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Every time this gets brought up it gets called a moral panic. I'm now convinced "moral panic" is a thought terminating cliche in this case. These systems are ba

by reedf1 3y ago

Every time this gets brought up it gets called a moral panic. I'm now convinced "moral panic" is a thought terminating cliche in this case. These systems are basically algorithmically addicting, like gambling. We don't let kids gamble - so let's read the studies, see the outcomes, come up with solutions and boundaries, and legislate accordingly.

benreesman 3y ago
You see the de facto as opposed to aspirational rule of law constrain or even non-trivially inconvenience anything with a 1-3T notional value any time recently? Binding, truly binding legislation or regulatory oversight is clearly the desirous end state. How in the hell we take even a single step towards that is the 1-3T dollar question. SBF is in prison, so is Holmes, as was Madoff. But the burden now trivially rests on the person asserting that the public has any say in the matter to show that it ever happens in the modern era. The first rule of Crime Club is don’t steal from other rich people. The second rule of Crime Clib is: there are no rules.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  > You see the de facto as opposed to aspirational rule of law constrain or even non-trivially inconvenience anything with a 1-3T notional value any time recently? I read this sentence 3 times and I still don’t know what it means.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    No will will hold the richest accountable including trillion dollar corporations. The government simply cannot prosecute what it depends on to exist.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      > The government simply cannot prosecute what it depends on to exist. That has never been truer than in the UK at present, with the Fujitsu Horizon scandal at the Post Office. We'd rather throw 3,500 lives under a bus than investigate a serious problem with a govt. preferred supplier.
  - benreesman 3y ago
    It means the big cap tech companies break the law with impunity now. They launder the commons through some remarkably banal linear algebra and assert copyright on the resulting entropy coding. They smash and partially re-hire and then smash staffing, washing out a bunch of ESOP in the process, timed to the week in many instances, not 15 years after the last time they got popped in Federal court for flagrant wage fixing. They violate Sherman with App Store tariffs at payday loan vig, get popped for that, and fail to perform. They pay OSHA penalties calibrated to a different monetary regime and just ignore it being illegal. Do I really need to keep going? It’s a long list.
    - skrebbel 3y ago
      You misunderstand. My comment is not about your argument but about your writing. I don’t understand half the sentences in your response either. I mean how can you “launder the commons”? With linear algebra‽ I think you just mean “rich people and big companies can get away with anything, and I’m against that” but you’re not really helping.
      - benreesman 3y ago
        By launder the commons through linear algebra I mean train foundation models with sufficient capacity to memorize the Internet via a degree of access to the corpus in which the scale renders any notion of competition absurd, most of which is explicitly or implicitly owned by someone or in the public domain, and then assert copyright over the model weights (slightly compressed crawl), openly and flagrantly profiteer on the back thereof, and send Open Philanthropy to go round up a kleptocratic consensus in Washington. Numerous lawsuits are in varying stages of process around this practice, but the one shaping up to be a “test case” is currently looking to be https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t... They broke the first rule of Crime Club.
        skrebbel 3y ago
        > train foundation models with sufficient capacity to memorize the Internet via a degree of access to the corpus in which the scale renders any notion of competition absurd, most of which is explicitly or implicitly owned by someone or in the public domain, and then You’re just trolling me now right
  - mock-possum 3y ago
    Oh good I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds these comments inscrutable.
    - benreesman 3y ago
      I’m happy to answer any questions you have about what I meant or clarify any confusing jargon. This set of subjects sits squarely at the intersection of “of public interest”, “fairly technical”, “fast moving”, and “emotionally charged”, so it’s not at all surprising that a set of positions held by a group that hasn’t openly gone from plurality to majority, personified in this instance by yours truly, would generate some driveby chaff. But do ask for clarification if you don’t understand but still care enough to comment?
  - Intralexical 3y ago
    > [Have] You see[n] the de facto [rule of law]— as opposed to [the] aspirational rule of law— constrain, or even non-trivially inconvenience, any[body] with a [$]1-3T notional value any time recently?
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      This formatting is surprisingly (to me) more helpful than I would have though. Alternatively the original was just worse than I realized.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  [flagged]
- pistoriusp 3y ago
  FWIW I really struggled to understand what you’re saying, but the gist is that society can’t regulate cash cows?
  - benreesman 3y ago
    There is nothing inherently bad about some corporations or individuals ceteris paribus generating windfall profits. Ceteris paribus is doing a lot of lifting there, because nepotism, graft, cartel collusion, bribery and generally capture are trivially the dominant terms. The fungibility of windfall profits into induced market failure to generate more windfall profits has historically only ended one way.
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      You really, REALLY need to stop using big words like "Ceteris paribus". It's not helping you get your point across, (especially) when you don't even care to explain them.
- NhanH 3y ago
  Yes, China did it with Alibaba. They wrote off 1T or more in notional value.
XorNot 3y ago
Because it is. It might be right, but it is also indistinguishable to any other time the proposal is "the government is going to manage your recreational activities for your own benefit".
noduerme 3y ago
I agree, but I'd add that a stable society both allows adults to gamble and teaches kids why not to gamble, sometimes teaching by example. A simple game can be run in any classroom from 3rd to 7th grade that shows how any group of people given an artificial megaphone may end up bullying and torturing even the biggest bullies in the class. The experience of that is what enables reflection later in life when one finds oneself part of a group bullying other people, and has the thought to step back and question why they're participating in it. Social media as it is right now leverages the instincts of bullies, and turns people into mobs. Period. It elevates the one human instinct that is a priori most antithetical to both individual liberty and social cohesion: The desire for naked attention, good bad or otherwise. The only justification it holds out for doing so is that it has identified a profitable vice, a flaw in the human operating system (like gambling) and that there's no law against capitalizing on it.

