I don't really get why people go on about Yudkowsky in this regard. I mean serious thinking about AI goes back at least to Turing in 1950 with his test and prediction computers would get there in about 50 years and presumably keep improving. And people have worried about it since then.

Like in 1949 Norbert Wiener saying of AI type stuff "every degree of independence we give the machine is a degree of possible defiance of our wishes."

Then 30 years later this Yudkowsky is born, later is considered a bit of a crank, goes on a bit about the same old stuff when he grows up and everyone makes out like he invented it?

I've got a lot of respect for Turing, Wiener and Von Neumann but haven't bothered reading Yudkowsky. Is there any point?

It seems a bit unfair to the pioneers of the field to go on about some Harry Potter sex cult guy who repeated their ideas decades later?

Regardless of anything I would have more respect for anyone who didn't explicitly optimize the atomic bombs on Japan for civilian casualties like Neumann did.

Yudkowski is being derided because he wrote some weird fanfic which may or may not be problematic (I didn't read it, I dislike HP too much). And apparently "is considered a bit of a crank".

Neumann actually fucking did it, his calculations for maximum civilian casualties make him quite directly responsible.

I don't think you need to compare Turing, Wiener or Yudkowsky to that mass murderer.