AI Nerds Are People Who Like Everything

This is the first part of a five-part essay on the psychology of AI nerds, a topic I’ve been wanting to explore for a while (I published a timid approximation recently).

Why “AI nerds”? I use the term liberally, but not derogatorily. It’s a shorthand to describe, under one overarching label that encompasses character, thinking patterns, interests, and goals, the psychology of those building AI for the industry at the highest level (arguably the weirdest demographic with the greatest power to shape our future). Concretely, I mean the kind of person who sees AI as an engine of unfathomable progress (their words), a vehicle toward utopia. Normal people see them as cultists, members of a new faith.

By virtue of variability and personal inclinations, however, the term is a statistical fiction, a stereotype: it captures some common traits that define the average AI person, but no individual can be faithfully encapsulated by the label. Many people working in AI don’t belong under this label, and others who don’t, do.

What’s my motivation to write this? Normal people (whom they refer to as “normies,” i.e., the majority of the population) misunderstand AI nerds. This leads to confusion when trying to answer one important question: why are they doing this AI thing the way they’re doing it? For instance, journalists tend to think AI nerds are moved by money and power, but that’s far from the whole story.

To the extent that money and power are involved, thinking solely in those terms is barely scratching the surface (thinking about money is thinking about executives and investors—the visible faces—not about the engineers and developers painstakingly building the AI models in the lab; and yet, without them, there’s no industry!). I hope to amend this critical misunderstanding.

What’s my goal from writing this? That you leave smarter than you came in about the people behind AI. I want to help you make sense of AI nerds and urge you to start thinking in terms of psychological traits rather than mundane incentives like power and money. AI nerds are shaping everyone’s future singlehandedly and unilaterally, so figuring them out is our last chance to prepare for that. Otherwise, any reasonable resistance or objection is dead in the water.

Do I have the authority to write this? I am confident the answer is yes. Two reasons: first, I live among AI nerds online, reading them, observing ...