Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is the same as some of the woke movements. Nobody wants to publicly speak out against AI safety BS because a Twitter mob who has made a career out of it will descend onto them and ruin their career. There is nothing to gain from speaking out against it, but you gain career opportunities by being part of the AI safety BS community. In fact, this has happened with Hinton (I think it was?) when he dared to e…
Well, I for one am speaking out against it (and against AI in general). I have a blog, Twitter, newsletter, and I even post warnings on my YouTube channel from time to time. I was part of a discussion that led my employer to commit to NOT using generative AI. No Twitter mob is going to stop me. They can descend all they want and pretend to be brave in front of a keyboard and screen. As far as I'm concerned, they're c…
That said:
I'm fairly aligned with your position in that I believe that technology should be utterly subservient to us and I draw the line at push messages and don't have a smartphone, online assistant or any other crap like that. I'll think for myself and I will allow myself to be interrupted where and when I want it, not when some piece of needy technology believes it is time for me to be distracted. My attention is my most precious commodity and I'll spread it around based on my own preferences. That is also why I've banned advertising from my life.
But I recognize that this is a personal decision first and foremost and that there are many other people for whom convenience is a far bigger factor than it is for me. At the same time those people are often wondering why I'm as productive as I am but that's not for me to explain, I lack the tools to tell them - politely - that if they dropped all of the crap in their lives, opened a book or two and learned some more skills that they too could be more productive.
I've been accused of being a modern Luddite and that's kind of funny because for forty years or so I think I was solidly positioned at the forefront of the tech scene, right at the bleeding edge and in quite a few cases working to advance that frontier. But now I'm much more aware of the shadow side of all this stuff and that's why I'm very cautious about what parts I allow in and which parts I keep out, even if that means less smooth interaction with those around me who all embrace all this stuff without a second thought.
Oh, and maybe lay off the all-caps words.