BOLD program bets on scaling human ingenuity, not just GPUs: 'tools, not gods'
j_foerst · x · 2026-11-04
Johannes Förstner explains BOLD's mission: finding approaches to AI that scale human ingenuity rather than just GPUs and data, via purpose-built tooling in a recursive co-improvement loop.
In the thread he lays out his core stance — "we should build tools, not gods." He argues alignment isn't a technically solvable problem since "what is good" is open-ended with no right answer; BOLD instead openly builds AI that augments human abilities and empowers value-aligned groups. His interlocutor pushes back: without granting agency, you either build narrow superintelligence (like AlphaFold) or must solve how to make general intelligence non-agentic/safe.
Related event: BOLD project bets on amplifying human ingenuity over solving alignment(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- New paper: AI-flagged papers acknowledge 21% fewer informal collaborators — soumitrashukla9 · 2026-11-04
- AI Data Center Fossil-Fuel Buildout Set to Erase 15 Years of US Emissions Cuts — KyeGomezB · 2026-11-04
- "Automate the process, not the personality": dev warns against AI-driven sameness — jh3yy · 2026-11-04
- Memory without reasoning is just a filing cabinet: the case for an agent cognitive layer — jackalop211 · 2026-11-04
- "We automated the entry level" cartoon nails the broken AI career ladder — js_craft_hq · 2026-11-04
- Luis Garicano: AI economy's equilibrium hinges on whether compute, agent autonomy, or problems stay scarce — JMateosGarcia · 2026-11-04