surveillance networks are made of computers and sensors, which are made of chips and wires. I don't think chips and wires are fascist, I don't think sensors and computers are fascist. I think the purpose to which they are put is the fascist part, and the purpose is pure human.

The torment nexus isn't a discrete thing. You can't make thumbscrews without screws. Are the screws evil? If not, when does the composition of components become evil? I don't think LLMs are evil for the same reason I don't think thumbscrews are evil in and of themselves. Thumbscrews, like LLMs, lack the capacity for evil. It's the people who turn technology against their fellow humans that I hold as my enemy, not the trappings of their mischief. Remove them from the equation, and the torment nexus becomes so much harmless scrap, ready to be beaten into plowshares.

I wonder if it isn't at least partially a psy op. This whole business of giving anyone who even looks at an LLM a scarlet letter, and refusing to participate in any critical evaluation of LLMs or other AI tools, plays right into the hands of those who would use LLMs to pollute, isolate, and destroy the free internet. The willfully ignorant will be the easiest to trap.

If you can read this: beware the day that internet discussions of mass manipulation go quiet. That silence is the death knell of freedom.

That is a very good point, Master Wayne. Thank you for calling me out. Going forward, I will try to avoid such mistakes.

No, but I believe machine translation is now powered mainly by LLMs, which is a damn useful application of the technology.

I was surprised to learn recently that a few of my friends pay for Claude to help with personal projects and things like that. This particular AI tech is quite new so it's surely too early to declare axiomatically that it has no uses. That sounds like an emotional reaction to me.

No it isn't. That's the distinction that is made when arguments arise, but the claims really are spawned indiscriminately.

You need to understand what you're complaining about before you can name it, and most people don't understand much of anything about modern AI and LLMs.

I've been an AI researcher for 12 years. Generative AI also has many applications that tangibly improve the world. For example, I'm using diffusion models for super resolution of surface wind fields to forecast wildfire propagation. It's not "just" generative AI that's the problem. The exact same transformers or CNNs used for Capital to try to finally triumph over Labor can also be used to do all kinds of amazing things.

My point is that the incentive structure is fucked. It's just more apparent with a powerful and widely known technology like "AI" these days.

And yet it’s LLMs doing these things, not only ML. People don’t cure cancer either, but the things that get close (eg. AAV viruses) are currently being done with LLMs.

AI means, and has always meant, artificial means of doing what before computers seemed only possible with real, human intelligence. Another good way of looking at it is algorithms for problems for which it's not practical to explicitly write an algorithm to solve.

It's meant this since Turing. That's a remarkable foresight if it's "purposefully poisoning the well."

Nah. The math is all the same, the models can be the same, it's all just the application. We don't like AI applied to bullshit capitalist profit driven goals, but those exact same models are being used to tangibly improve the world in other applications.

It's like saying hammers are evil because people can murder people with hammers, which is ignoring the entire industry of construction workers. It's just in the case of AI, it's way more powerful than a hammer, so the implications are much larger depending on the application.

Dog, I comprehend AI perfectly well, including its monstrous, negative environmental impacts. In a world that was already on fire.

The meme presupposes the usefulness of AI, which is why everyone's taking it as a given. If it isn't useful, you don't need to use normative arguments to stop people from using it, people will just naturally never find an opportunity to do so.

Also if you really can't think of any ways to use a chatbot to advance your political goals you need to think harder. It just shows a lack of adaptability.

Always glad to help. And yes, the cringe was palpable and something needed to be said.