Effective accelerationism, often abbreviated as "e/acc", is a 21st-century philosophical movement advocating an explicit pro-technology stance. Its proponents believe that artificial intelligence-driven progress is a great social equalizer which should be pushed forward. They see themselves as a counterweight to the cautious view that AI is highly unpredictable and needs to be regulated, often giving their opponents the derogatory labels of "doomers" or "decels" (short for deceleration).[1]

Central to effective accelerationism is the belief that propelling technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action. The movement carries utopian undertones and argues that humans need to develop and build faster to ensure their survival and propagate consciousness throughout the universe.[2][3]

Although effective accelerationism has been described as a fringe movement, it has gained mainstream visibility.[4] A number of high-profile Silicon Valley figures, including investors Marc Andreessen, Martin Shkreli and Garry Tan, explicitly endorsed the movement by adding "e/acc" to their public social media profiles.[4] Yann LeCun and Andrew Ng are seen as further supporters, as they have argued for less restrictive AI regulation.[5]

History

Etymology

The name is a play on combining "effective altruism", also a 21st-century philosophical movement associated with the technology industry, and "accelerationalism", a philosophical orientation advocating disruptive change to precipitate the emergence of a new societal order.[1]

Emergence

The community first formed on social media in 2022, and bonded in Twitter Spaces and group chats over memes, late-night conversations, and skepticism towards techno-pessimists. To further solidify their presence, it then built an offline component, organizing events such as hackathons and parties in the Bay Area and elsewhere.[6]

Intellectual origins

While Nick Land is seen as the intellectual originator of the broader accelerationist movement,[4] the precise origin of effective accelerationism remains unclear. The earliest known reference to the movement can be traced back to a May 2022 newsletter published by four pseudonymous authors known by the X (formerly Twitter) usernames @BasedBeffJezos, @bayeslord, @zestular and @creatine_cycle.[7] @BasedBeffJezos names Elon Musk as "the reason he personally is a techno-optimist."[8]

Effective accelerationism incorporates elements of older Silicon Valley subcultures such as transhumanism and extropianism, which similarly emphasized the value of progress and resisted efforts to restrain the development of technology, as well as the work of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit.[6][9]

In what has been described by the individual as a "doxxing" event, Forbes disclosed that the @BasedBeffJezos persona is maintained by Guillaume Verdon, a Canadian former Google quantum computing engineer and theoretical physicist. The revelation was supported by a voice analysis conducted by the National Center for Media Forensics of the University of Colorado Denver, which further confirmed the match between Jezos and Verdon. The magazine justified its decision to disclose Verdon's identity on the grounds of it being "in the public interest".[10] On 29 December 2023 Guillaume Verdon was interviewed by Lex Fridman on the Lex Fridman Podcast and introduced as the "founder of e/acc (effective accelerationism) movement".[11]

Relation to other movements

Traditional accelerationism

Nick Land distinguished effective accelerationism from Marxist–Deleuzian classical accelerationism by specifically promoting the maximization of the probability of a technocapital singularity, triggering an intelligence explosion leading to the subsequent flourishing of emergent consciousness.[4] The movement advocates for the unrestricted development and deployment of AI to unlock its full potential, viewing intelligence as a primary driver for societal progress.[12]

While traditional accelerationism advocates for destabilizing change to bring about a new social order, the movement is characterized by the self-awareness of capitalism and the perception that technology and market forces are accelerating in their power and scope.[13][14] This perspective is rooted in the belief that free markets are the most effective way to support technological growth.[15]

Effective altruism

Effective accelerationism diverges from the principles of effective altruism, which prioritizes using evidence and reasoning to identify the most effective ways to altruistically improve the world, often through charitable actions. In contrast, effective accelerationism emphasizes the transformative potential of technology and capitalism as a means to achieve societal change.[16][17]

Accelerationists argue that those who advocate for regulatory measures and safeguards in technological development are tantamount to murderers, stemming from their belief that such precautions hinder the progress that could potentially yield life-saving artificial intelligence.[15][2]

Degrowth

The movement also stands in contrast with the ideology of degrowth, sometimes described by the movement as "decelerationism", which advocates for reducing economic activity and consumption to address ecological and social issues. Effective accelerationism embraces technological progress and the dynamics of capitalism as catalysts for change, rather than advocating for a reduction in economic growth.[16]

Reception

Support

The "Techno-Optimist Manifesto",[15] a 2023 essay by Marc Andreessen, has been described as espousing the views of effective accelerationism.[3]

Criticism

David Swan of the The Sydney Morning Herald has criticized effective accelerationism due to its opposition to government and industry self-regulation. He argues that "innovations like AI needs thoughtful regulations and guardrails [...] to avoid the myriad mistakes Silicon Valley has already made".[18]

