71–80 of 572 posts
I kinda get the hate now - all of social media is being awash with AI. I think maybe a better option is to have new social media which is restricted to humans and human produced content. Hard to enforce - but I am sure there are ways out there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
If you burned down every data center in the world, AI would still not go away. It's just a computer program. You can run it on your laptop. You can't burn down an idea.
Also the existence of various big tech companies rely on these data centers being place, without them they are useless.
These people are going to have a really hard time coming to grips with reality in the next few years. AI is here to stay, and it's expanding very rapidly. If you can't fight them, join them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would not recommend that people "suck it up", but I think people have to come to terms with the fact that AI is a legitimate technology that is going to transform the way people live and work. That is just a fact of life, as surely true about AI as it was true about the internet, or smart phones, or cars, or radio, or the train. You can close your eyes and pretend that it is not coming, or you can organize politica…
> There is no possible universe where AI is banned Yes there is It's just a whole lot more violent than you're imagining
And then hope nothing else ever evolves intelligence.
Googlers/Xooglers will recall the "my various houses" quip at TGIF some years ago which memegen had a field day with.
Also his multiple events where he brought in Kissinger to have "fireside chats" for Googlers to watch/attend.
In fact his "father knows best" attitude ties directly in with his Kissinger fixation: this realpolitik "practical" vision of a world of inevitable powerful forces that you just have to learn to ride with .. which is just really a skin over "might makes right" under another name. Kissinger was explicitly so, and Schmidt admired him for it. Who cares about million horrifically killed in Cambodia if America is stronger for it?
It's also not honestly all that far from the "Effective Altruism" stuff, too: some powerful person comes up with a system of "pragmatic" and utilitarian justifications for the forces-that-already-are and makes it sound like a programme-for-betterment when it's really just a method for their own further enrichment and ego satisfaction.
Many of us legitimately boo this. Not because we're naive. Or stupid. But because our own sense of agency in the world and democratic ethics means we see agency for collectives of people which work along broad and participatory lines. And because we "naively" believe in justice and maybe a vague Kantian notion of ethics which tries to treat other humans as ends in themselves.
Y'know. So-called basic enlightenment, modernist values.
The "inevitable AI" stuff is just an icing on an overall cake. Standing in front of a bunch of young people who still have energy and spirit and the ability to shape the world and telling them that the best way to shape the future is to accept the form that it's already taking and ride-along and profit is next level douchebaggery, even from Schmidt.
(I also have to muse out loud that the specific vile form Google has taken in the second decade of its existence relates to this same mentality. The Google of the founder's letter at IPO sounds nothing like the ... thing ... that exists now, and this seems to have everything to do with just yielding to what-is instead of making what-can-be)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My wife is a former journalist and was beginning her career when the web began to take off. All the old editors and reporters in her industry blew off the Internet, blogs, and web publishing in general. They thought no one will ever quit buying papers, it was a staple of modern life! She tried to clue them in but hit a brick wall ever time. I feel like history is repeating. I use AI regularly, where it works it works…
50, lawyer, and it has completely revolutionized my workflow. Just shake my head at the denialism.
I'm in film and highly exposed to the AI media and arts scene. I was very early to this hate, and I've experienced it personally by the metric boat load. I'm fine with people not liking the technology, but the number of death threats, rude comments ("your mother didn't use the coat hanger well enough"), and literal stalking and doxxing I've received from some of these rabidly anti-AI people is appalling. Whatever com…
It will take a few years for the multigenerational dark age to set in, but eventually you too will realize that they had a point.
These people are going to have a really hard time coming to grips with reality in the next few years. AI is here to stay, and it's expanding very rapidly. If you can't fight them, join them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My wife is a former journalist and was beginning her career when the web began to take off. All the old editors and reporters in her industry blew off the Internet, blogs, and web publishing in general. They thought no one will ever quit buying papers, it was a staple of modern life! She tried to clue them in but hit a brick wall ever time. I feel like history is repeating. I use AI regularly, where it works it works…
Your wife is right. History is repeating itself. And not even for the first time. Horse carriage drivers -> Cars Print media -> Internet Drafting -> CAD Music -> Electronic music, DAWs Film photography -> Digital Traditional film special effects -> CGI Hollywood nepotism -> YouTube / TikTok / Creator economy (there are more millionaire creators now than movie stars) In each of these cases, there was a subset of peopl…