AI doomer explodes: AISafetyMemes goes nuclear over Beff Jezos doxxing drama

A new front has opened up in a long and bitter ideological battle between two sides with radically different ideas about artificial general intelligence (AGI) and humanity's future on this planet.

A famous anonymous doomer who believes AI could wipe out our species has stepped up his simmering conflict with arch-rival Beff Jezos, a controversial influencer and AI entrepreneur he previously described as "the Alex Jones of AI discourse".

In the AI community, there is a bitter divide between two schools of thought that disagree on how our species should react to the rise of machines that are smarter and more capable than us.

On one side is "effective accelerationism" or "e/acc", which argues for a headlong race towards AGI and sees unrestrained technological progress as the answer to all problems.

Supporters of the e/acc movement often deride their opponents as doomers or decels, short for decelerationists, who they regard as spoilsports that are a drag on the progress of both humans and machines.

This other side of the argument is still broadly techno-optimist but calls for caution and strict guardrails when building a superintelligence. There isn't a great name to describe this side, but AI Safety or Safetyists seems like a logical description (please contact us if we've got this wrong).

Beff Jezos - a legal minefield of a name for any indie publication - is one of the founding stars of the e/acc movement. Lawyers, if we slip and accidentally call his man Jeff Bezos, it's a typo. We're not saying Jeff has anything to do with this story.

In fact, if you are the sort of person who uses lawyers in arguments, please just write in and we'll address any issues to your full legal satisfaction in minutes. We're a small and new publication. Sign up below to help us get money for lawyers so we can stop kowtowing like this and join our mission to build a cooperative model for tech journalism.

Jezos vs AISafetyMemes

Anyway, moving on. Jezos has significant social media clout and influence, with 150,000 followers on X. The influencer's and AI entrepreneur's fame soared after Forbes doxxed him in 2023, revealing Jezos to be a highly distinguished former Google quantum computing engineer and founder of a stealth AI hardware startup.

We're not going to publish his real name because we support people's right to anonymity if they choose it.

Jeff Bezos has many enemies, one of the most prominent being an unnamed doomer who tweets to almost 60,000 followers via the account @AISafetyMemes.

This safety-first AI influencer's sudden outburst yesterday appears to have been prompted by the following Jezos post about being doxxed:

"No one knows how it feels to be doxxed + swarmed by a 10M+ mob until it happens to you," Jezos wrote. "The first time was traumatic, I viscerally remember who threw me under the bus for clout, and have right to call them out."

He added: "I've gotten more used to it now, but our brains are not wired for such events as base models. I wouldn't wish an experience like that even on enemies."

This appears to have irked AISafetyMemes, who launched into an impassioned broadside against Jezos, hitting him with insults like "sociopath" and "charlatan".

The X user also claimed that Bezos had talked about doxxing him in the past. We have not yet seen unequivocal evidence of this suggestion, so do not take the following claim as a fact.

"Beff says he wouldn't wish doxxing upon even his enemies?" AISafetyMemes claimed.

"HE TRIED TO DOX ME. I've been quiet about this, but before he got doxed, he repeatedly and publicly tried to dox me.

"What kind of person does that? What does that say about who they truly are?"

We spoke to the person who runs AISafetyMemes. He told us: "He believed incorrectly he had discovered my identity and went around attempting to dox me.'

When we pressed for more evidence, the doomer claimed: "Looks like he deleted some other tweets."

The Safetyist influencer also claimed Jezos had become convinced their profile was secretly being run by another famous doomer. He then allegedly used this name in conversations on X, which the person behind AISafetyMemes interpreted as hinting at the exposure of his true identity.

e/acc ÷ p(doom)

This skirmish between two prominent members of the AI Safety and e/acc communities is part of a much longer rivalry.

Earlier this year, for instance, our protagonists locked horns after Jezos claimed a rival in a debate had "mentioned travelling to SF to kill me" during a debate.

He took offence after this possibility was mentioned - although certainly not condoned or called for. Jezos then wrote a tweet which said: "The Doomers are trying to rile up the crazies to do something to me. Trying to hyperstition violence from his likely deranged following. Despicable."

AISafetyMemes described these "tinfoil hat conspiracies about people coming to kill him" as "padded room-level paranoia".

You can see what you make of the claims below by watching the video that prompted Jezos to write his posts.

Accelerationists often argue that doomers are moments away from going full Unabomber. If you firmly believe the AI industry really is building the technology that will destroy humanity, the argument goes, then violence is unlikely to be off the table.

"The Doomer Cult will eventually resort to violence and it won't be pretty," Jezos previously tweeted.

In the past, Jezos' comments have been interpreted as meaning he supports or is at least comfortable with humanity's potential demise if we manage to summon a digital superintelligence.

But he's also reportedly talked about trying to create a “spiritual meta-religion” and being a “memetic warlord”. He definitely has a love of colourful language, so probably shouldn't always be taken 100% seriously in his statements.

We have asked Beff Jezos for comment and will update this story when he replies.

Let us know what you think of this debate and the characters in it.

And don't forget to sign up below...

Have you got a story to share? Get in touch and let us know. 

Follow Machine on X, BlueSky and LinkedIn