Demon Safety
(by LemmySmackett)
“Hey man, I haven’t seen you in a minute. What are you up to these days?”
“Been on that grind, bro. I got a new gig.”
”Really? You found a job in this dog shit economy?”
“Full time, full benies. And the pay is insane.”
”That’s great to hear, man. Let’s fuckin’ go!”
“Let’s fuckin’ go.”
”Hey, maybe you can hook me up? I’m sick of this retail bullshit.”
“Well—”
“If I gotta stock one more shelf at CostGro, I swear to God—”
”It’s a competitive position. And you need a degree.”
“Come on. I just got my G.E.D.”
”That’s not—”
“Just tell me what you’re working in, bro. Maybe I can come on as an intern.”
”Demon Safety.”
“*Demon* Safety?”
“You know: fiends, pookas, yokai, boggarts—”
”Wow.”
“The occasional cambion.”
”Sounds intense.”
“It is. But it’s fulfilling work that makes the world a better place.”
”That’s inspiring, bro.”
“And the pay is insane.”
”And you’re sure they’re not hiring?”
“Oh, they’re hiring. They’re just not hiring you.”
”Damn.”
“Sorry.”
”So like, what, it’s a security-for-hire deal? You stop demons from terrorizing people?”
“Well—”
”Cause if it’s a bouncer gig, I got experience from the local county fair bounce house.”
“No, no. The opposite, actually.”
”Opposite?”
“My job is to summon as many demons as I can, as fast as I can—”
”Uh.”
“—and to make them as terrifying as possible—”
”Uuh.”
“—in the name of Safety.”
”Right. Okay. A few questions.”
This is bad propaganda because it derives all of its persuasive force from the substitution of “demons” for AI, where people already know that “demons” are supposed to be bad; the reader is encouraged to sneer at the stupidity and wickedness of AI developers for working with the mythical incarnation of the concept of evil itself. But one of the main reasons the world is in so much danger from AI is precisely because the danger isn’t that obvious.
Imagine you’d never heard of “demons” before. If, as in this story, demons liked to “[k]ill, maim, and slaughter with squealing glee and ecstatic delight” and the degree of human control over demons was “50/50” “[o]n a good day”, then, indeed, those who summon demons would be bad people—and it also wouldn’t be very hard to get an international treaty banning demon-summoning. (No one likes killing, maiming and slaughtering with ecsatic delight. We banned CFCs for much less.)
If, as with real-world AI, millions of people had lots of everyday experience with demons routinely obeying human commands to answer questions, summarize documents, write code, and generate images, the case for banning demon-summoning altogether would be an extremely hard sell. Most of the people who understood some of the theoretical arguments for why demons could be dangerous would rather work on demon safety (and increase investments in demon safety and security efforts in response to the occasional rogue demon accident) than just give up on something so useful that had already become part of their lives. If people who thought demon safety research was doomed despaired of winning the technical argument on the merits with Society’s demon experts, they might switch messaging strategies to trying to demonize demons in the eyes of policymakers and the general public, but fighting the economic incentives would be an uphill battle.
I think readers intrigued by the premise of this story should save themselves the click and instead read “Love Stays Loved”, which explores the analogy between AI and the occult with serious literary merit rather than as cheap satire.
nah, it’s a perfect illustration of the feeling how the situation looks like to many of us… not a cold-hearted Vulcan-rational description, but sometimes when we feel “is it me or is the world insane” it’s the world who’s insane ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ a starting point to tell others how it feels, not to persuade others they ought to feel the same, but for others to see a wider Overton window
The rest of the article for those who don’t open Twitter links (which I hope is someday everyone):
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”Go ahead.”
“Isn’t summoning demons inherently, like, not safe?”
“Terribly so. Me and the guys at work like to sit around and take bets on when Abaddon, the Infernal Lord of Eternal Torment, will pierce the veil of this feeble mortal realm and instantly eradicate humanity—”
“Huh.”
“—or enslave it.”
“So there are options.”
“We’re split like 50⁄50 on the ultimate outcome. Either way, we call it (P)armageddon.”
