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Dave Karpf

@davekarpf.bsky.social

68K followers 4.4K following 7.6K posts

Political Communication Professor at GWU. I write a lot about the history and future of tech and politics. Best known for that one time I made fun of Bret Stephens. Davekarpf.substack.com

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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 1h

Oh this is a running bit of mine. I do a live hate-read every 2-3 months. Then I turn them into book reviews.

My best ones were probably the Nate Silver book, Balaji Srinivasan’s book, and the Elon Musk biography.

(I… should really pick better hobbies.)

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 1h

Christ, what nonsense.

Their whole theory hinges on how you define intelligence. And defining in intelligence is, y’know, REALLY FUCKING COMPLICATED.

Their solution? Just make up a simple definition and hope no one notices.

IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES
In our view, intelligence is about two fundamental types of work: the work of predicting the world, and the work of steering it.

*
This viewpoint is backed up by some theory that we discuss in the online

resources. Ultimately, we won't get too hung up on definitions. If a lightning

strike sets the forest around you ablaze, you can't save yourself by cleverly defin-

ing "fire" to include only man-made infernos; you've just got to run.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

I am… committed to this bit.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

Yes, no, and yes.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

Can’t. If he mentions his OkCupid profile, I immediately douse my eyes in an acid bath.

Those are just the rules, I’m afraid.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

“Humanity could still decide not to build it.”

Calling this in advance: my biggest issue with this book is going to be their complete ignorance of how humanity *decides* things.

Their theory of social behavior is built out of discussion-board debate club. Likely to be absolutely disqualifying.

This book is not full of great news, we admit. But we're not here to tell you that you're doomed, either. Artificial superintelligence doesn't exist yet. Humanity could still decide not to build it.
In the 1950s, many people expected that there would be a nuclear war between the major powers of the world. Given the history of human conflict up until that point, there was reason to be pessimistic. Yet, to date, nuclear war has not happened.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

10/10, completely agree.

I’m a huge fan of Adam. Reviewed the book for my newsletter and even had the chance to do a book event with him.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

Yikes.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

Wanna know why Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Peter Thiel all LOVED Eliezer Yudkowsky, right up until they ignored him?

It’s because he was USEFUL to their efforts to attract funding and talent to their new companies.

If you think futurism is about accuracy, then you’re the sucker at the table.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

I’ll share a lot more on this topic once the book comes out. Short version: practically all futurism is *conditional futurism.*

People tell stories about the future in order to influence behavior in the present, and make their prediction more/less likely.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

“Some aspects of the future are predictable(…); others are impossibly hard calls. Competent futurism is built around knowing the difference.”

…look, this is unfair. My book about tech futurism doesn’t come out for another year.

But, trust me, that is NOT what “competent futurism” is about.

Some aspects of the future are predictable, with the right knowledge and effort; others are impossibly hard calls. Competent futurism is built around knowing the difference.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

“Most of what we’d like to know about the future is not actually predictable.” (Yes, fair point. Go on.)

“We can’t tell you next week’s winning lottery numbers, for example.” (…seriously, that’s your illustrative example? No. Try again.)

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 2h

Okay… so…

A thing they do well in the introduction is speak with admirable clarity at the sentence level.

That ain’t nothing.

But a thing they do poorly is speaking to the reader as though the reader was an idiot.

lottery numbers, for example. One set of numbers seems just as likely as any other.
But some facts about the future are predictable. If you, per-sonally, buy a lottery ticket tomorrow, we don't know what complicated theories or whims you'll use to pick your numbers, and we don't know what numbers will come up, but all that uncertainty adds up to a very strong prediction that you will not win the lottery. Similarly, if you drop an ice cube into a glass of hot water, it's impossibly complicated to predict where each molecule will end up ten minutes later — but all that uncertainty adds

Reposted by Dave Karpf

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

I tried to write a PSA that people can send to their elderly relatives.

Gizmodo @gizmodo.com · 1d

If You Can Read This, You're About to Get Scammed

If You Can Read This, You're About to Get Scammed

Scammers are pretending to be Elon Musk. They're stealing millions from hard-working people.

Reposted by Dave Karpf

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 9h

Sam Altman went from “AI will cure cancer" to "ChatGPT porn" in less than a month

ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.
12:02 PM · Oct 14, 2025
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1.2M
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 4h

@adambecker.bsky.social already wrote what seems like the definitive review.

I’m mostly just reading this because I’m a glutton for punishment.

www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

The Useful Idiots of AI Doomsaying

Those who predict that superintelligence will destroy humanity serve the same interests as those who believe that it will solve all of our problems.

www.theatlantic.com

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 4h

It was this or Kurzweil. And this is, at least, is shorter than Kurzweil.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 4h

Next up on my reading list.

…I am already regretting this choice.

IF ANYONE BUILDSIT, EVERYONE DIES
WHY
SUPERHUMAN AI
WOULD
KILLUS ALL
ELIEZER
YUDKOWSKY &
NATE SOARES

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 4h

🙏

Reposted by Dave Karpf

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 11h

I seem to recall that it was the biggest 1st Amendment attack in American history when the Biden admin alerted social media companies to some content and said "hey does this violate your policies?" Will Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and (lol) CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss call this out?

Tweet from Pam Bondi:

Today following outreach from
@thejusticedept
, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target
@ICEgov
agents in Chicago.

The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs. The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.

Reposted by Dave Karpf

Ann Monster Lipton @annmlipton.bsky.social · 6h

it's also a private market story. openai and anthropic are private companies, they have a lot of investors- including indirect retail investors, who invest through funding vehicles- but they don't have to make disclosures and if the bubble bursts, those investors will have a lot more trouble suing

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 8h

Everyone agrees that we're currently in a dotcom era-like AI bubble. People disagree what sort of bubble it is.

There are 3 stories one can tell about the dotcom crash: a startup story, a telecom story, and an accounting fraud story.

My take: it's giving Enron
open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...

It's Giving Enron

On the AI bubble, and the various echoes of the dotcom crash

open.substack.com

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 6h

Yep, very good point. Matt Levine’s “private markets are the new public markets” line carries several implications.

Reposted by Dave Karpf

emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 6h

One of my earliest smart political instincts was that Enron must be about to go bust bc of all the donations they were dropping.

This time around, I look at David Sacks, he of the SVB run followed by the bailout, and understand that the INSTALLED the bailout inside the [White] House.

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 8h

Everyone agrees that we're currently in a dotcom era-like AI bubble. People disagree what sort of bubble it is.

There are 3 stories one can tell about the dotcom crash: a startup story, a telecom story, and an accounting fraud story.

My take: it's giving Enron
open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...

It's Giving Enron

On the AI bubble, and the various echoes of the dotcom crash

open.substack.com

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 7h

I mean… I guess I think we should care that it’s a bubble (and what type of bubble it is) because it’s ~40% of US economic activity which potentially makes it a larger ticking time bomb than the housing market in 2008?

Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 7h

You should still write about it again, though!

a man with a beard and mustache is smiling and looking at the camera .

ALT: a man with a beard and mustache is smiling and looking at the camera .

media.tenor.com