Wikipedia

TESCREAL

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TESCREAL is an acronym neologism, proposed and advocated by Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres, standing for "transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism."[1]

Gebru and Torres allege this movement allows rich benefactors to use the threat of human extinction to justify societally expensive projects. They consider it pervasive in social and academic circles in Silicon Valley centered around artificial intelligence.[2] As such, the acronym is sometimes used by them to criticize a perceived belief system associated with Big Tech.[3][2][4][5]

Analysis

According to opponents of these philosophies, TESCREAL describes overlapping movements financially endorsed by Big Tech companies to provide intellectual backing to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI) and other big projects.[1][3][6] One columnist, using the example of space colonization, argued it allows billionaires to pursue massive personal projects driven by a right-wing version of science fiction, by arguing that not pursuing such projects presents an existential risk to society.[7] Using the threat of extinction, 'TESCREALists' can justify any "attempts to build unscoped systems which are inherently unsafe."[1][3] Ethan Zuckerman argues that by only considering goals that are valuable to the TESCREAL movement, futuristic projects with more immediate negatives, such as racial inequity, bias, and environmental degradation, can be justified.[8]

One author argues that by both ignoring the human causes of societal problems, and over-engineering solutions, TESCREALists ignore the context that many problems arise from.[9] TESCREAL is alleged by another author a tool to concentrate power by tech elites.[6] One writer argues TESCREAL is considered an "ends justifies the means" movement that is antithetical to "democratic, inclusive, fair, patient, and just governance".[3]

Gebru and others have likened TESCREAL to a secular religion, especially over its parallels to Christian theology and eschatology.[1][2][7][10]

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

Much of the discourse around an existential risk from AGI occur among supporters of the TESCREAL ideologies.[3][8][11] TESCREALists are either considered "AI Accelerationists", in that they consider AI the only way to pursue a utopian future where problems are solved, or "AI Doomers", in that they consider AI likely to be unaligned to human survival and cause human extinction.[8][10] Despite the risk, many AI Doomers argue that only by developing and aligning AGI first can existential risk be averted.[12]

Torres and Gebru argue that both AI Doomers and Accelerationists use hypothetical AI apocalypses and AI utopian futures to justify unlimited research, development, and deregulation of algorithms. By considering only far-reaching future consequences, creating hype for unproven technology, and fear-mongering, Torres and Gebru allege TESCREALists distract from the impacts of disproportionately harming minorities, and causing major societal and environmental impacts.[1][4]

Bias against minorities

Some writers argue that the various philosophies in TESCREAL had ideological forebears to previous philosophies used to provide justification for genocide.[1][6][12] Some figures in the movement have been alleged to be racist and sexist.[1][11][13] One opinion writer notes that TESCREAL leaders aim to "colonize" the future by engineering their perfect vision of a technological utopia.[14] Torres and Gebru go as far as to argue that TESCREAL advocates for a second wave of new eugenics.[1][15]

Alleged "TESCREALists"

Both Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have been alleged to express sympathy with some TESCREAL movements.[4] Some writers consider Elon Musk's Neuralink to pursue TESCREAList goals.[4][14] Some AI experts have complained about the focus of Musk's XAI company on existential risk, arguing that it and other AI companies have ties to TESCREAL movements.[16][17] One author considers Musk's natalist views as originating from TESCREAL ideals.[3]

Sam Altman and much of the OpenAI board has been described as supporting TESCREAL movements, especially in the context of his attempted firing.[3][16][18][10] Torres claims that most at OpenAI believed in merging AI with humanity. Gebru likened the conflict between AI Accelerationists and AI Doomers to a "secular religion selling AGI enabled utopia and apocalypse".[10] Gebru and Torres have urged Altman against pursuing TESCREAL ideals.[5]

