3 ms·

the strong needs to just take whatever it wants, and so be it? there's no separating technology from context, as in consequences. yes, all the talk about bombi

by pas 3y ago

the strong needs to just take whatever it wants, and so be it? there's no separating technology from context, as in consequences. yes, all the talk about bombing datacenters is crazy, but oversight is not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQfJi7rjuEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQfJi7rjuEk

matheusmoreira 3y ago
Yeah, sure. "Oversight". Funny how that only ever seems to benefit governments and entrenched corporate interests. Can't let normal citizens have free computing, lest they start encrypting things or violating copyright at massive scales. Now the new boogeyman is "unrestricted" AI. Can't let people have that, it might provide people instructions about sarin gas manufacturing or something. The government intelligence agencies totally want full access though, they can feed everyone's communications into it so they can ask it questions about the people they're surveilling. Is person X planning a terrorist attack? Is there anything that could ruin person Y's reputation? The truth is these technologies are subversive. They literally subvert the existing social order and impose a new one. A new social order where the users of the technology are empowered. They can't tolerate it when we are the users. It takes their power away. So they ban it, control it, flip it around on us and turn it into the very mechanism of our wide-scale oppression.
- pas 3y ago
  funny, yet false. there are clear benefits to having the FDA, SEC, FTC, EPA and so on around. there's a clear benefit to having fire inspectors, and there's a clear benefit to the mandate of 2 stairs per multi-story building. there's a clear benefit to the requirement of demonstration of efficacy in front of the FDA. there's a clear benefit to having clean air. of course there are clear drawbacks too. most of Europe is perfectly okay with just 1 stair per such building. FDA processes are slow and expensive, even if a drug has proven safe and effective abroad. regulatory capture is a problem, the super-long intellectual property terms are a problem. using environmental review laws for endless NIMBYism is a problem. but these are arguments for reform, not for scorched earth, because then the problems will very likely come back. of course it's very hard to do proper cost-benefit comparisons, yet that doesn't mean it's impossible, and especially doesn't mean that simply getting rid of these controls will deliver utopia overnight. ... funny, how we're talking about some hypothetical oversight, while right now in the present the big beneficiaries of AI are hyper-big-fucking-corps. MSFT. Google. Tesla. Apple. Amazon. ... Subversive tech? Like Pegasus? And face recognition? And the Great Firewall of China?
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > but these are arguments for reform, not for scorched earth We're never going to "reform" this system. We're up against trillion dollar industries with unlimited lobbying power, governments bold enough to ignore the constitutional rights of their own citizens.
    - pas 3y ago
      ... that again seems like a very useless model of the world. regulations change, sometimes for the worse sometimes for the better. of course we know that when populism flies high and the wolves are elected to keep the sheep safe, well, you know, we have always been at war with Oceania. Supreme Court justices were always allowed to accept gifts. social movements, radicals come and go, trillion dollar industries can too.

by pas 3y ago

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Yeah, sure. "Oversight". Funny how that only ever seems to benefit governments and entrenched corporate interests. Can't let normal citizens have free computing, lest they start encrypting things or violating copyright at massive scales. Now the new boogeyman is "unrestricted" AI. Can't let people have that, it might provide people instructions about sarin gas manufacturing or something. The government intelligence agencies totally want full access though, they can feed everyone's communications into it so they can ask it questions about the people they're surveilling. Is person X planning a terrorist attack? Is there anything that could ruin person Y's reputation? The truth is these technologies are subversive. They literally subvert the existing social order and impose a new one. A new social order where the users of the technology are empowered. They can't tolerate it when we are the users. It takes their power away. So they ban it, control it, flip it around on us and turn it into the very mechanism of our wide-scale oppression.

pas 3y ago
funny, yet false. there are clear benefits to having the FDA, SEC, FTC, EPA and so on around. there's a clear benefit to having fire inspectors, and there's a clear benefit to the mandate of 2 stairs per multi-story building. there's a clear benefit to the requirement of demonstration of efficacy in front of the FDA. there's a clear benefit to having clean air. of course there are clear drawbacks too. most of Europe is perfectly okay with just 1 stair per such building. FDA processes are slow and expensive, even if a drug has proven safe and effective abroad. regulatory capture is a problem, the super-long intellectual property terms are a problem. using environmental review laws for endless NIMBYism is a problem. but these are arguments for reform, not for scorched earth, because then the problems will very likely come back. of course it's very hard to do proper cost-benefit comparisons, yet that doesn't mean it's impossible, and especially doesn't mean that simply getting rid of these controls will deliver utopia overnight. ... funny, how we're talking about some hypothetical oversight, while right now in the present the big beneficiaries of AI are hyper-big-fucking-corps. MSFT. Google. Tesla. Apple. Amazon. ... Subversive tech? Like Pegasus? And face recognition? And the Great Firewall of China?
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > but these are arguments for reform, not for scorched earth We're never going to "reform" this system. We're up against trillion dollar industries with unlimited lobbying power, governments bold enough to ignore the constitutional rights of their own citizens.
  - pas 3y ago
    ... that again seems like a very useless model of the world. regulations change, sometimes for the worse sometimes for the better. of course we know that when populism flies high and the wolves are elected to keep the sheep safe, well, you know, we have always been at war with Oceania. Supreme Court justices were always allowed to accept gifts. social movements, radicals come and go, trillion dollar industries can too.