St. Felix declared publicly that he believed with 79% probability that COVID had a natural origin. He was brought before the Emperor, who threatened him with execution unless he updated to 100%. When St. Felix refused, the Emperor was impressed with his integrity, and said he would release him if he merely updated to 90%. St. Felix refused again, and the Emperor, fearing revolt, promised to release him if he merely rounded up one percentage point to 80%. St. Felix cited Tetlock’s research showing that the last digit contained useful information, refused a third time, and was crucified.
St. Clare was so upset about believing false things during her dreams that she took modafinil every night rather than sleep. She completed several impressive programming projects before passing away of sleep deprivation after three weeks; she was declared a martyr by Pope Raymond II.
St. John of Daly City left his hometown at age sixteen to join the Centrist Order, who tried to free themselves of political bias by meditating on moderate positions. Unsatisfied with their limited piety, he and several other members of the order split to found the Ultra-Both-Sidesists, known for extreme pronouncements like “If you favor either of Democrats or Republicans over the other by even one percent, you are no better than a mindkilled MAGA/woke fanatic.” He (or according to some scholars, one of his disciples) invented a new Implicit Association Test that could be used to ferret out even tiny amounts of political favoritism, then took it every day, scourging himself when he deviated from perfect neutrality by even a single question. When he died, nobody in his order could form an opinion on who should replace him; finally, the whole sect was dissolved by Pope Anna III and its assets donated to shrimp welfare.
St. Promentius shut himself in an eremite’s cell and vowed not to leave until he had figured out the secrets of AI corrigibility. He stayed in the cell for nine years, speaking to nobody except an intern who came once a week to bring him whiteboards, markers, and bottles of Huel. At the end of nine years, the intern told him that the city planned to build an apartment tower over his cell. St. Promentius refused to break his vow and leave the cell. But he also refused his intern’s offer to inform the city of his presence, saying that “he who delays a building for any reason shall be judged with the NIMBYs”. His cell was demolished during the construction and it is assumed that he died, although others say that he only sleeps within the masonry, and will return during Crunch Time.
St. Madeline Medianus had many interesting opinions on AI safety, but nobody listened because she was ugly, shy, and a bad speaker. She prayed for help, and one night Gwern appeared to her in a dream and told her a personalized supplement stack that would make her beautiful and charismatic. She took the supplements, got invited to all the cool parties, and her theories became the talk of the town. But she realized that her beauty and charisma were making people take her too seriously compared to others, so she lowered the dose until she was exactly average-looking and people would update on her opinions exactly the right amount.
St. Alyssa wrote the decisive refutation of the Deutschist heresy. Then she thought about it harder, changed her mind, and wrote a new treatise about how maybe Deutschism actually made some good points. Although she died a heretic, Pope Oliver V canonized her anyway, because he didn’t want fear of negative reputational consequences to dissuade people from changing their minds on important questions.
St. Philip of Lighthaven was captured by the Petersonites, who demanded that he profess that, although God might not exist, we should believe in Him anyway for pragmatic reasons. Philip retorted that he had a 16% probability in God's existence, and a 75% chance that believing in God would make the average person better off, but that credence in the latter belief should not affect credence in the former. While the Petersonites were busy trying to figure out whether he even disagreed with them or not, he snuck outside, opened the gates to their fortress, and sent a signal to the Rationalist army, who fell upon them and destroyed them.
St. Joanne of ARC had a resume so beautiful that Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk all sought her hand as employee. They became increasingly insistent that she choose one of them, and refused to take ‘no’ as an answer. She asked Paul Christiano what to do, and on his advice she called the three men together and said “I will make my decision once my simple twenty-line program finishes running”. After they agreed, she revealed that her program was calculating BusyBeaver(100), and they all admitted they were unworthy of her. She cut her hair, gave her jewelry to the poor, and joined the Alignment Research Center, where she discovered many important theorems. Some say Jane Street is named after her, although others attribute it to a St. Jane of Manhattan who is otherwise unrecorded.
St. Elizabeth of MIT was disowned by her father, an important founder, when he found her in the brothel consorting with prostitutes. Elizabeth was too humble to speak out in her own defense, and said nothing. But she had only befriended the prostitutes so he could learn their advanced surveying methodology and obtain their datasets, which she used to found a highly-effective org surveying expert opinion on important topics. When her father found out, he fell at Elizabeth’s feet and begged her forgiveness, then donated his fortune to his daughter’s work.
St. Michael Beisotsukai was sent by Pope Eliezer LXXVII to evangelize to the postrationalists. When he arrived at TPOT, they fell upon him, taunting “If you are so rational, then predict the way we are going to kill you”, for however he predicted, they planned to kill him through some other method. But St. Michael gave a probability distribution across all common methods of execution that also left substantial probability mass on unknown unknowns, and followed it up with an eloquent lecture on out-of-model error. The postrationalists were so impressed that they converted on the spot and didn’t kill him at all - but this was fine, because St. Michael’s distribution had included a 10% chance that this would happen, and later evidence from other missionaries demonstrated this to be well-calibrated.
St. Avi the Greater fasted in the desert for thirty days, where he was tempted by Moloch. “Found a new AI lab,” said Moloch, “and I will make you powerful among men.” But Avi refused, saying “What use is power, if it only accelerates race dynamics?” Then Moloch continued: “Found a new AI lab, and I will make you a billionaire.” But Avi refused, saying “What use is money, when Open Philanthropy already has $20 billion and can’t find enough high-impact charities with room for more funding?” Then Moloch continued: “Found a new a AI lab, and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.” But Avi refused, saying “I don’t even like the term ‘AI lab’ - that paints a picture of disinterested basic research that they don’t live up to. You can just say ‘AI company’.” Then Moloch howled, defeated, and Avi went on to found many highly-effective orgs.
