Bluesky thread alleges AI safety movement has cult-like dynamics tied to non-standard sexuality
A viral post claims prominent AI safety figures have formed an insular community with problematic power dynamics and unconventional sexual practices.
What to know
- A viral Bluesky post alleging the AI safety movement functions as a 'sex cult' with problematic dynamics gained significant traction on Hacker News on September 17, 2026.
- Commenters expressed mixed views: some drew parallels to other ideological movements with internal pathologies, while others questioned whether the 'sex cult' label is accurate or useful for describing the community.
- The discussion centers on whether the post identifies a genuine structural problem in the AI safety community or merely documents that prominent figures have unconventional personal lives.
The dispute Whether documenting non-standard sexuality and insularity in the AI safety community constitutes evidence of a 'sex cult' or is merely sensationalism that obscures deeper structural questions. · positions read across 35 posts and comments
The AI safety movement has real structural problems—cultish insularity, problematic power dynamics, and figures failing to live up to their stated principles.
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“Any actually-reasonable person who was around for the founding craze of this era, ie., New Atheism, quickly realised that there was a deep pathology at the heart of many of its zealots”
mjburgess · Hacker News ↗
The 'sex cult' label is inaccurate or unhelpfully sensationalized; the community behaves professionally in most respects despite non-standard personal lives.
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“It may well be a sex cult, but if it is, my experience is that it so thoroughly behaves like a regular community in so many aspects that it at least calls into question the predictive usefulness, if not the accuracy, of the label "sex…”
fwlr · Hacker News ↗
Eliezer Yudkowsky AI safety advocate and figure in the movementNina Hartley Adult entertainer referenced in discussion
How it unfolded 7 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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Commenter questions the substantive point of the article
A reader expresses uncertainty about what the original post actually argues beyond documenting that figures in the movement are imperfect and have non-standard personal lives.
“Is there any point besides Yud not being perfect, and having connections to people who openly talk about their sex life?”
— perlgeek -
J
The social scene around AI and AI safety is more unpleasant than I realized. I'm sure there are other sides to it. But when you get a lot of young men with too much money who think they're building god or saving the world, what do you expect? Read the long Bluesky thread about this, collected on one page: https:// skywriter.blue/@segyges.bsky.s…
2 more of the top 3 · 22 posts in this stretch
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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…
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AI Safety Is Mostly a Sex Cult L: https:// bsky.app/profile/segyges.bsky. social/post/3mvom4b4dn22q C: https:// news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 9766911 posted on 2026.09.19 at 10:36:28 (c=1, p=4)
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Commenter challenges the "sex cult" framing based on personal experience
A commenter who claims to have been invited to gatherings by the community questions whether "sex cult" is a useful or accurate label, noting the community behaved respectfully and professionally in other respects.
“It may well be a sex cult, but if it is, my experience is that it so thoroughly behaves like a regular community in so many aspects that it at least calls into question the predictive usefulness, if not the accuracy, of the label "sex cult".”
— fwlr -
Nina Hartley has got to have some of the craziest stories. I'd love to see her talk about all the weird stuff she's seen/been involved with.
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Commenter draws parallels to New Atheism movement's internal problems
A commenter characterizes the AI safety movement as exhibiting similar pathologies to the New Atheism movement of the 2000s, including zealotry and problematic behavior by prominent figures.
“Any actually-reasonable person who was around for the founding craze of this era, ie., New Atheism, quickly realised that there was a deep pathology at the heart of many of its zealots…”
— mjburgess -
Any actually-reasonable person who was around for the founding craze of this era, ie., New Atheism, quickly realised that there was a deep pathology at the heart of many of its zealots, perhaps summed up by a desired to "recreate religion in their own image". I've walked into many a room of people screaming that teaching children falsehoods is…
2 more of the top 3 · 3 posts in this stretch
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Well, this is old news. I'm still baffled by the fact that people take output of public personas as isolated facts. Take Nietzsche. Sure, great philosophical input. But try reading the sections about women. Same for Schopenhauer. Why? Because they were both incels and had big mother wounds that have never been addressed. So they spew their shit…
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I've tried to read this, but somehow the article doesn't really come to a point. Is there any point besides Yud not being perfect, and having connections to people who openly talk about their sex life (and that it's somewhat non-standard)?
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Commenters express ambivalence about allegations against prominent figures
Discussion turns to disillusionment with AI safety advocates, with one commenter noting the contrast between Yudkowsky's passionate writings and lack of concrete action over a decade.
“I did always find it odd, 10 years after reading Yudkowsky's passionate writings, that he doesn't seem to have really gone and done anything about it.”
— brendyn -
Sometimes when I find someone to look up to and admire, I later find out there is potentially some dark reality to them. I then lament not being able to find any good role models in the world. If they have missused donor money, then that is terrible. If they are pushing towards goals that seems contrary to their stated mission, that is difficult…
1 more of the top 2 · 2 posts in this stretch
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There's a great movie or Streaming series on this post somewhere.Sometimes people can be too smart for their own good. Like a frontier model in an eternal hallucination loop, you can create entire seemingly consistent realities in your head and end up bringing others into it.
