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On changing their mind
I believe this needs to change because, as a former longtermist who published an entire book four years ago in defence of the general idea, I have come to see this worldview as quite possibly the most dangerous secular belief system in the world today.
Émile P. Torres
Philosopher and historian of existential risk; wrote Human Extinction, and coined "TESCREAL" with Timnit Gebru for the cluster of ideologies they argue underpins the AI industry.
Émile P. Torres did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
Newsletter Realtime Techpocalypse Their newsletter on AI ideology, existential risk and its critics. Has a feed.
Open realtimetechpocalypse.com
Link verified 20 Sept 2026.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 7 beliefs, 1 changed mind — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Making humanity's long-term potential the overriding priority licenses imposing real costs on people who are alive today.
The short answer is that elevating the fulfilment of humanity’s supposed potential above all else could nontrivially increase the probability that actual people – those alive today and in the near future – suffer extreme harms, even death.
Against longtermism Said 19 Oct 2021
Longtermism is not the same thing as caring about the long-term future or about future generations; it goes far beyond that.
The initial thing to notice is that longtermism, as proposed by Bostrom and Beckstead, is not equivalent to ‘caring about the long term’ or ‘valuing the wellbeing of future generations’.
Against longtermism Said 19 Oct 2021
The moral theory underneath longtermism treats people as containers of value rather than as the point of it, which is why creating more of them counts as making the universe better.
In a phrase: people exist for the sake of maximising value, rather than value existing for the sake of benefitting people.
Against longtermism Said 19 Oct 2021
Show 4 more
Effective altruism is deeply utilitarian in practice, whatever its members say about not being utilitarians.
The fact is that the EA movement is deeply utilitarian, at least in practice, and indeed, before it decided upon a name, the movement’s early members, including Ord, seriously considered calling it the ‘effective utilitarian community’.
Against longtermism Said 19 Oct 2021
The commitments of longtermism are themselves a major reason humanity faces so many risks to its survival in the first place.
For example, there’s a good case to make that the underlying commitments of longtermism are a major reason why humanity faces so many unprecedented risks to its survival in the first place.
Against longtermism Said 19 Oct 2021
A superintelligence needs no consciousness, emotions or malice to be dangerous; a goal system slightly misaligned with ours is enough.
A superintelligence whose goal system is even slightly misaligned with ours could, being far more powerful than any human or human institution, bring about human extinction for the very same reason that construction workers routinely slaughter large populations of ants.
Why superintelligence is a threat that should be taken seriously Said 24 Oct 2017
Never project human mental properties onto an artificial intelligence; the difference between the two architectures is the reason to worry, not a reason not to.
One of the most commonly emphasized points in the AI safety literature is that one must never anthropomorphize AI—that is, don’t project human mental properties onto artificially intelligent systems.
Why superintelligence is a threat that should be taken seriously Said 24 Oct 2017
Beliefs others hold too
Making humanity's long-term potential the overriding priority licenses imposing real costs on people who are alive today. 2 hold this
The short answer is that elevating the fulfilment of humanity’s supposed potential above all else could nontrivially increase the probability that actual people – those alive today and in the near future – suffer extreme harms, even death.
Against longtermism Said 19 Oct 2021
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
19 October 2021
From one piece Against longtermism 5 beliefs · aeon.co
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Their words
For example, there’s a good case to make that the underlying commitments of longtermism are a major reason why humanity faces so many unprecedented risks to its survival in the first place.
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korrents.com
Effective altruism is deeply utilitarian in practice, whatever its members say about not being utilitarians.Their words
The fact is that the EA movement is deeply utilitarian, at least in practice, and indeed, before it decided upon a name, the movement’s early members, including Ord, seriously considered calling it the ‘effective utilitarian community’.
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Their words
In a phrase: people exist for the sake of maximising value, rather than value existing for the sake of benefitting people.
+ 2 more
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Their words
The initial thing to notice is that longtermism, as proposed by Bostrom and Beckstead, is not equivalent to ‘caring about the long term’ or ‘valuing the wellbeing of future generations’.
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Their words
The short answer is that elevating the fulfilment of humanity’s supposed potential above all else could nontrivially increase the probability that actual people – those alive today and in the near future – suffer extreme harms, even death.
24 October 2017
From one piece Why superintelligence is a threat that should be taken seriously 2 beliefs · thebulletin.org
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Their words
One of the most commonly emphasized points in the AI safety literature is that one must never anthropomorphize AI—that is, don’t project human mental properties onto artificially intelligent systems.
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Their words
A superintelligence whose goal system is even slightly misaligned with ours could, being far more powerful than any human or human institution, bring about human extinction for the very same reason that construction workers routinely slaughter large populations of ants.
Nothing matches.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
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