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TESCREAL - Wikipedia

02 Apr 202514 min read

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Multiple philosophies used to advocate for AGI

TESCREAL is an acronym neologism proposed by computer scientist Timnit Gebru and philosopher Émile P. Torres that stands for “transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism”.12 Gebru and Torres argue that these ideologies should be treated as an “interconnected and overlapping” group with shared origins.1 They say this is a movement that allows its proponents to use the threat of human extinction to justify expensive or detrimental projects and consider it pervasive in social and academic circles in Silicon Valley centered around artificial intelligence.3 As such, the acronym is sometimes used to criticize a perceived belief system associated with Big Tech.345

Gebru and Torres coined “TESCREAL” in 2023, first using it in a draft of a paper titled “The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence”.14 First Monday published the paper in April 2024, though Torres and Gebru popularized the term elsewhere6 before the paper’s publication. According to Gebru and Torres, transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, (modern) cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism are a “bundle” of “interconnected and overlapping ideologies” that emerged from 20th-century eugenics, with shared progenitors.1 They use the term “TESCREAList” to refer to people who subscribe to, or appear to endorse, most or all of the ideologies captured in the acronym.13

According to critics of these philosophies, TESCREAL describes overlapping movements endorsed by prominent people in the tech industry to provide intellectual backing to pursue and prioritize projects including artificial general intelligence (AGI), life extension, and space colonization.147 Science fiction author Charles Stross, using the example of space colonization, argued that the ideologies allow billionaires to pursue massive personal projects driven by a right-wing interpretation of science fiction by arguing that not to pursue such projects poses an existential risk to society.8 Gebru and Torres write that, using the threat of extinction, TESCREALists can justify “attempts to build unscoped systems which are inherently unsafe”.1 Media scholar Ethan Zuckerman argues that by only considering goals that are valuable to the TESCREAL movement, futuristic projects with more immediate drawbacks, such as racial inequity, algorithmic bias, and environmental degradation, can be justified.9 Speaking at Radio New Zealand, politics writer Danyl McLauchlan said that many of these philosophies may have started off with good intentions but might have been pushed “to a point of ridiculousness.”10

Philosopher Yogi Hale Hendlin has argued that by both ignoring the human causes of societal problems and over-engineering solutions, TESCREALists ignore the context in which many problems arise.11 Camille Sojit Pejcha wrote in Document Journal that TESCREAL is a tool for tech elites to concentrate power.7 In The Washington Spectator, Dave Troy called TESCREAL an “ends justifies the means” movement that is antithetical to “democratic, inclusive, fair, patient, and just governance”.4 Gil Duran wrote that “TESCREAL”, “authoritarian technocracy”, and “techno-optimism” were phrases used in early 2024 to describe a new ideology emerging in the tech industry.12

Gebru, Torres, and others have likened TESCREAL to a secular religion due to its parallels to Christian theology and eschatology.1313814 Writers in Current Affairs compared these philosophies and the ensuing techno-optimism to “any other monomaniacal faith
 in which doubters are seen as enemies and beliefs are accepted without evidence”. They argue pursuing TESCREAL would prevent an actual equitable shared future.15

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

Much of the discourse about existential risk from AGI occurs among supporters of the TESCREAL ideologies.91617 TESCREALists are either considered “AI accelerationists”, who consider AI the only way to pursue a utopian future where problems are solved, or “AI doomers”, who consider AI likely to be unaligned to human survival and likely to cause human extinction.914 Despite the risk, many doomers consider the development of AGI inevitable and argue that only by developing and aligning AGI first can existential risk be averted.1817

Gebru has likened the conflict between accelerationists and doomers to a “secular religion selling AGI enabled utopia and apocalypse”.14 Torres and Gebru argue that both groups use hypothetical AI-driven apocalypses and utopian futures to justify unlimited research, development, and deregulation of technology. By considering only far-reaching future consequences, creating hype for unproven technology, and fear-mongering, Torres and Gebru allege TESCREALists distract from the impacts of technology that may adversely affect society, disproportionately harm minorities through algorithmic bias, and have a detrimental impact on the environment.51317

