3 ms·

I think there are a lot of technological advancements that are easy to "not like" when you know some select few details about them. Including literal sausage ma

I think there are a lot of technological advancements that are easy to "not like" when you know some select few details about them. Including literal sausage making as another commenter on here mentioned. T-shirts are great until you hear about the conditions of where they're made and how their disposal is managed. Social media is great until you realize how much they know about you and how they use that knowledge. Modern medicine is easy to not like when you look at the animal experiments that made it happen. And again, sausages - I know some vegetarian folks who are vegetarian in protest of how most meat is produced. I kind of wonder if there is a subset of comfortable modern society where every aspect is easily likable no matter how much you know about it. Bonus points if that society is environmentally sustainable.

voidhorse 2y ago
Sure, but I think there is a key diff between those examples and LLMs. In those cases, people don't necessarily mind the machines involved in the process, they dislike the socioeconomic and labor structures around those machines, or the animal cruelty—this is a side effect of the social organization of labor, not of the machine itself. Here, contrarily, the claim is that the machine itself is the thing that becomes less impressive once you know how it works-this is also likely true of any machine, but the point is not about the demystification of the technical function in the tshirt and sausage examples.
- resonious 2y ago
  Yes good call, I do seem to have misinterpreted the text a bit. I suppose using the word "impressive" as you did might make that misunderstanding a bit harder to run into.
metadat 2y ago
Life is [generally] inherently exploitative. Vegetarianism and veganism is a first world luxury, the bottom line is animal protein consumption is a readily available high-quality caloric intake option to encourage children to grow into healthy adults*. Learning to exist in the world and hold the uncomfortable parts of being a human being has been a valuable and useful skill in my life across many dimensions. * I'm not advocating for eating excessive meat, but going to extremes to avoid it does suggests something other factor is in play.
- cageface 2y ago
  The vast numbers of low income vegetarians in India would no doubt find this argument very novel.
  - 000ooo000 2y ago
    ..if it weren't so regularly rolled out by the ignorant.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  > Vegetarianism and veganism is a first world luxury "Luxury" makes me choke : animal protein has always been seen as a luxury meal in most cultures, one that you don’t have every day, as found in any authors from XIX or early XX and you’ll never seen animal protein as a poor food, let alone meat [0] For 1kg of plant protein you’ll get 230gr of milk protein, 220gr egg’s prot 150gr chicken prot, 120gr porc prot or 70gr beef prot. There’s some difference in proteins availability but in a way smaller scale. Regarding the quality : most traditional societies have combined plant proteins in their daily diets : corn and beans (Latin American), cheakpeas and bulgur (Middle East) rice and lentils (India), soyfood and rice (China, Japan, Korea), millet and peanuts (Africa), rice and tempeh (Java, a very poor place with one the biggest density of the world). The list can go long. Modern science showed us those associations skyrocket the ratio of limiting amino acids, like Lysin + Cystine/Methionine, for soy and brown rice. Plants have always been the poor’s staple protein because they are dirt cheap, nutritious and convenient. More importantly for the future: the require many times less land to grow because of the protein consumed/returned by animals ratio (see above). Wild fish is an exception but the relative yields have been decreasing for decades, only compensated by more and bigger boats. Also 1/5 of world wild fishing production exist for feeding livestock and farmed fishes. It’s true (and sad in my opinion) plant proteins are now luxury in certains cities/places, the reasons for that are habits and taste preferences, world richness imbalance (Europe imports 60kg/person/year of Brazilian soy only for livestock consumption, a quantity that would provide 50% of their protein need if consumed directly as so) and subsidies and price regulations to maintain an unsustainable diary industry. I’m not advocating for everyone eating soy but let’s face it : feeding livestock with human consumable proteins is not the most efficient diet. 0 L’assomoir from Emile Zola, loosely translated by myself : "On Sundays, when there was work at the mine, we'd have a bit of bacon, and on the rare good days, a chunk of beef the size of your fist. It was a real treat"
dartos 2y ago
The difference is that once you know how a t-shirt is made, it doesn’t change your perception of the functionality of a t-shirt. Laymen will hear AI and imagine I, robot and terminator. They hear “neural networks” and think AI acts like a physical brain. Once you understand how AI works, your perception of the functionality changes as well (eg. From skynet to reality) I hear “sweat-shop factories” and, while it’s a disgusting practice, the t-shirt still covers my torso.