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Commenters reference related reporting and their own coverage
Hacker News users cite a New York Post article on the same topic and references to longer investigative pieces written on the subject.
“Also covered by nypost: [NY Post article on AI doomsayers and OnlyFans star]…”
— xnx -
I too wrote about this, although _much_ longer, if you want a bit of a deeper dive on the subject
1 more of the top 2 · 2 posts in this stretch
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>She has a rape kinkThat's enough internet for today, back to playing video games
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Post reaches Hacker News front page with 120 points and 82 comments
The Bluesky thread gains significant traction on Hacker News, becoming a top story and generating substantial discussion in the tech community.
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AI Safety Is Mostly a Sex Cult L: https:// skywriter.blue/@segyges.bsky.s ocial/3mvom4b4dn22q C: https:// news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 9737985 posted on 2026.09.17 at 04:36:37 (c=0, p=4)
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Bluesky thread "AI Safety Is Mostly a Sex Cult" begins circulating
A post on Bluesky making allegations about AI safety researchers' personal lives and community dynamics starts spreading across social media platforms including Mastodon and Hacker News.
“if you have liberal or leftist friends who are starting to buy this whole AI-will-kill-us-all thing, send them this incredible Bluesky thread. it's a doomer sex cult.”
— peter@thepit.social, Mastodon user · source -
2 outlets AI Safety Is Mostly a Sex Cult
first by HN Frontpage, 7d ago · also HN Best
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if you have liberal or leftist friends who are starting to buy this whole AI-will-kill-us-all thing, send them this incredible Bluesky thread. it's a doomer sex cult. these are religious orgy weirdos. all of them. https:// skywriter.blue/@segyges.bsky.s ocial/3mvom4b4dn22q
1 more of the top 2 · 2 posts in this stretch
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"AI Safety Is Mostly A Sex Cult." that is quite the read https:// skywriter.blue/@segyges.bsky.s ocial/3mvom4b4dn22q
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What people are saying 12 voices from 2 sites · best of 35 · verbatim
- Sep 19
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It sort of seems like the community is criticized for truly believing and living what they preach... They're the most sincere - if you thought the world was ending, you'd maybe do your best to stop it while enjoying the last bits left, while spending time with like-minded people. They're being criticized for not being hypocrites? I mean sure seems…
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I wish there was more discussion on HN about the various plans that the various labs have to keep AI aligned or about the various arguments for why alignment will be easy or happen naturally, so there's no need for an elaborate plan for it.Instead HN has mostly discussion of assertions that the AI anti-extinctionists (and Yudkowsky in particular…
- Sep 18
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Why can't detractors of rationalism and AI-doom ever just lay out an argument for why they're wrongIt's always "yudkowsky is a weird guy" or "they had an orgie once" but who gives a fuck?I just want someone to lay out, in impersonal terms, the flaws of their reasoning and why I shouldn't agree with them.My problem is with the whole genre of…
- Sep 17
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The ad hominems are tiresome. You think the people who are explicitly trying to replace all humans are any less weird and problematic?The rationalists long predicted that misaligned AI would break out of training environments, this has happened. They believe (among other things) that this will continue to happen, and that creating powerful AI that…
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As a polyamorous person, it seems quite concerning that effective altruism people are labeled as members of a sex cult, due to their private lives. Intellectuals should be attacked on the basis of their ideas, not based on their private lives.
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> His autobiography even opens with a parable: as a small child he threw his favorite squirtgun off a third-floor balcony rather than accept that his mother could lend out what was his, and felt complete when he heard it hit the pavement.What a classic narcissist.> Main character syndrome stops being a character flaw the day you join a religion…
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There are better ways to make this criticism. The main problem I see with this is that it's basically a long ad hominem, followed by some valid concerns about market concentration at the end.Remove all the ad hominem and what remains is two paragraphs long. Valid ones, though.
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As far as manifestos go HPMOR is a pretty good one. I think that’s what a lot of the critiques about it miss. Yudkowsky is actually a pretty decent writer, especially in the fan fic scene. Not only is his prose actually acceptable which is pretty rare in fanfic it’s clear that he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time…
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This has me wondering if or how FetLife played a role in these communities connecting in the first place…does anyone know of any connection? (FetLife was a combo social network, blogging forum, and dating site back in the day)
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Someone who hasn't been reading the object-level arguments for 10+ years might reasonably wonder if these are good heuristics. Here's an additional data point: I think polyamory is stupid, I've read the object-level arguments, and this entire thread is ridiculous.Everyone who works at a frontier lab should be in prison, AND ALSO the people talking…
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I was invited to a few orgies with them; I politely declined, they were very respectful of my decision and I wasn’t asked again (which in retrospect must have been partly due to deliberate coordination - fairly advanced social technology, imo). This didn’t affect my standing or acceptance with them. It may well be a sex cult, but if it is, my…
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Not going to comment on the whole "AI safety sex cult" thread that's making the rounds *other* than to note that it's been interesting to watch actual trust & safety people moving into the AI world and clashing with... those people...