4 ms·
I understand that this is kind of beside the point, but it seems like a bad thing to compare inventions to haunted artifacts that mind controlled their users in
by Tcepsa 3mo ago
I understand that this is kind of beside the point, but it seems like a bad thing to compare inventions to haunted artifacts that mind controlled their users into betraying their friends to a powerfully evil being. (Though since it is being powered by GenAI, which has also driven people to do bad things, perhaps it is an apt comparison.)
- avaer 3mo agoWhy would that comparison be bad if it's accurate? Also, "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Both can be made good and evil.
- p-e-w 3mo agoIt’s not accurate, it’s absurd hyperbole no different from the kind the people who peddle it have arrogantly ridiculed their entire lives. A mentally unstable person being “made” to do something by a chatbot is no different from other mentally unstable people doing bad things because they saw them in a TV show.
- RossBencina 3mo agoYou think mental instability is a necessary prerequisite for covert persuasion?
- febusravenga 3mo agoNo but those have less or no guards against it - so _we the society_ ;) stand and try guard them. Rest of us have some chance to stand against persuasion.
- McGlockenshire 3mo agoNo, actually, an interactive textual conversation is a significantly different thing than a television show.
- lwansbrough 3mo agoYou don't think there's a difference between passive entertainment and a conversation with a sycophantic enabler?
- fatata123 3mo ago[dead]
- melagonster 3mo agoI hope people at least know that they should not create Skynet.
- adastra22 3mo agoWe are literally creating won’t right now.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- latexr 3mo agoPerhaps I’m misunderstanding what you’re asking, but your parent comment isn’t saying the comparison is bad in the sense of being inaccurate, but bad in the sense of being ill-advised.
- trhway 3mo agoOnce/if we lose understanding of the tech it will become magic/haunted artifacts.
- boothby 3mo ago> it seems like a bad thing to compare inventions to haunted artifacts that mind controlled their users into betraying their friends to a powerfully evil being. It's worked pretty well for Palantir?
- devmor 3mo agoYou hit on the point at the end… It’s not a bad comparison, it’s an apt one.
- fjdjshsh 3mo agoI thought that was part of the appeal of this. There's something spooky and ironic about it.
- CarVac 3mo agoSci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale. Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus.
- mikestorrent 3mo agoAt least we're giving out free verification cans
- Chaosvex 3mo agoDrink your Mountain Dew verification can to continue.
- rob74 3mo agoWasn't that Kool-Aid? (yeah, I know that's not sold in cans, and actually it was Flavor-Aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid#Backgrou...)
- NavinF 3mo ago"one of my favorite conceits is from the novel [redacted] where they spend the entire book talking about the threat of the space hun invader barbarian belters and how backwards but feral they are and then when you finally meet them they're sophisticated egalitarian transhumanists and all the characters you've been following have been living in space north korea, functionally enslaved and living out their lives blithely consuming copium state propaganda the 'torment nexus' is what you'd call heaven if we built it and you weren't in it"
- anigbrowl 3mo agoThat explains why the video was posted on X
- annzabelle 3mo agoAt long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel "Don't Create The Torment Nexus." https://x.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538?lang=en https://x.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538?lang=e...
- FeepingCreature 3mo agoOf course, that tweet was talking about the Metaverse. So really it should be classic sci-fi novel "Neal Stephenson Invents A Ton Of Cool Things, But The Torment Nexus May Be The Coolest." Like, I love the Torment Nexus trope, but it's somehow gotten coined with the worst first example imaginable, and the only reason it works as a meme is that nobody realizes this. (The problem with the Zuckerverse is exactly that it's not the Metaverse from Snow Crash. The whole point of the Metaverse is that it's built on open protocols! It's literally got a geometric representation of IPv4 in it!)
- dd8601fn 3mo agoYup. I absolutely want the metaverse. Just not a cartoon Facebook one.
- archagon 3mo agoI had to do a double take. They’re framing this comparison as a positive thing?!? (On second thought, the LLM probably made up this analogy on its own, which... in a way, is even worse.)
- brookst 3mo agoDefinitely concerning when things are made up
- latexr 3mo agoThere’s a long tradition in media of people completely missing the obvious and taking the opposite lesson from what was intended. One example is finance bros idolising Patrick Bateman (American Psycho). https://nypost.com/2025/04/16/entertainment/american-psycho-director-slams-wall-street-bros-for-idolizing-patrick-bateman/ https://nypost.com/2025/04/16/entertainment/american-psycho-...