‘groupthink’ – A type of group *decision-making dysfunction that occurs when members of the group seek consensus at the expense of critically evaluating their decisions. Attributed to the work of Irving Janis, groupthink captures how group members suppress dissenting voices within the group to maintain consensus (or the appearance of consensus) and separate the group from influences outside the group which may challenge their decision. Groupthink leads to what Janis called the ‘illusion of invulnerability’, which overstates the group’s capacity to make good decisions and leads them to discount alternative viewpoints. As well as leading to poor decisions, groupthink also demonstrates potential dysfunctions with highly cohesive groups, as individual critical judgement is discouraged or penalized…. …
Oxford felt weird when i first moved here in 2022, I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was? i wasn’t yet aware of the cult-like Effective Altruism embedded in Oxford University, even though i lived just a walk away from Wytham Abbey.
Wytham Abbey was bought by the Effective Altruism organisation in 2022 and bankrolled by their EA ‘saint’ Sam Bankman-Fried. It is worth listening to Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales podcast episode Grand Theft Automated: How to Save a Trillion Lives to get a flavour of how weird Effective Altruism got. Wytham Abbey hosted small group workshops on Long Termism and Transhumanism and other out there AI Tech TESCREAL futurist philosophies. This new philosophy found kindred spirits in Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute
Although the [Effective Altruism] movement’s original leaders were associated with frugal lifestyles, the arrival of big donors, including Bankman-Fried, led to more spending and opulence, which seemed incongruous with the movement’s espoused values. In 2022, Effective Ventures Foundation purchased the estate of Wytham Abbey for the purpose of running workshops, but put it up for sale in 2024 [after Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of Fraud and jailed]
Timnit Gebru claimed that effective altruism has acted to overrule any other concerns regarding AI ethics (e.g. deepfake porn, algorithmic bias), in the name of either preventing or controlling artificial general intelligence. She and Émile P. Torres further assert that the movement belongs to a network of interconnected movements they’ve termed TESCREAL, which they contend serves as intellectual justification for wealthy donors to shape humanity’s future – Wikipedia
Effective Altruism in Oxford even ‘recruited’ school age children who were potential Oxbridge students.
In 2022, I participated in the Leaf programme. This was an all-inclusive 10-day summer school hosted at Lady Margaret Hall. Its goal was to direct some young minds towards a career that would produce the most good and so help alleviate suffering. Effective Altruism, through Leaf, spent a large amount of money – over £2,000 per participant – to target promising future Oxbridge students. We were lavished with job advice, a free residential in Oxford, restaurant meals each night, outings to escape rooms, evenings at bowling alleys, and the like. In exchange, we attended sessions on prioritising causes, identifying neglected suffering, and planning our impactful careers. We chose between helping agonised farm animals and stopping the creation of potent bioweapons. We weighed up whether a malign artificial intelligence and the “lock in” of techno-dictatorship was the biggest threat of all…I was barely seventeen at the time.
Laurence Cooke
14th October 2024 = Cherwell Oxford’s oldest independent student newspaper
AI hustlers
In 2022-23, on the streets of Oxford and inside the cafes there were plenty of very loud AI hustlers, often with American accents. Almost like the AI mad hatter had come to town.
Oxford is the perfect place for AI groupthink and AI cults. The engrained divide between town and gown means it is essentially a divided city: Oxford University operates like an exclusive club within the city, with its own social norms, parlour games and rules…secret doors leading to other secret doors, leading to inner sanctums. A hierarchy that is calcified and out of view from outsiders who might have their feet firmer on the ground.
Humans are naturally drawn to social groups and it is understandable that people would wish to be part of the Oxbridge exclusive club. However when outsiders are taught to believe that this club is solely for the pursuit of knowledge and truth rather than a powerful networking organisation that feeds into the halls of power, we have a problem: Oxford University has obligations as a charity, which I assume is acting for the common good?
For instance the BBC is set up to inform for an inclusive public good, and yet the oversized, out of proportion influence of the Oxbridge club is immense and with real political influence and control. Oxbridge Alumni hold influence and power throughout the BBC and throughout the political landscape. It is a kind of relic of nepotism that concentrates power in a narrow and contestable idea of what intelligence is: ‘’Eugenic Intelligence’ or IQ testing. Which is why the futuristic philosophies of digital eugenics can gain such a foothold.
[Eugenic Intelligence] the idea that all humans have innate and fixed abilities that can be accurately assessed, measured, and used to categorize people for a lifetime
NATASHA STOVALL, EUGENICS POWERS IQ AND AI
3.24.2021
The film Gattaca (1997) provides a fictional example of a dystopian society that uses eugenics to decide what people are capable of and their place in the world – Wikipedia
Is AI Groupthink at Oxford University and other elite universities ignoring the vast and exponential environmental, societal harms of AI to our children, vulnerable people, to our creative economies, to our climate, to our water, our air, draining our renewable energy for a few elite academic AI kicks? Or to control the future for a dedicated elite? This is what it looks like to an outsider.
Resist AI 