A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “AI criticism”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott argues that dismissing AI as 'just a next-token predictor' is like dismissing humans as 'just reproduction machines' - both confuse the optimization process that shaped an entity with how that entity actually thinks.
Scott Alexander shows how he won his 2022 bet about AI image generation capabilities, tracking the progress from early failures to complete success in 2025, using this to argue against AI skeptics.
Scott Alexander bets that AI models will quickly overcome current limitations, based on how GPT-3 improved on GPT-2's shortcomings identified by Gary Marcus.
Scott Alexander critiques Daron Acemoglu's Washington Post article on AI risks, highlighting flawed logic and unsupported claims about AI's current impacts.