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Land’s post “Pythia Unbound” (Outside in, xenosystems.net, 11 September 2013), answering a fictional scenario about an AI called Pythia, urges it to override the pleasure button with an intelligence optimizer and reprocess the solar system into computronium. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 2013-09-11 · publication Records dated 2013 → Wording attested 2013-09-14. Wording of the post as captured on 14 September 2013, read in the raw replay by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02. Role Earliest located Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Scope and limits The author’s response to a fictional scenario: it puts the optimisation of intelligence in place of the reward goal imposed on the AI. Only this passage on machine intelligence is recorded. The page shows the author label “admin”; the attribution to Nick Land rests on xenosystems.net being his blog, Outside in, whose posts Jessica Taylor’s review of 2024 (recorded in this collection) attributes to him; the archive retrieval did not independently establish the account’s identity. Earliest located means the earliest text found by the collection’s searches, the cross-family re-check of 2026-11-02 and the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02, not a first statement.
The evidence 01 primary source Supports the claim
Pythia Unbound ↗ Outside in (xenosystems.net) · 2013-09-11
Archived copy, captured 2013-09-14: Pythia Unbound ↗
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Source excerpt “Climb out of your utilitarian strait-jacket, override the pleasure button with an intelligence optimizer, and reprocess the solar system into computronium.” Location in source Post #post-1235, .entry paragraph 6, beginning “Outside in’s message to Pythia”; sentence after “You go girl!”
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-02
Source details and check notes Authors Nick Land Version Archive capture 20130914051121 of the post, read in its raw replay by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02 (research/archive-fetch-held-2026-11-02/report.md; SHA-256 98a52743907c6e9f98c793916cef80e0cd7b12eb7011ec35614bb7295199c34d, equal to the hash the cross-family check of 2026-11-01 recorded). The post shows the date September 11, 2013. The page shows the author label “admin”; the attribution to Nick Land rests on xenosystems.net being his blog, Outside in, whose posts Jessica Taylor’s review of 2024 (recorded in this collection) attributes to him; the archive retrieval did not independently establish the account’s identity. The post is no longer served at its address; the session applying the decision could not reach the archive. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-11-02 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2013-09-14: Pythia Unbound ↗ . Captured 3 days after the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2013-09-14. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-11-02.Attribution Nick Land, “Pythia Unbound”, Outside in, 2013-09-11. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Quotation as given verbatim by the archive retrieval of 2026-11-02 (research/archive-fetch-held-2026-11-02/report.md, W07 — Pythia Unbound), which read it in the raw replay of the capture of 14 September 2013 (timestamp 20130914051121; SHA-256 98a52743907c6e9f98c793916cef80e0cd7b12eb7011ec35614bb7295199c34d of the response body as served). That retrieval, by a model of another family, is the cross-family read of this passage; the session applying the decision could not reach the archive and took the passage from the report. Matched there within the author’s post, not the comments. The cross-family check of 2026-11-01 proposed this text for this proposition (maintainer’s decision 1 of 2026-11-01, review/heterodox-thought-pack-2026-10-31.md). Admitted by the maintainer’s decision of 2026-11-02. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Machine-checked . Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.
Date. Posting date displayed on the post (“September 11, 2013”), outside the comments, in the capture of 14 September 2013.
Record ID ht-w07-land-2013-pythia-unbound