Pedal to the Metal
Tue, Apr 07
It's hard to deny that America has a problem building things in 2025. From crumbling infrastructure to a lack of major scientific and technological breakthroughs since the launch of the Internet, it feels like we should be a more advanced civilization than we are — especially from the mindset of a technologist. A recent online movement has questioned this state of affairs, and has proposed a radical alternative for progress — one that ideally leads to an intelligence explosion through AI. Welcome to accelerationism.
We have three main in-class learning goals. By the end of lecture today you will:
- Trace the origins of techno pessimism and its consequences.
- Understand accelerationism and its claimed path to superintelligence.
- See how Silicon Valley VCs use perception management to give their products a boost.
The slides for today's lecture.
Read This:
@zestular, @creatine_cycle, @BasedBeffJezos, and @bayeslord attempt to meme a new technology movement into existence with Effective Accelerationism — e/acc
The venture capitalist Marc Andreesen expands the ideas of zestular et al. with his Techno-Optimist Manifesto
Do This:
Writing Reflection 09
See the instructions posted on the assignment's page.
This writing reflection is due on 4/14 at 5pm.
This Week's Dialogue Group Meeting
Find at least one hour to meet with your group to discuss the prompt of the week: Identify three virtues that are important for artificial intelligence. Refer to the CST handout and this set of Virtues in Engineering for possible virtues.
Once you have completed the readings, fill out the following quiz. If you can't see the form below, try this direct link.