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Text renderer, whatever. Doesn't matter how you think of them, they are very interesting technology that is being misused and misconstrued in the name of someth

Text renderer, whatever. Doesn't matter how you think of them, they are very interesting technology that is being misused and misconstrued in the name of something that has nothing to do with technology: political economy. The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was making us think that the economy is about technology, and not politics.

highfrequency 2mo ago
Sure, politics and economics are involved - but why can’t technology also play an important role? None of this AI political economy stuff was relevant in 2015 because necessary technological breakthroughs had not yet been made.
- huurtehoog 2mo ago
  Computers have been at the center of civilization and politics since they helped win a war by changing intelligence work forever in WWII. The idea that some new thing was born with LLMs and that this new thing fundamentally changes the calculus from the politics of labor and wealth into a technical discussion of possibilities and constraints determined by what the machine is and can do, and not what people should do, is yet another political play. It is always political, it is never moved beyond politics into technology, no matter how much technology changes.
  - simianwords 2mo ago
    Not true, it is usually technology that changes politics and not the other way round (though it is reflexive in practice). The type of politics possible under agriculture is different from one in industrial age.
    - huurtehoog 1mo ago
      Technology has no agency. It's merely a word for all the knowledge and tools that people use. The root of it is what people do with and to each other. A bigger lever doesn't change the fundamental fact that there is a person using it to move other people. Whatever the tool, whatever the technique, the thing that people want to distract you from when they put technology front and center is that someone somewhere is making a choice that impacts other people when they use technology. It is always someone's choice that causes things to go how they go in society and in the economy, not the shape or nature of the tools or technique that they use.

highfrequency 2mo ago

Sure, politics and economics are involved - but why can’t technology also play an important role? None of this AI political economy stuff was relevant in 2015 because necessary technological breakthroughs had not yet been made.

huurtehoog 2mo ago
Computers have been at the center of civilization and politics since they helped win a war by changing intelligence work forever in WWII. The idea that some new thing was born with LLMs and that this new thing fundamentally changes the calculus from the politics of labor and wealth into a technical discussion of possibilities and constraints determined by what the machine is and can do, and not what people should do, is yet another political play. It is always political, it is never moved beyond politics into technology, no matter how much technology changes.
- simianwords 2mo ago
  Not true, it is usually technology that changes politics and not the other way round (though it is reflexive in practice). The type of politics possible under agriculture is different from one in industrial age.
  - huurtehoog 1mo ago
    Technology has no agency. It's merely a word for all the knowledge and tools that people use. The root of it is what people do with and to each other. A bigger lever doesn't change the fundamental fact that there is a person using it to move other people. Whatever the tool, whatever the technique, the thing that people want to distract you from when they put technology front and center is that someone somewhere is making a choice that impacts other people when they use technology. It is always someone's choice that causes things to go how they go in society and in the economy, not the shape or nature of the tools or technique that they use.