Nick Bostrum and Eliezer Yudkowsky have also been alleged to be among the leaders of TESCREAL fields.[2][4][11] Torres alleges that Bostrum and others has argued for global surveillance and targeted violence to prevent industrial collapse and extinction.[19] Torres also alleges that Bostrum’s Future of Humanity Institute promoted TESCREAL ideals.[20]

After the fall of FTX, some trustees responsible for returning money to consumers alleged that Sam Bankman-Fried donated property for some groups allegedly tied to TESCREAL movements.[13] In particular, trustees demanded the return of $5 million from an organization named "LightCone".[13] LightCone had held conferences on the property that hosted liberal eugenicists and other speakers with racists and misogynistic histories.[13]

William MacAskill, who had frequently collaborated with Bankman-Fried to coordinate philanthropic initiatives, has also been alleged to be affiliated with the TESCREAL movement.[3]

Marc Andresson, an advocate of "AI accelerationism," embraces the label TESCREAList when discussing AGI, arguing that AGI could save countless future potential lives.[8][6]

Torres claims that transhumanism, extropianism and singularitarianism are presented as a coherent set of ideas by Ray Kurzweil, a notable technology evangelist and AI researcher at Google.[3]

Criticism

Ozy Brennan, writing in a magazine affiliated with Effective Altruism Forum, has criticized Torres's approach of grouping different philosophies as if they were a "monolithic" movement. They argue Torres has misunderstood these different philosophies, as well as had taken philosophical thought experiments out of context.[21]

James Pethokoukis, of the center-right American Enterprise Institute, disagrees with criticizing proponents of TESCREAL. He argued that the tech billionaires criticized in a Scientific American article for allegedly espousing TESCREAL had achieved significant accomplishments with their wealth to advance society.[22]

