Talk:Effective accelerationism

DYK

I think this article could be good WP:DYK material and I would like to give it a shot and nominate the article. As I am not the creator or main contributer to this article, I would of course refrain from doing so if you, Edelsmann (talk · contribs) and Jenny8lee (talk · contribs), are opposed to a nomination. As the timeframe for a WP:DYK nomination is short, I will nominate it if no opposition is voiced here in the next 24 hours. Best, WatkynBassett (talk) 15:04, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Go for it, @WatkynBassett! What do you find is DYK about it? I still can’t tell, though I had another article about the clown Julia Masli highlighted in DYK quite unexpectedly, and gave that article a surge in traffic! Jenny8lee (talk) 21:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the subject matter is DYK-worthy, and the potential surge in traffic could introduce a new audience to an emerging movement they may be unaware of. I'm on board. Edelsmann (talk) 22:24, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Perfect, Edelsmann and Jenny8lee. Yesterday I went ahead and nominated it at Template:Did you know nominations/Effective accelerationism. Best, WatkynBassett (talk) 06:35, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 01:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Garry Tan have supported effective accelerationism by adding "e/acc" to their social media usernames? Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-tech-leaders-accelerationism-eacc-twitter-profiles-2023-7
  • Reviewed: I will review Template:Did you know nominations/The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey
  • Comment: Created by Jenny8lee with major additions by Edelsmann.

Converted from a redirect by Jenny8lee (talk) at 21:10, 20 November 2023‎ (UTC). Nominated by WatkynBassett (talk) at 14:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Effective accelerationism; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• • I have serious reservations about this article and expressed them on the talkpage. A few tags were added. jps (talk) 15:33, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• @Jenny8lee, Edelsmann, and WatkynBassett: This article contains multiple maintenance templates. I will review this when they are resolved.--Launchballer 09:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• @Launchballer: Thank you for taking the time! Yesterday I made an effort to address the various templates and incorporate more reliable sources. I hope that the concerns are now addressed, but to err on the safe side it is probably best to wait a few more days and see if further concerns are raised. If more substantial concerns are raised, I would unfortunately fold this nomination because I personally have no capacity to deal with contention and unnecessary conflict right now. WatkynBassett (talk) 14:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Long enough, new enough. No valid copyright concerns, no maintenance templates found, not seeing any neutrality issues but I'll probably take another look in a few days just in case. QPQ done. The hook is sourced to the New York Times and WP:BUSINESSINSIDER; the former is paywalled, while Insider, as well as WP:FORBES and WP:TECHCRUNCH, are all yellow on WP:RSP, and I'd want to know what makes them reliable.--Launchballer 16:20, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your work tackling this difficult nomination:

The NYT article can be accessed via the archive-link provided in the article.

WP:FORBES explains that Forbes is reliable if the article is written by a staff member. This is the case here ("By Emily Baker-White, Forbes Staff").

WP:TECHCRUNCH seems reliable to me in this case, because the article is written by the Editor In Chief of TechCrunch+ and not by a random contributor. Furthermore, no COI was apparent so it seems that policy is fulfilled here.

WP:BI is always difficult: The author of the article is listed as a "Senior Technology Reporter" so probably a staff member which weights favorably. I saw no COI and the last RFC on BI leaned a tiny bit in favor of it being a bit more reliable lately. So in total, I also consider this source to be valid. But happy to discuss. All the best! WatkynBassett (talk) 21:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Good enough for me. I forgot to say that the hook was both short enough and interesting in my earlier review. Let's roll.--Launchballer 09:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

WatkynBassett the hook is somewhat flat in the current high demand for spots at WT:DYK, and that isn't likely to get the reader to click on the article, IMO. A better hook would be appreciated. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29: What do you consider flat about it? For Launchballer and me it seemed fine. I struggle a bit with investing more time in this, as this drive-by nomination of mine has taken up much more energy than any other nomination of mine beforehand (it should be fun, shouldn't it?). Do you prefer this ALT1: ... that adherents of effective accelerationism believe that technological progress is a solution for poverty and war? Source: El Pais WatkynBassett (talk) 09:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Launchballer, can you review? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:47, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Short enough at 114 characters, sourced, and interesting (to me, anyway).--Launchballer 11:08, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Re: Martin Shkreli listed as a 'high-profile Silicon Valley figure'

AFAIK he's not a notable or high profile silicon valley figure. the inclusion of his name could be seen as form of self promotion. I suggest removal due to WP:NOTYOU, WP:NOTABILITY Johnfancy (talk) 21:30, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I agree. I've gone ahead and replaced him with Vitalik Buterin. Edelsmann (talk) 21:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Question

Sam Altman, Yann LeCun, Andrew Ng and Vitalik Buterin are seen as further supporters, as they have argued for less restrictive AI regulation.

Assuming this is true, I found it a little bit confusing, as I recall reading that Altman was arguing for more AI regulation just a few months ago or so. Viriditas (talk) 23:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this criticism. I struck everyone except Yann LeCun and Andrew Ng because they are both explicitly named in the Economist article. We need a reliable source here for any further addition. WatkynBassett (talk) 06:44, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Framing

Originally considered a fringe movement, effective accelerationism gained mainstream visibility in 2023.

