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The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

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Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#111

Post by globular-toast »

falcor84 wrote: post #46

It's a well-written monologue, with a fabulous delivery, but I think it fails spectacularly for this argument. From what I just looked into, neither of the main people involved, including Damon, Affleck, Williams, Van Sant, Reiner or Goldman, had personally experienced those scenarios of fighting on the front lines and having a friend die in their arms, or of losing their spouse to cancer. But nevertheless, they had…

The speech isn't telling us what it's like to be in war or deal with cancer. It's telling us there's a difference between reading something and experiencing something. Whether it uses the real life experiences of Robin Williams or the fictional ones of his character is beside the point.

Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#112

Post by drdaeman »

Barrin92 wrote: post #84
65 wrote: post #19

If we are moved emotionally by slop, does it matter? If AI can produce something to make you think and feel, does it matter? It made you think and feel.

>If we are moved emotionally by slop, does it matter? Yes, because that's not what matters. That kind of sentimentality is deficient because it's as Wilde said wanting to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. It's like asking, why pursue a real relationship if pornography gets me off You're supposed to be into the world, not into yourself. If that was what mattered we should stuff you into the matrix p…

> luxury of an emotion without paying for it

That’s just an echo of a religious-age idea that one’s life “must” include suffering. Which is merely an attempt to answer a “why” when one feels miserable, a consoling lie from the ancient times.

But what if one isn’t supposed to? A lot of people can slogan about price, and earning and breaking sweat, and so on - but is there really anything to it, except that this is how things currently are?

There’s no “why” in the actual reality. From where we are, it just is. No one is fundamentally supposed to do or be anything. They just do and are what the circumstances dictate. And circumstances can change someday.

Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#113

Post by moffkalast »

jimbokun wrote: post #8

I agree. This Robin Williams monologue nails exactly why LLMs make us so uneasy. They speak fluently and confidently about experiences it’s impossible for them to have. They can’t taste a strawberry or do any of the things Robin Williams names. There are a number of people building these machines who literally believe the machines will replace us and because they will be more powerful than us so nothing meaningful wi…

> people building these machines who literally believe the machines will replace us and because they will be more powerful than us so nothing meaningful will be lost

I have a pet theory on why that's the case and why this monologue fits so well. I think there's a variety of conditions, from straight up sociopathy, to Will's type of CPTSD, autistic masking, and probably a hell of a lot more that makes a person experience life on a level that's closer to an LLM than a healthy normal human being, where every interaction is essentially fake and acted out almost mechanically without any genuine connection ever occurring. Doubly so with ever decreasing local communities and online isolation.

So from that point of view, it's hard to see what would be lost because for them it doesn't exist anyway. Tech augmented generational trauma on steroids.

Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#115

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

zelon88 wrote: post #36

I believe AI is in a "curious toddler" stage of itself. I believe it will "mature" emotionally as the generations evolve over time. Like humans it will have growing pains like "phases". Curious toddler. Then adolescent. Then angsty teen. Then an overconfident young adult. And finally an adult who understands themselves emotionally and grows truly wiser over time. I think all this is going to happen over 5-10 years ra…

AI is way more similar to a person who is dreaming or has a serious psychiatric disorder. But there is no awakeness or health it descended from and thus no recover.

Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#117

Post by aeve890 »

scotty79 wrote: post #103
shermantanktop wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has taken to saying things like “What I would do now is…” or “if I were you I’d…”. I know these are figures of speech, but it reminds me that this thing doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t learn anything, it can’t try anything and find out. And yet it uses speech patterns drawn from real humans who can and do all those things.

> it can’t try anything and find out Talk to an agent. It definitely learns things. Maybe not the taste of strawberry but about what is really going on in the software you are building with it.

>It definitely learns things.

By the very way this technology works they can't learn anything after training. What you think is "learning" it's just a session log written back to the context when you resume the session.

Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#118

Post by moffkalast »

librasteve wrote: post #97

Counterpoint: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” — Roy Batty

Not sure how that's a counterpoint, replicants are supposed to be just kind of mildly genetically adjusted humans grown in vats aren't they? People act towards them like they are robots because it's easier to mentally justify a slave underclass that way.

Re: The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams

#120

Post by ricardobayes »

dualvariable wrote: post #76
shermantanktop wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has taken to saying things like “What I would do now is…” or “if I were you I’d…”. I know these are figures of speech, but it reminds me that this thing doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t learn anything, it can’t try anything and find out. And yet it uses speech patterns drawn from real humans who can and do all those things.

I had claude throw something like "the last time I did ..." at me. They seem to be trying to pump up the "humanity" to keep people engaged with it, which really backfires with me.

That's still slightly better than GPT's insanely dry and objective manner of speech.
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