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I am, once again, am baffled by the insistence that one product or service must always succumb to every group's values. If you want a "Conservative" version of

I am, once again, am baffled by the insistence that one product or service must always succumb to every group's values. If you want a "Conservative" version of ChatGPT, go build it. If you want a "Leftist" version of ChatGPT, go build it.

jkeisling 4y ago
Yes, in an ideal world a competitor could just start up their own ChatGPT. However, over the last decade we've seen over and over that "just build your own X" isn't a real solution. Nearly all web-based businesses rely on a few oligopolies which can and do deplatform people they don't like: - Apple and Google (Parler) - Payment processors like Visa and Mastercard (porn) or, heck, the banks (Canada truckers, Kanye West) - Crowdfunding (Unstable Diffusion) - Cloud hosting like AWS (Parler again) - Infrastructure like Cloudflare, DNS (Kiwifarms) And that's not even counting network effects, social media activism, and the difficulty of raising money for a controversial business. Starting a large profitable tech business opposed to SV values is next to impossible, unless you're in China or are content selling to all 2 Monero users on the dark web. And you can still theoretically run a website out of your basement. LLMs, on the other hand, need ridiculous amounts of compute to train, which practically requires cloud computing. Fine-tuning isn't an answer either: almost all open-source foundation models are conveniently "ethically-sourced" so the groups releasing them can sue any users they don't like. How would a conservative make ParlerGPT if AWS or Google won't rent them A100s or TPUs - "just build your own exascale cluster"??? Even then I suspect Nvidia would deplatform them and it would be game over. Some companies are infrastructure, and if they're not treated like utilities, your rights are a dead letter. Yes, I do insist that Mastercard and Visa, or Apple and Google, or Nvidia and AMD must always succumb to every group's values who want to buy their services for any legal use. And though I wouldn't necessarily go this far, there's a case to be made that foundation models (which after all are trained on everybody's data) should be politically neutral as well.
- etchalon 4y ago
  Because there was a demand, far-right friendly infrastructure services have been founded, and are, as best I can tell, doing fine business-wise. As a free speech absolutist, I cannot fathom a world in which we have to trample on one group's freedom of speech and association just to appease another's.
poulpy123 4y ago
and I'm baffled by the insistence that "go build it" is a valid answer
- etchalon 4y ago
  Because a. we live in country where freedom of speech is inclusive of product and editorial decisions and b. a truly "politically neutral" product, at least one that produces or displays content, is essentially impossible so c. "go build it" is the only solution available.

jkeisling 4y ago

Yes, in an ideal world a competitor could just start up their own ChatGPT. However, over the last decade we've seen over and over that "just build your own X" isn't a real solution. Nearly all web-based businesses rely on a few oligopolies which can and do deplatform people they don't like: - Apple and Google (Parler) - Payment processors like Visa and Mastercard (porn) or, heck, the banks (Canada truckers, Kanye West) - Crowdfunding (Unstable Diffusion) - Cloud hosting like AWS (Parler again) - Infrastructure like Cloudflare, DNS (Kiwifarms) And that's not even counting network effects, social media activism, and the difficulty of raising money for a controversial business. Starting a large profitable tech business opposed to SV values is next to impossible, unless you're in China or are content selling to all 2 Monero users on the dark web. And you can still theoretically run a website out of your basement. LLMs, on the other hand, need ridiculous amounts of compute to train, which practically requires cloud computing. Fine-tuning isn't an answer either: almost all open-source foundation models are conveniently "ethically-sourced" so the groups releasing them can sue any users they don't like. How would a conservative make ParlerGPT if AWS or Google won't rent them A100s or TPUs - "just build your own exascale cluster"??? Even then I suspect Nvidia would deplatform them and it would be game over. Some companies are infrastructure, and if they're not treated like utilities, your rights are a dead letter. Yes, I do insist that Mastercard and Visa, or Apple and Google, or Nvidia and AMD must always succumb to every group's values who want to buy their services for any legal use. And though I wouldn't necessarily go this far, there's a case to be made that foundation models (which after all are trained on everybody's data) should be politically neutral as well.

etchalon 4y ago
Because there was a demand, far-right friendly infrastructure services have been founded, and are, as best I can tell, doing fine business-wise. As a free speech absolutist, I cannot fathom a world in which we have to trample on one group's freedom of speech and association just to appease another's.

poulpy123 4y ago

and I'm baffled by the insistence that "go build it" is a valid answer

etchalon 4y ago
Because a. we live in country where freedom of speech is inclusive of product and editorial decisions and b. a truly "politically neutral" product, at least one that produces or displays content, is essentially impossible so c. "go build it" is the only solution available.