by reedf1 3y ago

benreesman 3y ago

You see the de facto as opposed to aspirational rule of law constrain or even non-trivially inconvenience anything with a 1-3T notional value any time recently? Binding, truly binding legislation or regulatory oversight is clearly the desirous end state. How in the hell we take even a single step towards that is the 1-3T dollar question. SBF is in prison, so is Holmes, as was Madoff. But the burden now trivially rests on the person asserting that the public has any say in the matter to show that it ever happens in the modern era. The first rule of Crime Club is don’t steal from other rich people. The second rule of Crime Clib is: there are no rules.

skrebbel 3y ago
> You see the de facto as opposed to aspirational rule of law constrain or even non-trivially inconvenience anything with a 1-3T notional value any time recently? I read this sentence 3 times and I still don’t know what it means.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  No will will hold the richest accountable including trillion dollar corporations. The government simply cannot prosecute what it depends on to exist.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > The government simply cannot prosecute what it depends on to exist. That has never been truer than in the UK at present, with the Fujitsu Horizon scandal at the Post Office. We'd rather throw 3,500 lives under a bus than investigate a serious problem with a govt. preferred supplier.
- benreesman 3y ago
  It means the big cap tech companies break the law with impunity now. They launder the commons through some remarkably banal linear algebra and assert copyright on the resulting entropy coding. They smash and partially re-hire and then smash staffing, washing out a bunch of ESOP in the process, timed to the week in many instances, not 15 years after the last time they got popped in Federal court for flagrant wage fixing. They violate Sherman with App Store tariffs at payday loan vig, get popped for that, and fail to perform. They pay OSHA penalties calibrated to a different monetary regime and just ignore it being illegal. Do I really need to keep going? It’s a long list.
  - skrebbel 3y ago
    You misunderstand. My comment is not about your argument but about your writing. I don’t understand half the sentences in your response either. I mean how can you “launder the commons”? With linear algebra‽ I think you just mean “rich people and big companies can get away with anything, and I’m against that” but you’re not really helping.
    - benreesman 3y ago
      By launder the commons through linear algebra I mean train foundation models with sufficient capacity to memorize the Internet via a degree of access to the corpus in which the scale renders any notion of competition absurd, most of which is explicitly or implicitly owned by someone or in the public domain, and then assert copyright over the model weights (slightly compressed crawl), openly and flagrantly profiteer on the back thereof, and send Open Philanthropy to go round up a kleptocratic consensus in Washington. Numerous lawsuits are in varying stages of process around this practice, but the one shaping up to be a “test case” is currently looking to be https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t... They broke the first rule of Crime Club.
      - skrebbel 3y ago
        > train foundation models with sufficient capacity to memorize the Internet via a degree of access to the corpus in which the scale renders any notion of competition absurd, most of which is explicitly or implicitly owned by someone or in the public domain, and then You’re just trolling me now right
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Oh good I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds these comments inscrutable.
  - benreesman 3y ago
    I’m happy to answer any questions you have about what I meant or clarify any confusing jargon. This set of subjects sits squarely at the intersection of “of public interest”, “fairly technical”, “fast moving”, and “emotionally charged”, so it’s not at all surprising that a set of positions held by a group that hasn’t openly gone from plurality to majority, personified in this instance by yours truly, would generate some driveby chaff. But do ask for clarification if you don’t understand but still care enough to comment?
- Intralexical 3y ago
  > [Have] You see[n] the de facto [rule of law]— as opposed to [the] aspirational rule of law— constrain, or even non-trivially inconvenience, any[body] with a [$]1-3T notional value any time recently?
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    This formatting is surprisingly (to me) more helpful than I would have though. Alternatively the original was just worse than I realized.
tsunamifury 3y ago
[flagged]
pistoriusp 3y ago
FWIW I really struggled to understand what you’re saying, but the gist is that society can’t regulate cash cows?
- benreesman 3y ago
  There is nothing inherently bad about some corporations or individuals ceteris paribus generating windfall profits. Ceteris paribus is doing a lot of lifting there, because nepotism, graft, cartel collusion, bribery and generally capture are trivially the dominant terms. The fungibility of windfall profits into induced market failure to generate more windfall profits has historically only ended one way.
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    You really, REALLY need to stop using big words like "Ceteris paribus". It's not helping you get your point across, (especially) when you don't even care to explain them.
NhanH 3y ago
Yes, China did it with Alibaba. They wrote off 1T or more in notional value.

XorNot 3y ago

Because it is. It might be right, but it is also indistinguishable to any other time the proposal is "the government is going to manage your recreational activities for your own benefit".

noduerme 3y ago

I agree, but I'd add that a stable society both allows adults to gamble and teaches kids why not to gamble, sometimes teaching by example. A simple game can be run in any classroom from 3rd to 7th grade that shows how any group of people given an artificial megaphone may end up bullying and torturing even the biggest bullies in the class. The experience of that is what enables reflection later in life when one finds oneself part of a group bullying other people, and has the thought to step back and question why they're participating in it. Social media as it is right now leverages the instincts of bullies, and turns people into mobs. Period. It elevates the one human instinct that is a priori most antithetical to both individual liberty and social cohesion: The desire for naked attention, good bad or otherwise. The only justification it holds out for doing so is that it has identified a profitable vice, a flaw in the human operating system (like gambling) and that there's no law against capitalizing on it.