i'm reminded today of a dinner conversation i had once w one of the top MIRI folks... we talked AI safety and i felt he was playing status games in our conversation moreso than actually engaging w the substance of my questions- negging me and implying i was not very smart if i didn't immediately react w fear to the parable of the paperclip, if i asked questions about hardware & infrastructure & connectivity & data constraints... luckily i don't define myself by my intelligence so i wasn't cowed into doom but instead joined the budding e/acc movement a few weeks later. still i was unsettled by the attempted psychological manipulation and frame control hiding under the hunched shoulders and soft ever so polite voice.