I think you are using the term "fringe movement" quite differently than the rest of us. As an example, the idea of "effective accelerationism" (and those who promote it) basically ignores all the points raised in the article regulation of artificial intelligence and related concerns. As far as my reading of the topic goes outside of insular, insider SV sources, it is *still* very much considered on the fringe. Further, your source does not show it is accepted by the mainstream, just that it received wider visibility. For the reader, this muddies the water, as the way you use fringe here is quite different than the notion that it is a fringe theory, which it very much is. Something needs to be done here to fix this ambiguity, and I'm not convinced confining and restricting the criticism to reception is the best solution. Viriditas (talk) 23:34, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Update: I've added a disputed tag. The content says it is no longer a fringe movement because it has gained increasing visibility, but the source itself says the idea is still fringe. This is unintentionally confusing readers. Please fix it. Viriditas (talk) 23:51, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

FYI

I've filed a report at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Effective_accelerationism. Viriditas (talk) 23:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I answered there! WatkynBassett (talk) 06:31, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources needed, etc.

Having been alerted to this article by the WP:FTN thread, I am very concerned that serious sources are lacking. Much of the WP:ASSERTed prose in the article is arguable on the face of it, and there are a lot of claims about a "movement" or a generalized claim as to what e/acc adherents believe that is not backed up in the sources provided. Our job here is to describe in the most clear and inarguable terms what is going on. As far as I can tell, this is an internet fad and many of the sources in the article describe it as such (if, perhaps, not in so many words). And yet, this perspective and framing is totally absent in favor of a claimed quasi-academic apprehension that looks to me, at least, to be the hoped-for "take me serious" vibe that some of the acolytes of this stuff are trying to argue for. In any case, what is sorely needed are serious, independent sources if the goal is to describe the "movement" as a "movement". I am not sure these are forthcoming. Social sciences are likely at some point to study this thing, but until serious investigations occur, we are stuck with media discourse that is of middling to poor quality and our article needs to be recast mostly as a distillation of notable opinions rather than a pretend discourse on a serious academic topic.

jps (talk) 15:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Et cetera et cetera

This article was linked to WP:FTN. I made a few comments there, which I think bear some repeating here. Basically:

That said, this article is not stunningly great. There are a couple things that are rather bold and need citations. For example: "Central to effective accelerationism is the belief that propelling technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action"... I don't think Yann LeCun believes that lol. Like, he doesn't really say that, and he doesn't really agree when other people say it, that I have seen. But he is "seen as" a "further supporter". Well, some argue that this is a ridiculous thing to vaguely claim about a WP:BLP subject.

Overall, the article could certainly benefit from a lot of rewriting and some closer attention to sourcing, as well as some closer attention to what actually makes sense (arbitrary sentences can be assembled from reliable sources to say just about anything, writing an article requires having at least some idea in your head about what is true and what is false, and writing a good one requires this idea to be somewhat accurate).

On the subject of "fringe": it should be noted that the colloquial definition ("weird") is quite different from the Wikipedian definition ("pseudoscientific or false claims"). But it has to be said: the whole topic of artificial intelligence is both. A program that can run on a normal desktop computer answer questions and solve complex problems in natural language is a bizarre artifact that I don't think there is a "normal" way of philosophically approaching. Most people tend to make bizarre overly-confident (and sometimes objectively false) statements about artificial intelligence on a regular basis. If saying goofy untrue stuff about AI made you fringe, more or less every pundit would be in the stocks for saying many provably false things over the course of the last couple years. But cringe is not fringe. jp×g🗯️ 01:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

References

Proposal to Include Information on Effective Accelerationism

Hello fellow editors,

I've attempted to add a section to the article on Accelerationism titled "Effective Accelerationism in the World," but my edits have been reverted several times. I believe this addition is pertinent and well-sourced, and I'd like to discuss its inclusion here.

The proposed content is as follows:

>This movement has garnered interest from Europe, specifically in France, where a French group on X, endorsed by [@BasedBeffJezos](https://twitter.com/BasedBeffJezos/status/1742225265445716066) & [1](https://twitter.com/BasedBeffJezos/status/1743644434078556311), has been created. Boris Hoechstetter, known as Dr Futuro, a French YouTuber, musician (called Extra Terra) and futurist, has established this branch in Europe to propagate the philosophy.

I understand that tweets are generally not considered the most reliable sources. However, in this case, they are direct statements from Beff Jezos, a prominent figure associated with this movement. These tweets significantly contribute to the understanding and verification of the movement's reach and influence, particularly in Europe.

I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions on how to improve this section to meet Wikipedia's standards. If there are concerns about the reliability of the sources, I'm open to suggestions for alternative ways to verify this information.

Thank you for considering this addition.

[Psychotorp52] Psychotorp52 (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Editor trying to shoehorn a personal essay by Wikipedia user Molly White into the article, in violation of WP:SELFPUBLISH

@Belbury and 2003 LN6: Per WP:SELFPUBLISH / WP:BLOGS:

Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

Why do you keep trying to shoehorn a personal essay by Wikipedia user Molly White, a.k.a. "GorillaWarfare", into this article, in violation of Wikipedia's policies?

Do you have any relation or connection to Molly White? If so, you should declare a WP:CONFLICT immediately. 50.221.225.231 (talk) 02:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC) 50.221.225.231 (talk) 02:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)