decel
In plain wordsA dismissive label, used mainly by AI accelerationists, for anyone who wants AI development slowed down, paused or heavily regulated.
Short for decelerationist: a person who favors slowing technological progress, especially in AI, through regulation, pauses or social pressure. The word is almost always applied by others as a pejorative, chiefly by e/acceffective accelerationism, n.: An online movement, known as e/acc, that wants AI and other technology developed as fast as possible, arguing that progress is good and that safety-driven regulation does more harm than good. adherents, who aim it at a broad range of targets — from doomersdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated. seeking an international ban on frontier training to ethicists, regulators and cautious companies. Few people call themselves decels, and positions grouped under the label differ widely in motive (catastrophic risk, labor protection, copyright, environmental cost) and in what they would slow. As with doomer, careful usage names the policy at stake rather than the camp.
Asking for an incident-reporting rule got him called a decel within minutes.
Origin
Formed as the opposite of 'accelerationist' and spread in 2022–2023 through e/acc accounts on Twitter (now X), where it became the movement's standard term for opponents.
Related
- effective accelerationismeffective accelerationism, n.: An online movement, known as e/acc, that wants AI and other technology developed as fast as possible, arguing that progress is good and that safety-driven regulation does more harm than good.
- doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated.
- AI pauseAI pause, n.: A proposed halt, temporary or indefinite, on building AI systems more powerful than today's, to give safety research and regulation time to catch up.
- Butlerian JihadButlerian Jihad, prop. n.: In the Dune novels, an ancient human revolt that destroyed every thinking machine and banned them for good; in AI debates, a name for any call to stop or outlaw advanced AI.
- differential technological developmentdifferential technological development, n.: A strategy of speeding up technologies that make us safer and slowing down risky ones, so that protections arrive before the dangers they guard against.
- effective accelerationismeffective accelerationism, n.: An online movement, known as e/acc, that wants AI and other technology developed as fast as possible, arguing that progress is good and that safety-driven regulation does more harm than good.
Mentioned in
doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated., effective accelerationismeffective accelerationism, n.: An online movement, known as e/acc, that wants AI and other technology developed as fast as possible, arguing that progress is good and that safety-driven regulation does more harm than good., LudditeLuddite, n.: Originally one of the English textile workers who smashed machines in protest in the 1810s; now anyone who opposes new technology, often used as an insult against AI skeptics., Butlerian JihadButlerian Jihad, prop. n.: In the Dune novels, an ancient human revolt that destroyed every thinking machine and banned them for good; in AI debates, a name for any call to stop or outlaw advanced AI.