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I heard somebody say that lot of the outlandish stuff that Sam Altman and Dario Amodei and other AI leaders say publicly is really just meant for an audience of Silicon Valley people. But the rest of us can hear it too, and we're reacting differently because we're not part of the tech echo chamber.

27/10/26, 3:45 pm3 reposts7 likes

James McLeod

@jamespmcleod.ca

13h

When some AI guy says there's a 15 per cent chance that AI will kill all humans, or eliminate 80% of white collar jobs, that kind of commentary is just normal in the weird techno-ideological hot house of Silicon Valley. But these people seem crazy & scary to normies outside of that bubble.

James McLeod

@jamespmcleod.ca

13h

Anyway, I think something similar is happening with American politics. I think a lot of Trump stuff, and the overall analysis of American public opinion, hits very differently if you're an American. But the rest of us are watching and listening too, and forming opinions from outside the bubble.

brian

@unlikely.ca

I thought of an example: their visceral/emotional/ideological revulsion at the concept of “public health” leading to embracing the potential deaths of millions as preferable to a government recommending any population-wide intervention. Everything must be individual choice regardless of consequence.

brian

@unlikely.ca

In a way, these contradictions have lead directly to the absurd “conservative” and “libertarian” embrace of authoritarianism because the only political solution they can conceive is embracing the will of an “ultimate individual” (if there can’t be a strong collective there can only be a strong man).

brian

@unlikely.ca

In a way they resent the very idea of society, as impinging on their ambitions, IMO. The rest of the world see ourselves (moreso) as being within societies, as imperfect but potentially maliable (for good or ill) as they are. Radical Individualism has tied their conservatism up into contradictions.