voidhorse 2y ago

Sure, but I think there is a key diff between those examples and LLMs. In those cases, people don't necessarily mind the machines involved in the process, they dislike the socioeconomic and labor structures around those machines, or the animal cruelty—this is a side effect of the social organization of labor, not of the machine itself. Here, contrarily, the claim is that the machine itself is the thing that becomes less impressive once you know how it works-this is also likely true of any machine, but the point is not about the demystification of the technical function in the tshirt and sausage examples.

resonious 2y ago
Yes good call, I do seem to have misinterpreted the text a bit. I suppose using the word "impressive" as you did might make that misunderstanding a bit harder to run into.

metadat 2y ago

Life is [generally] inherently exploitative. Vegetarianism and veganism is a first world luxury, the bottom line is animal protein consumption is a readily available high-quality caloric intake option to encourage children to grow into healthy adults*. Learning to exist in the world and hold the uncomfortable parts of being a human being has been a valuable and useful skill in my life across many dimensions. * I'm not advocating for eating excessive meat, but going to extremes to avoid it does suggests something other factor is in play.

cageface 2y ago
The vast numbers of low income vegetarians in India would no doubt find this argument very novel.
- 000ooo000 2y ago
  ..if it weren't so regularly rolled out by the ignorant.
aziaziazi 2y ago
> Vegetarianism and veganism is a first world luxury "Luxury" makes me choke : animal protein has always been seen as a luxury meal in most cultures, one that you don’t have every day, as found in any authors from XIX or early XX and you’ll never seen animal protein as a poor food, let alone meat [0] For 1kg of plant protein you’ll get 230gr of milk protein, 220gr egg’s prot 150gr chicken prot, 120gr porc prot or 70gr beef prot. There’s some difference in proteins availability but in a way smaller scale. Regarding the quality : most traditional societies have combined plant proteins in their daily diets : corn and beans (Latin American), cheakpeas and bulgur (Middle East) rice and lentils (India), soyfood and rice (China, Japan, Korea), millet and peanuts (Africa), rice and tempeh (Java, a very poor place with one the biggest density of the world). The list can go long. Modern science showed us those associations skyrocket the ratio of limiting amino acids, like Lysin + Cystine/Methionine, for soy and brown rice. Plants have always been the poor’s staple protein because they are dirt cheap, nutritious and convenient. More importantly for the future: the require many times less land to grow because of the protein consumed/returned by animals ratio (see above). Wild fish is an exception but the relative yields have been decreasing for decades, only compensated by more and bigger boats. Also 1/5 of world wild fishing production exist for feeding livestock and farmed fishes. It’s true (and sad in my opinion) plant proteins are now luxury in certains cities/places, the reasons for that are habits and taste preferences, world richness imbalance (Europe imports 60kg/person/year of Brazilian soy only for livestock consumption, a quantity that would provide 50% of their protein need if consumed directly as so) and subsidies and price regulations to maintain an unsustainable diary industry. I’m not advocating for everyone eating soy but let’s face it : feeding livestock with human consumable proteins is not the most efficient diet. 0 L’assomoir from Emile Zola, loosely translated by myself : "On Sundays, when there was work at the mine, we'd have a bit of bacon, and on the rare good days, a chunk of beef the size of your fist. It was a real treat"

dartos 2y ago

The difference is that once you know how a t-shirt is made, it doesn’t change your perception of the functionality of a t-shirt. Laymen will hear AI and imagine I, robot and terminator. They hear “neural networks” and think AI acts like a physical brain. Once you understand how AI works, your perception of the functionality changes as well (eg. From skynet to reality) I hear “sweat-shop factories” and, while it’s a disgusting practice, the t-shirt still covers my torso.