Katja Grace: 'optimist' is being used to smuggle in false AI-risk positions
KatjaGrace · x · 2026-10-07
AI researcher Katja Grace dissects the rhetoric around 'doomer' and 'optimist' labels in AI safety discourse: if a doomer is someone who wants to avoid doom, an 'optimist' can mean either someone who thinks AI won't go far, or someone resigned to sizeable risks to humanity. People accept this language and treat its opposite-of-true implications as real — e.g. "I'm not a doomer, I think if we work hard we can have a good future."
Related event: Katja Grace: How the 'Doomer' Label Undermines AI Risk Discourse(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Tech decades take: 1990s and 2000s invented everything, 2010s invented nothing — EddyVGG · 2026-10-07
- After 12+ hours a day with AI, she writes again: it's not just attention loss, it's memory — LadyAshBorg · 2026-10-07
- After 12-14 hours of daily AI use, one writer restarts handwriting to fight memory loss — LadyAshBorg · 2026-10-07
- AI usage inflects exponentially past capability thresholds — is research next? — menhguin · 2026-10-07
- A Decade-by-Decade Tech Recap: 2010s Delivered Nothing, 2020s Bring AGI — Darpinian · 2026-10-07
- Katja Grace: Being 'in the room' at AI labs may no longer be a high-impact path — michael_nielsen · 2026-10-07