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Heh. I'm not a part of the private St. Louis preparatory school and "drop out of Stanford when a VC tells you you're Jesus Christ" set. I doubt any of my potent

Heh. I'm not a part of the private St. Louis preparatory school and "drop out of Stanford when a VC tells you you're Jesus Christ" set. I doubt any of my potential offspring would be either. No, more because Altman is an even higher form of Silicon Valley creature than we've seen before. This is a segment of society that thinks that you can directly judge something's benefit to humanity based on the IPO it could have, and pretty much nothing else. They create sea changes in society knowing that it's going to be a very rough transition for people who don't have their levels of wealth to deal with the consequences. Previously, seeing was believing. Sure, there was Photoshop and CGI, but pictures aren't as telling as video, and most people didn't have the capital necessary to cook up anything they wanted using CGI. This, though... anyone could make up anything for any reason, with dire consequences. Just spitballing here, what if, say, political campaigns started releasing generated video of opponents in compromising positions with minors? Or videos were posted to social media designed to create a casus belli for a country? It won't matter for the companies making those tools; their stock prices will be fine. Well, at least until the EMP is set off near the data center. I don't want to be responsible for a human being coming up in what is essentially a 100% post-truth world.

greggsy 3y ago
> thinks that you can directly judge something's benefit to humanity based on the IPO it could have This is a deliberately cynical perspective along the tiresome ‘evil tech MBA overlord’ trope.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I don’t find it cynical enough actually; I always assumed the oligarchs see the proles as barely differentiated units of labor, much like we would see a colony of bees. Certainly that’s the way I’ve been treated for most of my life.
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  I only adopted this perspective after having worked in a publicly-traded company that was acquired by Oracle, for what it's worth. So blame Larry.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Humans have never needed said technology to lie, deceive and mislead. Ignorance and human nature in general (eg confidence tricks) are a much more powerful weapons at any rate. But the most effective defense remains the same: critical thinking. Sadly, it's not very popular.
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  I know we all need to think more critically, but existence now throws more situations and decisions at people than the human brain has the ability to deeply ponder and process within a reasonable amount of time. Thus, we either use more primal reactions (like fear) or sum up the decisions in abstractions like profit that aren't nearly the catch-all we pretend they are. That's part of why these technologies are so threatening.

greggsy 3y ago

> thinks that you can directly judge something's benefit to humanity based on the IPO it could have This is a deliberately cynical perspective along the tiresome ‘evil tech MBA overlord’ trope.

silverquiet 3y ago
I don’t find it cynical enough actually; I always assumed the oligarchs see the proles as barely differentiated units of labor, much like we would see a colony of bees. Certainly that’s the way I’ve been treated for most of my life.
lenerdenator 3y ago
I only adopted this perspective after having worked in a publicly-traded company that was acquired by Oracle, for what it's worth. So blame Larry.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

Humans have never needed said technology to lie, deceive and mislead. Ignorance and human nature in general (eg confidence tricks) are a much more powerful weapons at any rate. But the most effective defense remains the same: critical thinking. Sadly, it's not very popular.

lenerdenator 3y ago
I know we all need to think more critically, but existence now throws more situations and decisions at people than the human brain has the ability to deeply ponder and process within a reasonable amount of time. Thus, we either use more primal reactions (like fear) or sum up the decisions in abstractions like profit that aren't nearly the catch-all we pretend they are. That's part of why these technologies are so threatening.