Other Uses

Neşe Devenot has used the TESCREAL acronym to also refer to "global tech elites" who promote new uses of psychedelic drugs as mental health treatments, not because they want to help people, but rather so that they can make money on the sale of these new pharmaceuticals, as part of a deliberate plan to increase inequality.[23]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Gebru, Timnit; Torres, Émile P. (2024-04-14). "The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence". First Monday. doi:10.5210/fm.v29i4.13636. ISSN 1396-0466.
  2. ^ a b c d Torres, Émile P (15 June 2023). "The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares". TruthDig. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Troy, Dave (1 May 2023). "The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — the Weird Ideologies Behind Silicon Valley's Rightward Turn". The Washington Spectator. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e Ahuja, Anjana (10 May 2023). "We need to examine the beliefs of today's tech luminaries". Financial Times. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  5. ^ a b Russell, Melia; Black, Julia (27 April 2023). "He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction". Business Insider. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d Pejcha, Camille Sojit (2024-05-23). "Techno-futurists are selling an interplanetary paradise for the posthuman generation—they just forgot about the rest of us". Document Journal. Retrieved 2024-06-29.
  7. ^ a b Stross, Charles. "Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real". Scientific American. Retrieved 2024-06-27.
  8. ^ a b c d Zuckerman, Ethan. "Two warring visions of AI". www.prospectmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-06-29. If the principles of justice, equity and representation were governing the conversation, we would be paying more attention to whom AI systems include and exclude. Working to collect knowledge and perspectives from marginalised populations of the global south, and ensuring these were integrated into the knowledge production systems of the future, would be a way to look at challenges much more immediate than the distant danger of killer AIs. Integrating such perspectives would help us build truly human knowledge tools, far removed from the TESCREAL complex of ideas. We should challenge both what's in our technology and the values of those who are building it.
  9. ^ Hendlin, Yogi Hale (2024-04-01). "Semiocide as Negation: Review of Michael Marder's Dump Philosophy". Biosemiotics. 17 (1): 233–255. doi:10.1007/s12304-024-09558-x. ISSN 1875-1342. Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres (Troy 2023) describe via the acronym TESCREAL – "Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Efective Altruism, and Longtermism" – the desire to remake the world in the image of control based on assumed full understanding of biological, chemical, and physical complexity, as the apex of the dump. TESCREAL includes the belief that humans are too stupid to fnd alternative ways of solving our problems, so we should just engineer out of the hole that we have dug for ourselves. It simultaneously takes for granted that 'humanity' as a whole is the problem, rather than dysfunctional social structures, essentializing what is a rather modern mode of human existence that was forced upon the diversity of cultures by a single one. It assumes the game-theoretical dynamics of war and competition and markets as both inevitable and unavoidable, thus requiring humanity to give up our earthliness, and colonize space, colonize our own bodies through technological (rather than ecological, social, or praxis-based) human enhancement, and renounces the self-determination of humans and organisms to continue living in ecological environments from which their culture and instincts emerged. The TESCREAL agenda constitutes not only a top-down agenda assuming that infnite semiocide must be the price for survival (via AI progeny, eliding the organism-machine distinction), but it dumps everything in a gesture reminiscent of Agamben's (1998) critique of "bare life."
  10. ^ a b c d Piccard, Alexandre (2023-11-30). "'The Sam Altman saga shows that AI doomers have lost a battle'". Le Monde.fr. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  11. ^ a b c Helfrich, Gina (2024-03-11). "The harms of terminology: why we should reject so-called "frontier AI"". AI and Ethics. doi:10.1007/s43681-024-00438-1. ISSN 2730-5961.
  12. ^ a b van Rensburg, Wessel. "AI and the quest for utopia". Vrye Weekblad (in Afrikaans). Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  13. ^ a b c d Wilson, Jason; Winston, Ali (2024-06-16). "Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its $5m back". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-06-29.
  14. ^ a b Kandimalla, Sriskandha (2024-06-05). "The dark side of techno-utopian dreams: Ethical and practical pitfalls | New University | UC Irvine". New University. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  15. ^ Torres, Émile P. (2023-11-09). "Effective Altruism Is a Welter of Lies, Hypocrisy, and Eugenic Fantasies". Truthdig. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  16. ^ a b Goldman, Sharon (2023-07-24). "Doomer AI advisor joins Musk's xAI, the 4th top research lab focused on AI apocalypse". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2024-06-29.
  17. ^ Torres, Émile P. (2023-06-11). "AI and the threat of "human extinction": What are the tech-bros worried about? It's not you and me". Salon. Retrieved 2024-06-29.
  18. ^ Mok, Monica Melton, Aaron. "'Black Twitter' asks 'What if Sam Altman were a Black woman?' in the wake of ouster". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2024-03-03. Retrieved 2024-06-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ Torres, Émile P. (2023-08-23). "A Code Red Warning about TESCREALism". Truthdig. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  20. ^ Torres, Émile P. (2023-06-30). "Does AGI Really Threaten the Survival of the Species?". Truthdig. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  21. ^ Brennan, Ozy. "The "TESCREAL" Bungle—Asterisk". asteriskmag.com. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  22. ^ Pethokoukis, James (6 January 2024). "Billionaires Dreaming Of a Sci-Fi Future Is a Good Thing". American Enterprise Institute.
  23. ^ Devenot, Neşe (2023). "TESCREAL hallucinations: Psychedelic and AI hype as inequality engines". Journal of Psychedelic Studies. 7: 22–39. doi:10.1556/2054.2023.00292. Counterfactual efforts to improve mental health by increasing inequality are widespread in the psychedelics industry. These efforts have been propelled by an elitist worldview that is widely-held in Silicon Valley. The backbone of this worldview is the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies, ... While others have noted similarities between the earlier SSRI hype and the ongoing hype for psychedelic medications, the rhetoric of psychedelic hype is tinged with utopian and magico-religious aspirations that have no parallel in the discourse surrounding SSRIs or other antidepressants. I argue that this utopian discourse provides insight into the ways that global financial and tech elites are instrumentalizing psychedelics as one tool in a broader world-building project that justifies increasing material inequality.
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