In her 2023 essay "Effective obfuscation", Molly White critiques the movement, suggesting it merely provides a superficial philosophical cover for the industry's traditional motives and behaviors. She further argues that a tech industry "led by a bunch of techno-utopianists and those who think they can reduce everything to markets and equations" has already been attempted, primarily serving as a tool for the wealthy to retroactively justify their choices rather than influencing meaningful decision-making. White advocates for recognizing and valuing "the expertise of those who have been working to improve technology for the better of all rather than just for themselves and the few just like them".[2]

During the 2023 Reagan National Defense Forum, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo cautioned against embracing the "move fast and break things" mentality associated with "effective acceleration [sic]". She emphasized the need to exercise caution in dealing with AI, stating "that's too dangerous. You can't break things when you are talking about AI".[6][19]

In a similar vein, Ellen Huet argued on Bloomberg News that some of the ideas of the movement were "deeply unsettling", focusing especially on Guillaume Verdon's "post-humanism" and the view that "natural selection could lead AI to replace us [humans] as the dominant species."[20]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 MacColl, Margaux (7 October 2023). "It's a Cult': Inside Effective Accelerationism, the Pro-AI Movement Taking Over Silicon Valley". The Information. Archived from the original on 20 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 White, Molly (26 November 2023). "Effective obfuscation". Citation Needed. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 27 November 2023 – via Substack.
  3. 1 2 Hurtz, Simon (10 November 2023). "Tech-Szene im Silicon Valley: Ihr Gott ist die KI". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Chowdhury, Hasan (28 July 2023). "Silicon Valley's favorite obscure theory about progress at all costs, which has been embraced by Marc Andreessen". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 20 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  5. ↑ "The Sam Altman drama points to a deeper split in the tech world". The Economist. 19 November 2023. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 19 November 2023. Retrieved 27 November 2023. Boomers espouse a worldview called 'effective accelerationism' which counters that not only should the development of ai be allowed to proceed unhindered, it should be speeded up. Leading the charge is Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital firm. Other ai boffins such as Meta's Yann LeCun and Andrew Ng and a slew of startups including Hugging Face and Mistral ai are right behind him.
  6. 1 2 3 Roose, Kevin (10 December 2023). "This A.I. Subculture's Motto: Go, Go, Go". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  7. ↑ Walker, Stephen (4 July 2023). "Effective Accelerationism (e/acc)". Klu. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  8. ↑ "Elon is the reason I am personally a techno-optimist". Archived from the original on 28 December 2023.
  9. ↑ Breland, Ali (6 December 2023). "Meet the Silicon Valley CEOs who say greed is good—even if it kills us all". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  10. ↑ Baker-White, Emily (1 December 2023). "Who Is @BasedBeffJezos, The Leader Of The Tech Elite's 'E/Acc' Movement?". Forbes. Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  11. ↑ Guillaume Verdon: Beff Jezos, E/acc Movement, Physics, Computation & AGI (Podcast). Lex Fridman Podcast. Vol. 407. 29 December 2023. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
  12. ↑ Jones, Rachyl (16 October 2023). "Marc Andreessen just dropped a 'Techno-Optimist Manifesto' that sees a world of 50 billion people settling other planets". Fortune. Archived from the original on 28 November 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  13. ↑ Chistyakov, Denis I. (30 September 2022). "Philosophy of Accelerationism: A New Way of Comprehending the Present Social Reality (in Nick Land's Context)". RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 26 (3): 687–696. doi:10.22363/2313-2302-2022-26-3-687-696. ISSN 2408-8900.
  14. ↑ Noys, Benjamin (14 December 2013). "Days of phuture past: accelerationism in the present moment". Accelerationism – A Symposium on Tendencies in Capitalism. Berlin. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  15. 1 2 3 Andreessen, Marc (16 October 2023). "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto". Andreessen Horowitz. Archived from the original on 23 November 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  16. 1 2 Wilhelm, Alex (20 November 2023). "Effective accelerationism, doomers, decels, and how to flaunt your AI priors". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 23 November 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  17. ↑ Leroy, Thomas (23 November 2023). "Effective altruism, effective accelerationism: quels sont ces deux courants qui divisent le monde de l'IA ?". BFM TV (in French). Archived from the original on 23 November 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  18. ↑ Swan, David (29 October 2023). "'We are conquerors': Why Silicon Valley's latest fad is its deadliest". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 13 November 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  19. ↑ Reagan National Defense Forum. Simi Valley: Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute. 2 December 2023. Event occurs at 21:03. Archived from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 14 December 2023 – via YouTube.
  20. ↑ Huet, Ellen (6 December 2023). "A Cultural Divide Over AI Forms in Silicon Valley". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
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