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AI is not your friend

gerrymcgovern.com

31–40 of 124 posts

Re: AI is not your friend

#32

I swear that the displaced artist writer mafia is pulling all the stops to try and write low grade hit pieces and AI doomer narratives.

Almost invariably the “artists” that are the loudest about how bad generative AI is on social media have 35 followers and make shitty digital “art”, which is mostly anime characters.

Almost: https://catandgirl.com/4000-of-my-closest-friends/

Re: AI is not your friend

#33
post #6

How did this argument work when talking about locally run LLMs?

He would probably argue that future LLMs are less likely to have their weights released. It is remarkable and strange that we have so many open-weights models right now, considering how much they cost to make.

[deleted]

Re: AI is not your friend

#34
post #30

Advertising is not your friend. Use ad blockers.

Ad-based business models have been a cancer on the user experience of software for far too long and it's gotten way too out of hand. Federal agencies have even come out and stated that use of adblockers is good security practice. The advertising industry serves primarily to manipulate consumer decision making and distort markets to prop up products and services that aren't able to stand on their own. We don't need it and it's destroying us.

Re: AI is not your friend

#35

I swear that the displaced artist writer mafia is pulling all the stops to try and write low grade hit pieces and AI doomer narratives.

Is it? Or is tech folks finding out that they're the baddies and not happy with their reality hitting that of the rest of society? I think it's the latter, but only history will tell. "Tech Is Not Your Friend" would've been more apropos, hype cycles and all that (adtech, crypto, gen AI, etc). Just cut the "changing the world" facade (not wrong! just not for the better in a lot of cases) and come right out with "we're…

Capitalism is to blame, not tech. The system would pervert anything, tech just happens to be profitable.

Re: AI is not your friend

#36
post #24

8 paragraphs of negative emotional valence. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, you won't learn anything new here.

I imagine that the author would say something like: One of the core tenets of advertising is that repetition works to make people believe ideas. If you want to fight advertising (or other harmful consumerism), you have to repeat yourself as much or more than they do.

I suppose this begs the question: If you use the tactics of surveillance capitalists for "good", do you bring yourself to their level?

Re: AI is not your friend

#37

I swear that the displaced artist writer mafia is pulling all the stops to try and write low grade hit pieces and AI doomer narratives.

It's a pretty complicated topic, but I want to say one thing:

I geniunely hate how the discourse become SO divided, Artists versus Tech person (some people would call it tech bros but I think that's name-calling and have some negative connotation and I don't want that).

Call me sensitive, but this kinda thing is depressing _as heck_.

It's sad as there are _so many_ great artists I follow. And also so many tech experts.

Re: AI is not your friend

#38

I swear that the displaced artist writer mafia is pulling all the stops to try and write low grade hit pieces and AI doomer narratives.

I think its a fair article. How can you tell that AI has been manipulated to make outputs more appealing to make you do certain actions. You could argue that money favor has been long exchanged, but in this case, we don't have someone to name and shame.

AI is a tool, and there are lots of open source models available, you can compare results easily. Corporations don't need to pay to degrade the models, they paid to degrade the internet and got the models as a temporary ad-on, at least until we get better at cleaning large data sets.

Re: AI is not your friend

#39

> Not to worry. If you’re fairly well educated, reasonably sensible, not prone to addictions, and in good mental health, you’re probably ok, for now. AI will learn to target you when you are at your most vulnerable. It will learn what hours you're usually feeling tired. Which nights you tend to get less sleep. It will learn when your ADHD medication typically starts wearing off and you're more prone to act impulsivel…

I've thought about trying to write a short story about an apocalypse in which Facebook or Youtube creates an AI that's so effective it traps the entire human race (including the creators) into doing nothing but engaging with the app, and doing the bare minimum to survive (and keep the servers running) since that's what it's told to optimise. But I'm not a great writer, and other stuff always comes up (those shorts aren't going to watch themselves!).

Re: AI is not your friend

#40

Well obviously this is true. Doesn't change the fact that to participate in the world in just a few years you better pick one to interact with bc your not going to be doing too much "normal" stuff otherwise, like shop or write an article, or code a website, or go to work, or I think you get it. I don't think AI is my friend. I don't have to like it for it to be necessary. There is no stopping this. Pray tell, what el…

At the same time, some members of generations slightly older than us seem to be managing just fine, living the same analog patterns they’ve always lived, which still exist. I am not worried about the coming ai apocalypse to digital media because I am taking steps now to offshore myself from digital media. I hope one day to be an old man with a book or a newspaper under an arm, smiling inwardly.
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