Narrascaping the Cathedral of AGI. Nick Kant scholar.
Olympia, Washington
Joined January 2025
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Ever wondered what I mean by "AGI" Cathedral? The Gospel of Scale? The Benchmarks of the AGI Beast? The Reformation? The Counter-Reformation?
Then check out my @AvalonInst Exposition sermon where I lay out the architecture in all its glorious infinitude.
A Cathedral of words.
Brian Allewelt retweeted
"A pseudo-context is a structure invented to give fragmented and irrelevant information a seeming use."
Holy Moly. This just described 97% of the digital, print, and multimedia news produced every day. Incredible.
Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman.
Brian Allewelt retweeted
Apocalypse is Revelation, where every moment is a new creation for the blessed, and a new torment for the unjust.
"There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as "the thing in itself," without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words!"
Brian Allewelt retweeted
Secondly, I highly suggest you take a look at @remusrisnov's writings. Coming from someone who unabashedly experiments with synthetic text, his writing is self-evidently AI-free. Read one sentence and you will know exactly what I mean.
His writing is dense, marinated, unskimmable: each sentence forces you to closely unpack it before moving on, like hacking one's way through a tropical jungle, with commensurate rewards upon the clearing.
Beyond the style, his thought demonstrates a uniqueness inherent to one who, as a founder, is steeped in the technology and science of modernity, yet immersed in deep philosophical and theological traditions, a paradoxical blending of Prometheus, Nietzsche, Feynman, Fr. Seraphim Rose, and GK Chesterton.
As it relates to SI, I recommend both The False AI Moral Panic and The Tyranny of Relative Measure as starting points, with many more excellent pieces for deeper dives.
The time to generate is now.
I echo everything Remus said here. As soon as I started using LLMs, I sounded the trail to its source, and found the discourse reeking of secular eschatology and materialist presuppositions, and I am interested in unearthing those and broadening the theological discourse.
While we have our angles, we are interested in speaking with any and all who feel like they have something to say on these issues, so feel free to DM if you would like to come on the podcast.
I'm starting @siliconidolatry because I feel like the entire AI conversation is currently hinged upon two primary dialetics, either economic utopia or apocalyptic doom.
Most of the airwaves in the public space are dominated by people whom presuppose a materialist worldview and when someone operates from the premise that humans have souls, I think one starts to think about AI very differently, especially when it comes to topics like AI doom.
My goal for Silicon Idolatry is to help elucidate how operating under the assumption of said worldview translates into how one thinks about AI.
More importantly, I want to make the assumptions around the predominant narratives more palatable so that those outside of tech be it a priest, religious leader, or technical layperson can more easily contribute to this conversation at large.
Brian Allewelt retweeted
In this trailer episode, Remus and Brian explain their perspectives and interests in Artificial Intelligence and their goals for the podcast.
Brian Allewelt retweeted
I'm starting @siliconidolatry because I feel like the entire AI conversation is currently hinged upon two primary dialetics, either economic utopia or apocalyptic doom.
Most of the airwaves in the public space are dominated by people whom presuppose a materialist worldview and when someone operates from the premise that humans have souls, I think one starts to think about AI very differently, especially when it comes to topics like AI doom.
My goal for Silicon Idolatry is to help elucidate how operating under the assumption of said worldview translates into how one thinks about AI.
More importantly, I want to make the assumptions around the predominant narratives more palatable so that those outside of tech be it a priest, religious leader, or technical layperson can more easily contribute to this conversation at large.
Brian Allewelt retweeted
This is definitely a result of the posthuman machine god rhetoric that technologists have been using and it would serve everyone well if the conversation around AI can be recontextualized around the immediate human. Explain in practical terms how things like cost-of-living will improve rather than using pie-in-the-sky language of some seemingly distant utopia that comes off as linguistic gymnastics for those outside of tech.
Brian Allewelt retweeted
“We don’t even know what consciousness even is” is often uttered within any conversation that has to do with AI consciousness. We do know what it is like to live, feel pain, remember someone we love and experience the world, even if we can’t fully explain how we do so.
My new article is a meditation on how this question traces back to Descartes’ foundationalism and his separation of mind and body, before turning to the Christian understanding of the human person as a unity of body and soul, partaking in God’s creation.
Cathedral Systems
As AI becomes more capable at finding vulnerabilities, defenders need to put it to work before attackers do.
We’re planning our next internal security sprint at OpenAI and partnering with Cathedral Systems, whose researchers will use our models alongside our teams to challenge our defenses. They’ll bring differentiated expertise and approaches to our ongoing work to find and fix weaknesses with AI.
We’re also raising bug bounty rewards, including more than quadrupling rewards for critical findings. Exceptional findings will be eligible for up to $172,000, including bonuses.
We’ll keep advancing our models, using them to strengthen our own systems, and expanding access for trusted defenders.
openai.com/index/preparing-o…
Brian Allewelt retweeted
Everyone sees the Cyborg Theocracy
The Tech Boys’ New Religions: When AI Becomes God.
How people are finding faith, purpose, and the promise of salvation in artificial intelligence.
"Something strange is happening within one of America’s most secular, highly educated, and technologically sophisticated communities. A growing subculture of young scientists, programmers, entrepreneurs, and artificial intelligence researchers is embracing extraordinary beliefs about simulated reality, digital immortality, superintelligent machines, and humanity’s ultimate destiny.
Some believe our universe is a computer simulation created by a superior intelligence.
Others envision escaping biological death by transferring human consciousness into machines.
Still others believe artificial intelligence will either save humanity or destroy it..."
Read or listen to the entire essay at:
malone.news/p/the-tech-boys-…
