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Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

nytimes.com

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Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#111

Post by xtracto »

echelon wrote: post #70
hamdingers wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is curious how successful AI developers have been in trying to redefine "open source" as "the binary is free to download"

The OSI is garbage, and "open source" outside of the most viral licenses is too. I'll go further and say that it accelerated getting us into this mess we're in today. The OSI is owned and controlled by the tech titan hyperscalers who benefit from free labor. Useful "open source software" always gets encrusted by the big titans that then build means to control the tech, and then the means to control us . And just to r…

>Pretty soon you won't even be able to use your Linux. Everything will be attested.

I want to rescue this snippet.

Few of us remember the "fight" and discussions that happened when Firefox first pondered the idea of allowing encrypted video on the platform. Same with Linux. This was when The powers that be forced Netflix and other video distributors to introduce that opaque tech in the web. The same thing happened with DeCSS and Linux DVD playing; but that generation was a bit more... revel.

But we as a society are indeed slowly and steadily giving away our rights of many, for the rights of few cartels.

It's been a sad journey to see for someone born in the early 80s.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#112

Post by tremon »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #80
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so long ago, I have come to a rather unpleasant realization that whether a lot of that will happen, will depend heavily on whether the ones currently trying to make technology control every facet of our lives decide to allow society get dumber first ( think Idiocracy, which AI very much could allow ) or not in which case it is anyone's guess, because people will still have some basic skills and memories of what c…

The thesis of Idiocracy is that society gets dumber in the future because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined and smarter people systematically have fewer children than dumber people, i.e. literal evolutionary selection against human intelligence over many human generations. This is clear in the first several minutes of the movie. People who recognize that this is what that movie is saying often then condem…

because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined

None of the points of Idiocracy depend on whether intelligence is by nature or by nurture. The premise of the movie stays exactly the same if you replace those two minutes of backstory with a dysfunctional education system, the return of child labour, an increase in teen pregnancies, and anti-intellectualism in general.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#113

Post by willhslade »

timoth3y wrote: post #102
ost-ing wrote: post #3

As someone who has spent a vast portion of life believing technology would make life better, I've come to the realisation that this idea is a fallacy. Technology amplifies power and until we collectively redefine and enforce a value system that benefits us all, the advancements in technology simply serve as a means of subjugation

I think that is the core truth of the matter. Technology itself does not make life better. I recently published an article about the Luddites. If you look at their actual demands, they were not anti-tech. They were labor activists. Life got much, much worse for most people in the industrial revolution until the laws they advocated were finally implemented. https://www.disruptingjapan.com/the-real-luddites-would-have.…

I mean, dentristy and vaccines but ok.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#114

Post by stephc_int13 »

wat10000 wrote: post #83
stephc_int13 wrote: post #29

I believe that any kind of partial automation is going to make the job more soul-crushing. Ford style assembly lines made the work of the factory workers more miserable. Partially automated cashier did the same thing. I don't think there is any point in trying to resist automation, as the efficiency benefits are too important.

We’ve had partial automation in programming since the first assembler was written. I don’t think we’re more miserable than we would be if we still had to write machine code by hand.

People who enjoyed programming at this level (myself included) were not really that happy but most had to transition into a job that didn't value some the skills they patiently acquired and were machines never attained the highest level.

I would have been happy writting z80 and 68000 assembly code for an entire career.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#115

Post by runarberg »

ost-ing wrote: post #3

As someone who has spent a vast portion of life believing technology would make life better, I've come to the realisation that this idea is a fallacy. Technology amplifies power and until we collectively redefine and enforce a value system that benefits us all, the advancements in technology simply serve as a means of subjugation

GMO was the first technology I figured that out. It was heavily pushed in around 2007 as a solution to world hunger, but at the same time it was very easy to see that hunger was a problem of distribution, not technology. Even back in 2007 we made much more food then was required to feed the world population. Furthering the obviousness of the lie was that in reality GMO was (and still is) mostly used for growing feed or cosmetic products. And on top of that we had large monopolies with patents to protect, and herbicides to sell, pushing this technology the hardest.

Now its been 20 years later. The technology is mature and many of the patents have expired, but GMO has done absolutely nothing to solve world hunger.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#117

Post by bigfatkitten »

daveguy wrote: post #81
LightBug1 wrote: post #25

That's what's making its employees miserable ????!

You'd think the knowledge that they're creating technology to purposely addict children for their attention and data would contribute more to making them miserable.

If you choose to apply for a job at somewhere like Meta, you’re clearly not the sort of person who lets your moral compass trouble you.

Re: Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserable

#119

Post by cjbgkagh »

tremon wrote: post #112
JuniperMesos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thesis of Idiocracy is that society gets dumber in the future because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined and smarter people systematically have fewer children than dumber people, i.e. literal evolutionary selection against human intelligence over many human generations. This is clear in the first several minutes of the movie. People who recognize that this is what that movie is saying often then condem…

because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined None of the points of Idiocracy depend on whether intelligence is by nature or by nurture. The premise of the movie stays exactly the same if you replace those two minutes of backstory with a dysfunctional education system, the return of child labour, an increase in teen pregnancies, and anti-intellectualism in general.

I think the opening scene makes the hereditary position very clear, I don’t know how anyone could interpret that as not marking the case of ‘nature’ determining intelligence.

Edit; sorry, either I misread your comment or it was changed. On the premise that ignoring the intro a nurture based idiocracy could be possible, I would suggest it’s the thoroughness and extent of dumbing down that wouldn’t be possible if it was based on nurture.

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