NeƟe Devenot has used the TESCREAL acronym to refer to “global financial and tech elites” who promote new uses of psychedelic drugs as mental health treatments, not because they want to help people, but so that they can make money on the sale of these pharmaceuticals as part of a plan to increase inequality.19

Claimed bias against minorities

Gebru and Torres claim that TESCREAL ideologies directly originate from 20th-century eugenics1 and that the bundle of ideologies advocates a second wave of new eugenics.120 Others have similarly argued that the TESCREAL ideologies developed from earlier philosophies that were used to justify mass murder and genocide.718 Some prominent figures who have contributed to TESCREAL ideologies have been alleged to be racist and sexist.162122 McLauchlan has said that, while “some people in these groups want to genetically engineer superintelligent humans, or replace the entire species with a superior form of intelligence” others “like the effective altruists, for example, most of them are just in it to help very poor people 
 they are kind of shocked 
 that they’ve been lumped into this malevolent 
 eugenics conspiracy”.10

Criticism and debate

Writing in Asterisk, a magazine related to effective altruism, Ozy Brennan criticized Gebru’s and Torres’s grouping of different philosophies as if they were a “monolithic” movement. Brennan argues Torres has misunderstood these different philosophies, and has taken philosophical thought experiments out of context.23 James Pethokoukis, of the American Enterprise Institute, disagrees with criticizing proponents of TESCREAL. He argues that the tech billionaires criticized in a Scientific American article for allegedly espousing TESCREAL have significantly advanced society.24 McLauchlan has noted that critics of the TESCREAL bundle have objected to what they see as disparate and sometimes conflicting ideologies being grouped together, but opines that TESCREAL is a good way to describe and consolidate many of the “grand bizarre ideologies in Silicon Valley”.10 Eli Sennesh and James Hughes, publishing in the blog for the technoprogressive Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, have argued that TESCREAL is a left-wing conspiracy theory that unnecessarily groups disparate philosophies together without understanding the mutually exclusive tenets in each.25

According to Torres, “If advanced technologies continue to be developed at the current rate, a global-scale catastrophe is almost certainly a matter of when rather than if.” Torres believes that “perhaps the only way to actually attain a state of ‘existential security’ is to slow down or completely halt further technological innovation”, and criticized the longtermist view that technology, although dangerous, is essential for human civilization to achieve its full potential.2623 Brennan contends that Torres’s proposal to slow or halt technological development represents a more extreme position than TESCREAL ideologies, preventing many improvements in quality of life, healthcare, and poverty reduction that technological progress enables.23

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has self-identified as a TESCREAList.109 He published the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” in October 2023, which Jag Bhalla and Nathan J. Robinson have called a “perfect example” of the TESCREAL ideologies.15 In the document, he argues that more advanced artificial intelligence could save countless future potential lives, and that those working to slow or prevent its development should be condemned as murderers.79

Elon Musk has been described as sympathetic to some TESCREAL ideologies.5132119 In August 2022, Musk tweeted that William MacAskill’s longtermist book What We Owe the Future was a “close match for my philosophy”.27 Some writers believe Musk’s Neuralink pursues TESCREAList goals.528 Some AI experts have complained about the focus of Musk’s XAI company on existential risk, arguing that it and other AI companies have ties to TESCREAL movements.2930 Dave Troy believes Musk’s natalist views originate from TESCREAL ideals.4

It has also been suggested that Peter Thiel is sympathetic to TESCREAL ideas.51331 Benjamin Svetkey wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that Thiel and other Silicon Valley CEOs who support the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign are pushing for policies that would shut down “regulators whose outdated restrictions on things like human experimentation are slowing down progress toward a technotopian paradise”.31

Sam Altman and much of the OpenAI board has been described as supporting TESCREAL movements, especially in the context of his attempted firing in 2023.133214 Gebru and Torres have urged Altman not to pursue TESCREAL ideals.33 Lorraine Redaud writing in Charlie Hebdo described Sam Altman and multiple other Silicon Valley executives as supporting TESCREAL ideals.13

Self-identified transhumanists Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky, both influential in discussions of existential risk from AI,22 have also been described as leaders of the TESCREAL movement.51622 Redaud said Bostrom supported some ideals “in line with the TESCREALists movement”.13

