4 ms·

What you (and others in this thread) are also doing is a sort of maximalist dismissal of AI itself as if it is everything that is evil and to be on the right si

What you (and others in this thread) are also doing is a sort of maximalist dismissal of AI itself as if it is everything that is evil and to be on the right side of things, one must fight against AI. This might sound a bit ridiculous but this is what I think a lot of people's real positions on AI are.

techpression 11mo ago
Yet to see anything good come from it, and I’m not talking about machine learning for specific use cases. And if we look at the players who are the winners in the AI race, do you see anyone particularly good participating?
- simianwords 11mo ago
  800 million weekly active users for ChatGPT. My position on things like this is that if enough people use a service, I must defer to their judgement that they benefit from it. To do the contrary would be highly egoistic and suggest that I am somehow more intelligent than all those people and I know more about what they want for themselves. I could obviously give you examples where LLMs have concrete usecases but that's besides the larger point.
  - techpression 11mo ago
    I don’t do zero sum games, you can normalize every bad thing that ever happened with that rhetoric. Also, someone benefiting from something doesn’t make it good. Weapons smuggling is also extremely beneficial to the people involved.
    - simianwords 11mo ago
      Yes but if I go with your priors then all of these are similarly to be suspect - gaming - netflix - television - social media - hacker news - music in general - carnivals A priori, all of these are equally suspicious as to whether they provide value or not. My point is that unless you have reason to suspect, people engaging in consumption through their own agency is in general preferable. You can of course bring counter examples but they are more of caveats against my larger truer point.
      - techpression 11mo ago
        Social media for sure and television and Netflix in general absolutely. But again, providing value is not the same as something being good. A lot of people think inaccuracies by LLMs to be of high value because it’s provided with nice wrappings and the idea that you’re always right.
  - manuelmoreale 11mo ago
    > 1B people in the world smoke. The fact something is wildly popular doesn’t make it good or valuable. Human brains are very easily manipulated, that should be obvious at this point.
    - simianwords 11mo ago
      Almost all smokers agree that it is harmful for them. Can you explain why I should not be equally suspicious of gaming, social media, movies, carnivals, travel?
      - manuelmoreale 11mo ago
        You should be. You should be equally suspicious of everything. That's the whole point. You wrote: > My position on things like this is that if enough people use a service, I must defer to their judgement that they benefit from it. Enough people doing something doesn't make that something good or desirable from a societal standpoint. You can find examples of things that go in both directions. You mentioned gaming, social media, movies, carnivals, travel, but you can just as easily ask the same question for gambling or heavy drugs use. Just saying "I defer to their judgment" is a cop-out.
        stavros 11mo ago
        Ok, I'll bite: What's the harm of LLMs?
        manuelmoreale 11mo ago
        We don't know yet? And that's how things usually go. It's rare to have an immediate sense of how something might be harmful 5, 10, or 50 years in the future. Social media was likely considered all fun and good in 2005 and I doubt people were envisioning all the harmful consequences.
        simianwords 11mo ago
  - wartywhoa23 11mo ago
    This line of thinking made many Germans who thought they're on the right side of history simply by the virtue of joining the crowd, to learn the hard way in 1945. And today's adapt or die doesn't sound less fascist than in 1930.
nothrabannosir 11mo ago
That's definitely not what I am doing, nor implying, and while you're free to think it, please don't put words in my mouth.
- simianwords 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - nothrabannosir 11mo ago
    We are basically 100-ϵ% the same. I have no doubt. Maybe the only difference between us is that I think there is a difference between a description and an interpretation, and you don't :) In the grand scheme of things, is it even worth mentioning? Probably not! :D :D Why focus on the differences when we can focus on the similarities?
    - simianwords 11mo ago
      Ok change my qualifier from interpretation to description if it helps. I describe you as someone who dismisses AI in a maximalist way
      - balamatom 11mo ago
        >Maybe the only difference between us is that I think there is a difference between a description and an interpretation, and you don't :) >Ok change my qualifier from interpretation to description if it helps. I... really don't think AI is what's wrong with you.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]

techpression 11mo ago

Yet to see anything good come from it, and I’m not talking about machine learning for specific use cases. And if we look at the players who are the winners in the AI race, do you see anyone particularly good participating?

