Patternism is usually defined as a belief about the metaphysics of consciousness, but that boils down to incoherence, so it’s better defined as a property of a utility function of agents not minding being subjected to major discontinuities in functionality, ie, being frozen, deconstructed, reduced to a pattern of information, reconstructed in another time and place, and resumed.
That still sounds like a metaphysical belief, and less empirical since consciousness experience isn’t involved in it (instead it sounds like it’s just about personal identity).
It’s very surprising to me that he would think there’s a real chance of all humans collectively deciding to not build AGI, and successfully enforcing the ban indefinitely.