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was a prominent and self-identified member of the effective altruist community.34 According to The Guardian, since FTX’s collapse, administrators of the bankruptcy estate have been trying to recoup about $5 million that they allege was transferred to a nonprofit to help secure the purchase of a historic hotel that has been repurposed for conferences and workshops associated with longtermism, rationalism, and effective altruism. The property hosted liberal eugenicists and other speakers the Guardian said had racist and misogynistic histories.21 

Longtermist and effective altruist William MacAskill, who frequently collaborated with Bankman-Fried to coordinate philanthropic initiatives, has been described as a TESCREAList.14919

Footnotes

  1. Gebru, Timnit; Torres, Émile P. (April 14, 2024). “The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence”. First Monday. 29 (4). doi:10.5210/fm.v29i4.13636. ISSN 1396-0466. Archived from the original on July 1, 2024. Retrieved June 27, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  2. Thomas, Alexander (2024). “Systemic Dehumanization”. The Politics and Ethics of Transhumanism. Techno-Human Evolution and Advanced Capitalism (1 ed.). Bristol University Press. pp. 159–194. doi:10.2307/jj.14284473.9. ISBN 978-1-5292-3964-5. JSTOR jj.14284473.9. ↩

  3. Torres, Émile P (June 15, 2023). “The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares”. TruthDig. Retrieved October 1, 2023. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. Troy, Dave (May 1, 2023). “The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — the Weird Ideologies Behind Silicon Valley’s Rightward Turn”. The Washington Spectator. Archived from the original on June 6, 2023. Retrieved October 1, 2023. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  5. Ahuja, Anjana (May 10, 2023). “We need to examine the beliefs of today’s tech luminaries”. Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. Retrieved October 1, 2023. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  6. Torres, Emile (June 15, 2023). “The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares”. Truthdig. Retrieved September 8, 2024. ↩

  7. Pejcha, Camille Sojit (May 23, 2024). “Techno-futurists are selling an interplanetary paradise for the posthuman generation—they just forgot about the rest of us”. Document Journal. Archived from the original on June 29, 2024. Retrieved June 29, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Stross, Charles (December 20, 2023). “Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real”. Scientific American. Archived from the original on June 26, 2024. Retrieved June 27, 2024. ↩ ↩2

  9. Zuckerman, Ethan (January 16, 2024). “Two warring visions of AI”. Prospect. Archived from the original on July 1, 2024. Retrieved June 29, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  10. McLauchlan, Danyl (July 6, 2024). “Danyl McLauchlan: Silicon Valley’s cult of tech utopianism” (Interview). Interviewed by Susie Ferguson. Radio New Zealand. Retrieved July 6, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  11. Hendlin, Yogi Hale (April 1, 2024). “Semiocide as Negation: Review of Michael Marder’s Dump Philosophy”. Biosemiotics. 17 (1): 233–255. doi:10.1007/s12304-024-09558-x. ISSN 1875-1342. ↩

  12. Duran, Gil (February 12, 2024). “The Tech Plutocrats Dreaming of a Right-Wing San Francisco”. The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Archived from the original on February 26, 2024. Retrieved August 4, 2024. ↩

  13. Redaud, Lorraine (August 2, 2024). “TESCREAL, l’idĂ©ologie futuriste qui se rĂ©pand chez les Ă©lites de la Silicon Valley”. Charlie Hebdo. Retrieved August 7, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  14. Piccard, Alexandre (November 30, 2023). “The Sam Altman saga shows that AI doomers have lost a battle”. Le Monde. Archived from the original on July 1, 2024. Retrieved June 30, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  15. Bhalla, Jag; Robinson, Nathan J. (October 20, 2023). “‘Techno-Optimism’ is Not Something You Should Believe In”. Current Affairs. ISSN 2471-2647. Retrieved July 2, 2024. ↩ ↩2

