Aug 20, 2026, 9:11 PM@esoteric_programmer @emilymbender Well, yes, but don't see it as cynical or a hack on their part.
It is because they got got themselves by the trick!
It write like a human with a context and an internal model enough that they believe it is one!
They are projecting meaning and making meaning for it to the point that they cannot accept that it does not have a meaning making ability in itself. So they use language made for meaning making entities.
Aug 21, 2026, 7:07 AMThat's a difficult distinction to make, because
1) They (LLM pushers) are plenty cynical and plenty hacky (see the article about Dark Money in Philosophy promoting eugenics for a parallel of a corrupted field and how people act in it)
2) They are absolutely fooled by their petard (apologies for mangling old Shakey).
So... difficult.
Aug 21, 2026, 7:46 AM@androcat @esoteric_programmer @emilymbender Oh I know. I have been monitoring LessWrong stuff for a decade at least now. That is the thing. Even the eugenics one *do believe their shit*.
Aug 21, 2026, 7:50 AMMy condolences.
I had a friend who was into that shit.
Luckily for me, I am into Hume, so I wasn't much impressed by their fawning over that priest, what'shisface.
The one who made a nonsensical rationalization of evaluating the impact of evidence, which in practice is unworkable unless you're willing to just input whatever you need to input to make it work.
Might as well use deduction for self-deceit, as it does the same thing in fewer steps.
Aug 21, 2026, 8:02 AM@androcat @esoteric_programmer @emilymbender Oh It is ok, I find it pretty entertaining to see how .... deep into the shitshow they go.
And Yudkowsky is the name you were searching for
Aug 21, 2026, 8:04 AMNo, Eliezer is just the wannabe cult leader.
Bayes, that's that priest I was thinking of.
"Bayesian analysis" is the magic potion Eliezer started out selling.
Self-deceit with extra steps.
@androcat @Di4na @emilymbender isn't that the statistical algorithm behind many spam filters?
Aug 21, 2026, 8:08 AMYes and no.
If you are working in a statistical world where everything is numbers, you can use that sort of tool, because the things you have to plug in to make it work are also numbers.
And most importantly, you can immediately see whether it is working or not.
But if you're a human, your world is made of experiences, not numbers.
And then, like deduction, it's just a fancy way of telling yourself what you want to hear.
Perfect for a cult.
And yes, LLMs are based on a similar thing. Those weights are a dead giveaway.
Aug 21, 2026, 8:22 AM@androcat @Di4na @emilymbender O yeah, very similar concept indeed. When these algorithms were first invented, talking about the spam filters, were there people who claimed that those programs are sentient and are hallucinating and so on, or is this a recent thing LLM boosters use?
Aug 21, 2026, 8:29 AMI think "hallucination" may be a more recent development, but people have always anthropomorphized algorithms, so thinking it's sentient is almost a given. It's just very simple in a normal application, so it's a bit hard to make such a claim seriously.
But if you string together a network of nodes, each performing such a function, I fully expect it will be thought to be sentient by people who wish to fool themselves.
@androcat @Di4na @emilymbender interesting! I thought this is recent, especially because before, these algorithms were mostly bounded and made to solve specific classes of problems instead of being put everywhere like people do now with AI, but yeah, I suppose this isn't new when considering the ELIZA effect.
Aug 21, 2026, 8:42 AMThere was a huuuuuuuge spat of hypemongering around some very early algorithms for approximating pattern recognition in the 1960s (?) as well.
I don't remember the name of that particular thing, but it was an electronic method for pattern recognition at a very simple level.
It's just one big splash of self-deceit after another, isn't it?
Aug 21, 2026, 8:33 AMEssentially Bayes' theorem is often purported to be "the mechanism for induction", but obviously it is not.
Induction (in Humean non-terms, since Hume never gave it a name) is the brain function.
Bayes is just an attempt to do with formal machinery what biology does naturally.
@Di4na @esoteric_programmer @emilymbender
"The drug addicts are so in love with their own drug they think it's medicine" is an incredibly too generous take.