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>"We model transitions among uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent users, and show that the interplay between social transmission, recovery, and collec

• greenowl 1mo ago
  For many of us, AI adoption is really an AI mandate.
  • scotty79 1mo ago
    If you are an employee, the employer has control over how you should do your work. IF you don't like that, transition to being a contractor and sign service agreements where you are going to be paid solely for results not for how you achieve them.
    • coldtea 1mo ago
      That will change things for him, or any others taking the same course. Hundreds of millions can't all become contractors, and realistically wont all become contractors. So the issue described is a real social issue, whether he can "just" quit and avoid it or not.
      • simianwords 1mo ago
        How it reads is that the world has converged on an obviously bad technology. If only you had the chance to control it from top down and you wouldn’t let this mistake happen for you know what’s best for the world. Not only that, it’s double bad because you can’t do anything about it because everyone is under the illusion except you and a few other sensible people. And you would reject the notion that you have agency to change things. Can’t take it seriously.
        • coldtea 1mo ago
          How the above reads is you can't understand anything wider than your personal affairs. Or you believe that the world can't possibly converge on a bad technology or practice, and get bad outcomes out of it, while much fewer see potential issues and warn about them. Both of which can't be taken seriously.
          • simianwords 1mo ago
            The world fortunately works under a system that is durable to these problems. You can actually start a company that doesn't use AI if you think it runs better that way. This argument obviously doesn't work because 1. you would decline the agency existing to make a new company 2. you might even say that AI does help companies work better, but its bad for people - suddenly its no longer about the lack of competency of AI but rather how good it is
            • coldtea 1mo ago
              >The world fortunately works under a system that is durable to these problems The world works under a system that populations have suffered or even whole countries and empires perished because of systemic problems. If your answer is "but humanity still endured and is alive today", that's a pretty low bar, not to mention moving the goalposts so far they can't even be seen anymore. >You can actually start a company that doesn't use AI if you think it runs better that way I can. And it means nothing to the concern of the parent: "For many of us, AI adoption is really an AI mandate". Your solution is "if you don't like your employer demanding you use AI, just start your own company". Agency doesn't mean do any arbitrary action and there's no risk or downsides. Will you pay for their expenses to start their own company? Will you personally loan them money? Will you teach them business skills needed to run a company after they've been a regular employee programmer for 2 decades? Will you feed their kids if the company doesn't catch on? Will you find them employment if they have to shut it down and go back to a regular job as a 40 or 50 year old, in this job market, where you can apply for 20 jobs and not even hear back? Oh, and do the same for millions of others, not just your friend or your favorite cousin? It doesn't matter whether some individual person can make a non-AI company, since the argument was never about the inability to make one. It was about millions of people pressured to use AI in their jobs whether they like it or not. "Oh, those millions are only pressured because they lack the agency to start their own business" even more out-of-touch that "let them eat cake". It's the boomer's "pull yourself by the bootstraps" sermon. Like the idea that millions can't find a job because they lack agency and a firm handshake, or that they're in debt because of that latte.
      • scotty79 1mo ago
        That's the nature of employment relationship. On the flipside, as long as you follow employers rules, you don't bear the responsibility for the results. That's a huge upside that have always balanced out the lack of control over they way you work and your fate for many people.
• Murfalo 1mo ago
  Tipping points and technological lock-in aren't new (e.g., the printing press, the radio, TV, phones, the internet, etc.). I do absolutely see your distinction, though, that prior technologies may have been less capable of imposing specific belief systems compared to frontier LLMs. That's a fair point, and a key reason why competitive open models are so important. I definitely don't want to be stuck using Google's latest and greatest LLM once companies, marketers, and PACs can pay to subtly influence responses as they choose. We've all seen this movie before, though.
  • tehjoker 1mo ago
    what about the bible? the most printed book of that era
    • Murfalo 1mo ago
      Fair, I may have tried too hard to see the other side of the argument! Sensitive topic of course, but definitely one of the clearer cases where "just put the book down" has not always an entirely available option.
• left-struck 1mo ago
  I don’t disagree with you, actually I kind of feel the same about smartphone adoption. It’s basically assumed now that you have a smartphone. You can’t enter some places without a ticket on your smartphone, or can’t order at some restaurants. Government processes are starting to require smartphones. Maybe it will be similar with AI. And you know, I love computers, I used to love the internet. And I’ve had so much fun, more fun then ever coding with AI assistance. Lets say all of these technologies can be abused and forced on us, but all of them have neat aspects too.
  • AnotherGoodName 1mo ago
    Fwiw i noticed you absolutely can't reasonably get a US Via consulate appt for some countries without AI right now so the requiremnts already begun. The consulate is booked out for 3 months and only opens 3 months out. All openings are snapped up before any human could get one. They have a lot of anti-script blocking but AI seems to get around them. So there's an arms race, you pretty much need AI to book it (a basic hand written curl script isn't enough).
    • left-struck 1mo ago
      Oh wow, that’s aweful. Where I used to live this would happen with driving tests. Driving schools would book out all the tests and then re-assign them to their students. So at some point it got so bad that when you’re buying a driving lesson you’re also effectively buying a right to take the test. What could the government possibly do to stop this? Some highly technical solution? How about just making it so you can’t assign the test to another name? Hmm that might be a pretty obvious solution…
      • CalRobert 1mo ago
        You could require a phone call or mailing a form (in the post) I suppose.
        • somenameforme 1mo ago
• roenxi 1mo ago
  > You can finish reading your friend's favorite book or put it down if you don't like it. Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on top of it that will become difficult or impossible to modify/maintain if you bin the book. Economics does sometimes compel you to read books or other material as a condition or expectation of employment. It is difficult to get a good job while being illiterate and many jobs require reading huge volumes of written work. Work in law or journalism springs to mind as economically compelling people to read a lot even if they they might not necessarily want to.
  • computably 1mo ago
    ? That's a complete non sequitur.
    • breezybottom 1mo ago
      Cute phrase, but that's not how it's used.
• scotty79 1mo ago
  > Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on top of it that will become difficult or impossible to modify/maintain if you bin the book. Things go viral in professional settings as well. Scrum, agile, pc language ... I'm sure you can find other professional trends that if you decided not to follow your career would be jeopardized.
  • coldtea 1mo ago
    And those things also have virus like qualities
    • scotty79 1mo ago
      Large parts of eucariotic DNA comes from ancient viruses so in a sense, viral things make us who we are. At least in large part.
• bbor 1mo ago
  So this article makes sense as long as you assume that LLMs enslave their users into purely-harmful, inescapable cognitive slavery. Other than that, it's pretty grounded!
  • jaggederest 1mo ago
    Other than that, Ms. Lincoln, how was the play?
  • gmfawcett 1mo ago
    The model in the article has applicability problems, but not that one.
• card_zero 1mo ago
  Memes replicate and survive or perish like genes, but the environment they have to survive in is the human mind, and the threat that they have to overcome is being criticized. One way to survive this is by being a good idea. So some memes are simply good ideas. But there are various ways a meme can dodge the attack that comes from criticism, and then you get memes that are trendy or holy or crazy or ideological. Since we're not perfect in our ability to criticize (what would that even be like? Sounds terrible) I think there's necessarily a hint of this anti-rational aspect in all ideas. But some of them go all-in on the anti-rational strategy.
• crummy 1mo ago
  Well, the Bible sort of compels you to share it, and in some societies you are economically and socially encouraged to do so.