  16. Helfrich, Gina (March 11, 2024). “The harms of terminology: why we should reject so-called “frontier AI"". AI Ethics. 4 (3): 699–705. doi:10.1007/s43681-024-00438-1. ISSN 2730-5961. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. Heaven, Will Douglas (July 10, 2024). “What is AI?“. MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved August 4, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  18. Van Rensburg, Wessel (June 7, 2024). “AI and the quest for utopia”. Vrye Weekblad. Archived from the original on June 30, 2024. Retrieved June 30, 2024. ↩ ↩2

  19. Devenot, NeƟe (December 29, 2023). “TESCREAL hallucinations: Psychedelic and AI hype as inequality engines”. Journal of Psychedelic Studies. 7 (S1): 22–39. doi:10.1556/2054.2023.00292. ISSN 2559-9283. Counterfactual efforts to improve mental health by increasing inequality are widespread in the psychedelics industry. These efforts have been propelled by an elitist worldview that is widely-held in Silicon Valley. The backbone of this worldview is the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies, 
 While others have noted similarities between the earlier SSRI hype and the ongoing hype for psychedelic medications, the rhetoric of psychedelic hype is tinged with utopian and magico-religious aspirations that have no parallel in the discourse surrounding SSRIs or other antidepressants. I argue that this utopian discourse provides insight into the ways that global financial and tech elites are instrumentalizing psychedelics as one tool in a broader world-building project that justifies increasing material inequality. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  20. Torres, Émile P. (November 9, 2023). “Effective Altruism Is a Welter of Lies, Hypocrisy, and Eugenic Fantasies”. Truthdig. Retrieved June 30, 2024. ↩

  21. Wilson, Jason; Winston, Ali (June 16, 2024). “Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its $5m back”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on July 1, 2024. Retrieved June 29, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  22. Brownell, Claire (November 27, 2023). “Doom, Inc.: The well-funded global movement that wants you to fear AI”. The Logic. Retrieved July 2, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  23. Brennan, Ozy (June 2024). “The “TESCREAL” Bungle”. Asterisk. Archived from the original on June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 18, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  24. Pethokoukis, James (January 6, 2024). “Billionaires Dreaming Of a Sci-Fi Future Is a Good Thing”. American Enterprise Institute. Archived from the original on June 27, 2024. Retrieved July 1, 2024. ↩

  25. Sennesh, Eli; Hugh, James (June 12, 2023). “Conspiracy Theories, Left Futurism, and the Attack on TESCREAL”. Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology – via Medium. ↩

  26. P Torres, Émile (October 19, 2021). Dresser, Sam (ed.). “Why longtermism is the world’s most dangerous secular credo”. Aeon. Retrieved July 20, 2024. ↩

  27. Kulish, Nicholas (October 8, 2022). “How a Scottish Moral Philosopher Got Elon Musk’s Number”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 2, 2024. ↩

  28. Kandimalla, Sriskandha (June 5, 2024). “The dark side of techno-utopian dreams: Ethical and practical pitfalls”. New University. Archived from the original on June 30, 2024. Retrieved June 30, 2024. ↩

  29. Goldman, Sharon (July 24, 2023). “Doomer AI advisor joins Musk’s xAI, the 4th top research lab focused on AI apocalypse”. VentureBeat. Archived from the original on June 29, 2024. Retrieved June 29, 2024. ↩

  30. Torres, Émile P. (June 11, 2023). “AI and the threat of “human extinction”: What are the tech-bros worried about? It’s not you and me”. Salon. Archived from the original on June 30, 2024. Retrieved June 29, 2024. ↩

  31. Svetkey, Benjamin (August 7, 2024). ""F*** These Trump-Loving Techies”: Hollywood Takes on Silicon Valley in an Epic Presidential Brawl”. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 10, 2024. ↩ ↩2

  32. Melton, Monica; Mok, Aaron (November 23, 2023). “‘Black Twitter’ asks ‘What if Sam Altman were a Black woman?’ in the wake of ouster”. Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 3, 2024. Retrieved June 29, 2024. ↩

  33. Russell, Melia; Black, Julia (April 27, 2023). “He’s played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman’s world, where truth is stranger than fiction”. Business Insider. Archived from the original on October 11, 2023. Retrieved October 1, 2023. ↩

  34. Wenar, Leif (March 27, 2024). “The Deaths of Effective Altruism”. Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved July 2, 2024. ↩

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