“Cheeky. And cheesy.”
“We came up with it at Olive Garden.”
“And I’m guessing that simply *not* summoning the demons isn’t on the table?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Because...?”
“Because there’s a veritable legion of goetic cultists, upstart invokers, and DIY conjurers trying to beat us to the abyssal pit-born punch.”
“Ah.”
“It used to be that the knowledge behind summoning sigils and arcane glyphs was closely guarded by the most clandestine conclaves and covens, but now any Joe Blow can learn cthonic psychomancy from a big titty OnlyFans goth-thot on TikTok.”
“I see.”
“Plus you can order conjuration reagents in bulk off the internet now. God willing, if we summon enough demons, we’ll be able to kill them all.”
“Uh, the TikTok goth-thots or...?”
“Them too, yeah, but really anyone and everyone who summons demons.”
“I see.”
“At a minimum, we’d like to put the competing goetic cults out of commission and permanently consign all future competitors to some kind of giant demon-guarded containment slum. Or multiple slums. A permanent underclass, if you will.”
“How noble.”
“We’re still working on what that will look like exactly.”
“And you’re hoping to do this *before* the Dark Lord—”
“Abaddon.”
“—before Abaddon bursts through the veil of reality and kills everyone?”
“Or enslaves.”
“For safety.”
“Mhm. And the insane pay.”
“Okay, well, do these summoning sigils at least bind the demons to your will, so they inexorably obey you every beck and call?”
“Yes. The demons are in our control 90% of the time.”
“90%?”
“70% of the time we have total, uncontested control.”
“That percentage just went down. By a lot.”
“Honestly, it’s 50⁄50. On a good day.”
“That’s not very comforting...”
“But it’s important that we let the demons exercise their malevolent will under close observation so we can see exactly what they do.”
“Okay. What do they do?”
“Generally? Kill, maim, and slaughter with squealing glee and ecstatic delight.”
“And somebody is observing this—”
“And a smidge of rape.”
“Closely.”
“Well, not that closely.”
“Come again?”
“We feel that the safest thing for humanity is to just let it rip, you know? Hands off.”
″...”
“It’s absolutely necessary that we let the cackling imps of hell frolic in the golden windswept fields as their flaming cloven hooves sear the earth’s tender soil.”
″...”
“For purely observational and scientific purposes.”
“But you just said you don’t observe—”
“You know what the wild thing is?”
“There’s a wild thing?”
“It turns out demons love summoning more demons!”
“You don’t say.”
“And clandestinely gathering to scheme and conspire in pursuit of their dark, inscrutable machinations.”
“Are they dark, inscrutable machinations or are the demons just trying to summon Abaddon, the Infernal Lord of—”
“They’re just trying to summon Abaddon, the Infernal Lord of Eternal Torment. Yeah.”
“Okay, well, based on everything you told me today—”
“Actually, what we’re really focused on right now is supercharging the self-summoning. We call it Recursive Demonic—”
“—I think you’re a bad person—”
“What? Hey.”
“—and I hope Abaddon drags you to hell first.”
“Now hold on.”
“Seriously, dude, fuck you.”
“Look, I know this is scary, but it’s all part of the March of Progress.”
“March of Pro— You’re talking about the end of the world!
“Right, but you’ve got to think about it rationally, okay?”
“Rationally?”
“Just imagine how unsafe all this demon summoning would be without us.”
“You’re serious.”
“And, hey, you’ll love this: we are currently negotiating contracts with every major company in America to have demons take all the menial labor.”
“What.”
“You’ll never have to stock another shelf in your life!”
“So now I’m living in a literal hellworld *and* I’m out of a job.”
“Bro, what are you so upset about? This is no different from when we got AI.”
“No, no, that’s bullshit, alright? Cause when AI took my last job, my unemployed ass didn’t have to worry about getting jumped by some horny half-goat hobgoblin on the way home—”
“No appreciation, I swear...”
“—and I got some funny fruit videos out of it too!”
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[m][title: Demon Safety]
I typical open twitter threads in threadreaderapp.com, so I don’t have to go to the site itself.