e/acc Founder Beff Jezos Launches All-Out Counterattack on AI Doomers

In mid-September 2023, e/acc (effective accelerationism) founder Beff Jezos (Extropic CEO Guillaume Verdon) posted intensively on X from 09-12 to 09-13, launching a full counterattack on the "AI Doomer" camp. His central thesis: spreading panic is itself the real danger, potentially greater than AI itself.

Confirmed

Core statements: panic is the real danger and spreading fear is not a virtue (m2); doomers are "injecting cortisol into everyone, spreading their anxiety" (m8); sharing David Friedberg's interview, he called "decel psyop panic" the true threat to social welfare, noting panic-makers never pay for long-term damage and missed opportunities (m10).
On 09-13 he posted a long piece alleging the week's anti-AI events were a coordinated PR operation, citing a timeline: a doomer post algorithmically boosted to 120M+ views, Democratic politicians amplifying AI fear the same day, mainstream media coverage, MIRI's Nate Soares on Tucker, UK regulators' joint letter, etc. (m1).
Citing Martin Casado, he called a certain AI-safety-related release "the doomers' 9/11," implying premeditation (m7). He also endorsed Suzanne Scanziani's satire mocking doomers for assuming superintelligence can magically solve all physical constraints, with overnight foom violating physics (m9).
Amplifying Ramez's open-source AI summit demo, he summarized: closed-source labs are coordinating mass media campaigns and lobbying politicians to stop open-source AI—"they don't want to compete in the free market"—a "manufacturing consent, centralizing power" movement (m11).
He stated p(1984) far exceeds p(AI Doom), expressing alarm at the regulatory climate (m13).
He targeted the AI safety ecosystem: "AI Safety is the new woke," accusing an AI-doomer NGO industrial complex of becoming a new DEI-style NGO industry (m6). Citing Kevin Bass, he said "AI safety means the opposite of what its advocates claim," mocking those who sell p(Doom) while guaranteeing p(1984)=1 (m4).
In cruder posts, he mocked doomers as low-testosterone, weak, dependent on tribal authority and naturally anxious, joking that "testosterone in the water" would solve the AI doomer problem (m3).
Sympathizers: MickeySteamboat cited Beff's "Doomer is the new woke" to accuse doomers of coordinating, even illegally, to slow AI (m14); a long anti-doomer essay criticized self-appointed AI guardians for packaging research delays as "prudence," power concentration as "safety," censorship as "risk reduction," while ignoring the measurable annual costs of stagnation (m5); another thread accused parts of the MIRI school of advocating authoritarian world government by a council of "super-rationalists" (m12).

Unconfirmed

Claims of a "coordinated PR operation" and "closed-source labs coordinating media and lobbying" remain one-sided e/acc narratives based on timeline coincidences and motive inference, without direct evidence of organized coordination.
The description of MIRI advocating authoritarian world government comes from secondhand commentary and may not accurately represent MIRI's positions.

Why it matters

This was a landmark exchange in the e/acc vs. AI-safety debate: one side invokes existential risk to justify slowdown and regulation; the other fires back citing stagnation costs, power concentration, and narrative manipulation. As the flagbearer of e/acc and CEO of Extropic, Beff's "p(1984) > p(doom)" framing and "AI Safety is the new woke" charge gave the anti-regulation camp punchy slogans, directly shaping the subsequent public debate over open vs. closed source and acceleration vs. safety.

2026-09-12 ~ 2026-09-13 · 14 related posts

Full story(5 episodes)→

Episode 1: Debate Rages Over AI Doom Narratives and Control Agendas(2026-09-09, 11 posts)
Episode 2: DeepMind Researcher Publicly Warns of AI Existential Risk, Sparking Debate(2026-09-10, 4 posts)
Episode 3: e/acc Founder Beff Jezos Launches All-Out Counterattack on AI Doomers(2026-09-12, 14 posts)
Episode 4: Beff Jezos Slams AI Safety Camp as Regulatory Capture Tool(2026-09-14, 2 posts)
Episode 5: Twitter Debate Heats Up Over Superintelligence Risk Arguments(2026-09-20, 3 posts)

Primary sources

e/acc figure claims coordinated campaign to turn AI fear into regulatory capture — beffjezos · 2026-09-13 03:46 (UTC+08:00)
Beff Jezos: the panic itself is the real danger, spreading fear isn't virtuous — beffjezos · 2026-09-12 08:54 (UTC+08:00)
Extropic CEO Verdon: p(1984) far exceeds p(AI Doom) — beffjezos · 2026-09-13 04:07 (UTC+08:00)

Anti-doomer essay: self-appointed AI guardians dress coercion up as 'safety' — TinfoilTricorn · 2026-09-12
MIRI-style AI safety views attacked: doomsday rhetoric framed as power grab — repligate · 2026-09-12
e/acc Founder Beff Jezos Mocks "AI Doomer Physiognomy" in Debate Sparking Backlash — beffjezos · 2026-09-12
[source] Beff Jezos: the panic itself is the real danger, spreading fear isn't virtuous — beffjezos · 2026-09-12
e/acc camp accuses "doomers" of coordinated, law-breaking psyops to slow down AI — MickeySteamboat · 2026-09-12
beffjezos torches AI safety crowd: peddling p(Doom), guaranteeing p(1984)=1 — beffjezos · 2026-09-12
e/acc founder Beff Jezos: the Decel Psyop panic is the real danger — beffjezos · 2026-09-12
e/acc's beffjezos calls Martin Casado's jab "AI Doomer 9/11" — beffjezos · 2026-09-13
[source] e/acc figure claims coordinated campaign to turn AI fear into regulatory capture — beffjezos · 2026-09-13
e/acc Figure Beff Jezos: 'AI Safety Is the New Woke' — beffjezos · 2026-09-13
[source] Extropic CEO Verdon: p(1984) far exceeds p(AI Doom) — beffjezos · 2026-09-13
e/acc figurehead Beff Jezos rails against doomers' 'cortisol spike' campaign — beffjezos · 2026-09-13
e/acc's Beff Jezos: AI safety media push is 'manufacturing consent for power concentration' — beffjezos · 2026-09-13
Beff Jezos Mocks AI Doomers: Overnight Foom Would Violate Laws of Physics — beffjezos · 2026-09-13