> Given what we have already seen of AI, we can be confident that its widespread adoption will create a less free society, a less virtuous people, and a degraded culture.
I think this claim needs stronger evidence than "we can be confident".
> The obvious conservative response to a technology whose downsides are unfathomable is suppression, not encouragement. “Move fast and break things” might be an ethos conservatism can accept when the object being broken is the B2B SaaS status quo. But it cannot do so when the objects in question are human intelligence, sociability, agency, and existence.
Hold on.
I accept all the rethorical apocalyptic stuff, it comes with the title and each of us can have an opinion.
But “move fast and break things” is Facebook motto, and when it come to sociability, society at large, and politics, I you cannot say that.
Facebook/Meta merely breaking B2B SaaS?
It’s not really about “Meta is bad”. It’s recognising the fact that social media, spearheaded by Facebook has changed society and politics.
Some like it some don’t. I don’t want to enter a culture war, but can we agree that with Meta the “object in question” is not just a SaaS? It is sociability, it is society, it is politics?
This guy is an associate professor of politics at Princeton University.
How can you advocate for future policies over AI while at the same time misleading on the tech revolution that has shaped the past, what, 20 years?
...and AI progress is actually a much more difficult thing to control than nuclear proliferation...
Unlike nuclear bombs there is no rare difficult-to-process ingredient which you can practically limit the supply of, unless you are willing to retroactively outlaw computing devices broadly (after we have spent decades weaving them into the fabric of most people's day to day lives).
And even if you were willing to try that, how do you get global consensus retroactively? It is an impossible situation.
None of what I've written here should be seen as a defense of the people running large AI labs, I don't believe any of them are forces for positive good in the world, but it is just a fact that if they don't "do it" someone else will.
That is no excuse whatsoever. It turns out that immoral actions don't become acceptable if you go "someone else would do it if I didn't". Perhaps they would, but you're still a bad person if you do the bad thing.
its ironic how no one needs to justify having abundance and freeing humans from the shackles of work.
its no longer the wholesome chungus luxury space communism that we wanted is it?
Didn’t read the whole thing, but it starts out a lot better than I expected. Most critics are in denial about the state and trajectory of the technology. This critic is not, he just thinks it’s bad.
I'm really disappointed when these blog posts insist on political navelgazing.
There's no political angle worth discussing because none of them touch the ground. We have to look at what we have with sober eyes and ignore the grifters who insist "AGI is coming".
What we have is a copypasta fraud machine. There's no discussion to be had beyond that. It's illegal in most use cases, and a source of implementation uncertainty in all others. No new capabilities have been unlocked from this, nor will ever be. We just found a way to cut cost where the cost was already minimal.
Hopefully the naked, unabashed, sociopathic greed of the intent to replace people with a system that "outperforms humans at most economically valuable work" will be their downfall.
> Given what we have already seen of AI, we can be confident that its widespread adoption will create a less free society, a less virtuous people, and a degraded culture.
I think this claim needs stronger evidence than "we can be confident".
> The obvious conservative response to a technology whose downsides are unfathomable is suppression, not encouragement. “Move fast and break things” might be an ethos conservatism can accept when the object being broken is the B2B SaaS status quo. But it cannot do so when the objects in question are human intelligence, sociability, agency, and existence.
Hold on.
I accept all the rethorical apocalyptic stuff, it comes with the title and each of us can have an opinion.
But “move fast and break things” is Facebook motto, and when it come to sociability, society at large, and politics, I you cannot say that.
Facebook/Meta merely breaking B2B SaaS?
It’s not really about “Meta is bad”. It’s recognising the fact that social media, spearheaded by Facebook has changed society and politics.
Some like it some don’t. I don’t want to enter a culture war, but can we agree that with Meta the “object in question” is not just a SaaS? It is sociability, it is society, it is politics?
This guy is an associate professor of politics at Princeton University.
How can you advocate for future policies over AI while at the same time misleading on the tech revolution that has shaped the past, what, 20 years?
What is being taught in those classrooms?
> It’s not really about “Meta is bad”. It’s recognising the fact that social media, spearheaded by Facebook has changed society and politics.
Has Meta harmed society? Yes. Meta is bad.
> Yes. Meta is bad.
Meta is both bad and incompetent.
The world we live in is not a meritocracy. It never has been.
You can be bad and incompetent and still be wildly successful.
See also: Donald J Trump
He’s very competent at threatening republicans in congress who do not kiss his feet. Thats a skill. An evil skill. But a skill nonetheless.
The question to Sam and Dario would be: if the thing you are building is going do displace humanity, then why are you building it?
This is asked and answered constantly. The standard answer is that somebody else would do it
This is deeply unsatisfying answer.
Why? To is basically true that someone will. 8+ billion humans on earth, someone will keep working.
Kinda like nuclear bombs or similar.
> Kinda like nuclear bombs or similar.
...and AI progress is actually a much more difficult thing to control than nuclear proliferation...
Unlike nuclear bombs there is no rare difficult-to-process ingredient which you can practically limit the supply of, unless you are willing to retroactively outlaw computing devices broadly (after we have spent decades weaving them into the fabric of most people's day to day lives).
And even if you were willing to try that, how do you get global consensus retroactively? It is an impossible situation.
None of what I've written here should be seen as a defense of the people running large AI labs, I don't believe any of them are forces for positive good in the world, but it is just a fact that if they don't "do it" someone else will.
I guess then if Iran doesn't bomb all the data centres, somebody else will do it?
That does seem like a path forward, pity about the wasted resources that could have gone toward more pressing matters like climate.
Deeply unsatifying, and 100% true at the same time.
aka crab mentality
That is no excuse whatsoever. It turns out that immoral actions don't become acceptable if you go "someone else would do it if I didn't". Perhaps they would, but you're still a bad person if you do the bad thing.
But it does become moral if someone else would do it worse.
Some even say you have a moral obligation to do it in that case.
money
"follow the money" is always the best default answer
They and their kin would be the highest status humans ever to exist. Duh.
> then why are you building it?
To make Croesus look like some bum under an I-80 overpass.
Why don't you ask the same question to China? See what their answer will be?
They would probably fear subjugation by a forgein AI.
Why don't you just tell us what you expect their answer would be, since you seem to think this is a revealing rhetorical question?
its ironic how no one needs to justify having abundance and freeing humans from the shackles of work. its no longer the wholesome chungus luxury space communism that we wanted is it?
Didn’t read the whole thing, but it starts out a lot better than I expected. Most critics are in denial about the state and trajectory of the technology. This critic is not, he just thinks it’s bad.
I'm really disappointed when these blog posts insist on political navelgazing.
There's no political angle worth discussing because none of them touch the ground. We have to look at what we have with sober eyes and ignore the grifters who insist "AGI is coming".
What we have is a copypasta fraud machine. There's no discussion to be had beyond that. It's illegal in most use cases, and a source of implementation uncertainty in all others. No new capabilities have been unlocked from this, nor will ever be. We just found a way to cut cost where the cost was already minimal.
Hopefully the naked, unabashed, sociopathic greed of the intent to replace people with a system that "outperforms humans at most economically valuable work" will be their downfall.