Scott Alexander Pens Open Letter Rebutting Steven Pinker's AI Risk Skepticism
NathanpmYoung · x · 2026-10-07
Scott Alexander publishes an open letter to Steven Pinker, following up on their social media spat over AI risk. After Alexander publicly challenged Pinker to a debate and was flooded by podcasters and influencers offering to host it, he apologizes for the unintended harassment.
Pinker had replied that in-person debates aren't truth-seeking and reiterated his arguments for why AI may not be dangerous, inviting a respectful response. Alexander's letter takes up that invitation, engaging Pinker's arguments point by point — a representative clash between AI-risk advocates and skeptics.
Related event: Scott Alexander's Open Letter to Steven Pinker Ignites AI Risk Debate(10 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Ethan Mollick: AI will spark two science revolutions — re-reading all literature, then speeding up discoveries — emollick · 2026-10-07
- OpenAI reasoning models went from basic arithmetic to decades-old math breakthroughs in two years — daniel_mac8 · 2026-10-07
- The New Skill in the Math-Proof Era: Spending Verification Effort Where Errors Cost — dbreunig · 2026-10-07
- Richard Ngo's hard sci-fi Tinker sketches how AI designs chips for its successors — teortaxesTex · 2026-10-07
- tszzl: Don't be an uncomprehending audience clapping at the AI magic show — Afinetheorem · 2026-10-07
- VraserX: Personal AI agents like Grok Bot, Muse and Dot will soon be everywhere — VraserX · 2026-10-07