own interests and goals. Humanity would then either be casually eliminated by out-of-control machines, or humans would become as gods, with super-human servitors at our command.
II. From AGI to Superintelligence: the Intelligence Explosion - SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
AI progress won’t stop at human-level. Hundreds of millions of AGIs could automate AI research, compressing a decade of algorithmic progress (5+ OOMs) into ≤1 year. We would rapidly go from human-level to vastly superhuman AI systems. The power—and the peril—of superintelligence would be dramatic. Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that
Import AI 462: Superpersuasion; self-sustaining AI; paths to ASI
How religious are beliefs in the singularity?
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies is a 2014 book by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. It explores how superintelligence could be created and what its features and motivations might be. It argues that superintelligence, if created, would be difficult to control, and that it could take over the world in order to accomplish its goals. The book also presents strategies to help make superintelligences whose goals benefit humanity. It was particularly influential for raising concerns about existential risk from artificial intelligence.
The Same Old Fantasies Behind AI and New Technology
A review of Adam Becker, “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity” (Basic Books, 2025).
Big Mother: The Technological Body of Evil
A bold examination of artificial intelligence, consciou…
The Age of Wonders and Terrors
Twenty years ago, when the idea of AI taking over the world in our lifetimes still struck most of us as the unconstrained fantasy of those who knew too much science fiction and too little science, …
Banning Superintelligence: Are We Building Humanity's Replacement? with Roman Yampolskiy
‘I Don’t Think We’re All F***ed Anymore’
Kevin Roose’s new book explores the terrifying implications of AI, but he’s feeling a bit more sanguine these days.
Marxism in the Age of AI
Taking stock of the last three years of development in AI technology, Nicolas D. Villarreal argues that Artificial General Intelligence is a genuine possibility with major implications for the future of class struggle on Earth.
Import AI 458: Reckoning with the future; and a singularity story
What AI-driven miracles will happen this year?
StoryScope: Investigating idiosyncrasies in AI fiction
As AI-generated fiction becomes increasingly prevalent, questions of authorship and originality are becoming central to how written work is evaluated. While most existing work in this space...
Thousands of AI-written, edited or ‘polished’ books are being sold – an eerie echo of Orwell’s ‘novel-writing machines’
In ‘1984,’ George Orwell envisaged a world in which books were a mass-produced commodity no different from ‘jam and bootlaces.’
Noam Chomsky - "The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding"