Talk about lacking self-awareness. The author lists "cancel culture" as a good thing and says that they don't care about false positives. Almost like they're distanced from the consequences....
Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
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Re: Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
#12AI agents would just cause another layer of indirection (who funds, designs and builds them?, who runs them?, who understands their black box innards? who is empowered to act on their output etc.)
The depressing truth is that we already have more than enough information technology to steer society towards "a better place" if we wanted to. The same exact collections of sensors, chips, devices, cables, OS's, algorithms, databases, apps etc can be deployed in countless other configurations to establish ground truth, educate and inform, empower and enrich. Make us wiser rather than dumber.
Why is it not happening? The actual "software" run by society is both far more primitive and far more sticky than what idealistic techies give it credit for. A positive breakthrough after all the negative steps may yet come. History has not stopped. It may have accelerated as of late. But its an unpredictable and convoluted process.
Re: Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
#13The article has a variety of things wrong, such as the school system in Finland. Like most places, there are national curriculum standards. But not only does that not make all schools equally effective, private schools are still possible, including ones not specifically approved by the government. In those instances the local municipality monitors progress and issues certificates. The schools cannot be for-profit but then most private schools in the US are also operated as non-profits. In short, the idea that a wealthy person can’t buy a better education for their children and is thereby incentivized to ensure the public schools are excellent, that is not true. If you’re looking for a reason why Finland has excellent schools, it’s not “Rich people have no other choice”.
https://www.aacrao.org/edge/emergent-news/private-education-...
Re: Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
#14This reads like the author has just taken their first intro to political philosophy class.
Re: Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
#15One area where AI agents can help, is in going to the supermarket! many times what look like competing brands, are all owned by the same people, like Kellogg's or Procter & Gamble. they just create different packaging to appeal to different people. branding is just obfuscation. it'd be great to have the veil taken off, and every time you look at a product it shows you how the marketing team who made it, placed it in…
You realize that AI agents will push the most malicious, unhealthy, sponsored, Nestle and Kellogs shit to you? You realize what's happened to the internet, and SEO spam, and social media, and you think AI will be a force for good, informed consumerism? Or do you think it will be controlled by whoever has the biggest ad spend budgets?
Re: Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
#16You can’t write that “indirection” is the “root of all evil” and then in the conclusion claim that capitalism and tings like the nation state are one of our greatest inventions. But the fact that they chose a programming concept as their metaphor tells me enough about this wide-sweeping narrative.
Great inventions can be used in good or bad ways. What does the metaphor tell you? And are you sure it's only the metaphor doing the "telling"? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
> Great inventions can be used in good or bad ways.
Plainly and obviously wrong if you look at the context.
> > I believe that some of our mightiest inventions have served the purpose of enhancing our ability to collaborate as a civilization:
> What does the metaphor tell you? And are you sure it's only the metaphor doing the "telling"?
Wow you got me.
Re: Real life indirection is the root of all evil, and AI agents can fix it
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great inventions can be used in good or bad ways. What does the metaphor tell you? And are you sure it's only the metaphor doing the "telling"? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
> Great inventions can be used in good or bad ways. Plainly and obviously wrong if you look at the context. > > I believe that some of our mightiest inventions have served the purpose of enhancing our ability to collaborate as a civilization: > What does the metaphor tell you? And are you sure it's only the metaphor doing the "telling"? Wow you got me.
> Plainly and obviously wrong if you look at the context.
"Obviously" wrong - what's this? A human that agrees with their own opinion?
> Wow you got me.
I wonder: do you understand what I'm referring to?