simianwords 11mo ago
800 million weekly active users for ChatGPT. My position on things like this is that if enough people use a service, I must defer to their judgement that they benefit from it. To do the contrary would be highly egoistic and suggest that I am somehow more intelligent than all those people and I know more about what they want for themselves. I could obviously give you examples where LLMs have concrete usecases but that's besides the larger point.
- techpression 11mo ago
  I don’t do zero sum games, you can normalize every bad thing that ever happened with that rhetoric. Also, someone benefiting from something doesn’t make it good. Weapons smuggling is also extremely beneficial to the people involved.
  - simianwords 11mo ago
    Yes but if I go with your priors then all of these are similarly to be suspect - gaming - netflix - television - social media - hacker news - music in general - carnivals A priori, all of these are equally suspicious as to whether they provide value or not. My point is that unless you have reason to suspect, people engaging in consumption through their own agency is in general preferable. You can of course bring counter examples but they are more of caveats against my larger truer point.
    - techpression 11mo ago
      Social media for sure and television and Netflix in general absolutely. But again, providing value is not the same as something being good. A lot of people think inaccuracies by LLMs to be of high value because it’s provided with nice wrappings and the idea that you’re always right.
- manuelmoreale 11mo ago
  > 1B people in the world smoke. The fact something is wildly popular doesn’t make it good or valuable. Human brains are very easily manipulated, that should be obvious at this point.
  - simianwords 11mo ago
    Almost all smokers agree that it is harmful for them. Can you explain why I should not be equally suspicious of gaming, social media, movies, carnivals, travel?
    - manuelmoreale 11mo ago
      You should be. You should be equally suspicious of everything. That's the whole point. You wrote: > My position on things like this is that if enough people use a service, I must defer to their judgement that they benefit from it. Enough people doing something doesn't make that something good or desirable from a societal standpoint. You can find examples of things that go in both directions. You mentioned gaming, social media, movies, carnivals, travel, but you can just as easily ask the same question for gambling or heavy drugs use. Just saying "I defer to their judgment" is a cop-out.
      - stavros 11mo ago
        Ok, I'll bite: What's the harm of LLMs?
        manuelmoreale 11mo ago
        We don't know yet? And that's how things usually go. It's rare to have an immediate sense of how something might be harmful 5, 10, or 50 years in the future. Social media was likely considered all fun and good in 2005 and I doubt people were envisioning all the harmful consequences.
        simianwords 11mo ago
- wartywhoa23 11mo ago
  This line of thinking made many Germans who thought they're on the right side of history simply by the virtue of joining the crowd, to learn the hard way in 1945. And today's adapt or die doesn't sound less fascist than in 1930.

nothrabannosir 11mo ago

That's definitely not what I am doing, nor implying, and while you're free to think it, please don't put words in my mouth.

simianwords 11mo ago
[flagged]
- nothrabannosir 11mo ago
  We are basically 100-ϵ% the same. I have no doubt. Maybe the only difference between us is that I think there is a difference between a description and an interpretation, and you don't :) In the grand scheme of things, is it even worth mentioning? Probably not! :D :D Why focus on the differences when we can focus on the similarities?
  - simianwords 11mo ago
    Ok change my qualifier from interpretation to description if it helps. I describe you as someone who dismisses AI in a maximalist way
    - balamatom 11mo ago
      >Maybe the only difference between us is that I think there is a difference between a description and an interpretation, and you don't :) >Ok change my qualifier from interpretation to description if it helps. I... really don't think AI is what's wrong with you.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]