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Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

mcsweeneys.net

101–110 of 331 posts

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#101
post #26

Perhaps things would work out better if people didn't say mean things regardless of who it's about. You can still criticise without being mean.

Explain how to nicely criticize computer software that allows for the generation of sexually explicit images of children.

I'm not sure what you are wanting here, are you actually requiring me to be a bully to affect change?

I can certainly criticize specific things respectfully. If I prioritised demonstrating my moral superiority I could loudly make all sorts of disingenuous claims that won't make the world a better place.

I certainly do not think people should be making exploitative images in Photoshop or indeed any other software.

I do not think that I should be able choose which software those rules apply to based upon my own prejudice. I also do not think that being able to do bad things with something is sufficient to negate every good thing that can be done with it.

Countless people have been harmed by the influence of religious texts, I do not advocate for those to be banned, and I do not demand the vilification of people who follow those texts.

Even though I think some books can be harmful, I do not propose attacking people who make printing presses.

What exactly are you requiring here. Pitchforks and torches? Why AI and not the other software that can be used for the same purposes?

If you want robust regulation that can provide a means to protect people from how models are used then I am totally prepared (and have made submissions to that effect) to work towards that goal. Being antagonistic works against making things better. Crude generalisations convince no-one. I want the world to be better, I will work towards that. I just don't understand how anyone could believe vitriolic behaviour will result in anything good.

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#102
post #85

> just use my evil technology Ridiculous to say the technology, by itself, is evil somehow. It is not. It is just math at the end of the day. Yes you can question the moral/societal implications of said technology (if used in a negative way) but that does not make the technology itself evil. For example, I hate vibe coding with a passion because it enables wrong usage (IMHO) of AI. I hate how easy it has become to sc…

> It is just math at the end of the day.

Not really - it's math, plus a bazillion jigabytes of data to train that math, plus system prompts to guide that math, plus data centers to do that math, plus nice user interfaces and APIs to interface with that math, plus...

Anyway, it's just kind of a meaninglessly reductive thing to say. What is the atom bomb? It's just physics at the end of the day. Physics can wreck havoc on the world; so can math.

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because you can cook with a hammer doesn't make it its purpose. If you survey all the people who own a hammer and ask what they use it for, cooking is not going to make the list of top 10 activities. If you look around at what LLMs are being used for, the largest spaces where they have been successfully deployed are astroturfing, scamming, and helping people break from reality by sycophantically echoing their…

Is it possible that these are in the top 10, but not the top 5? I'm pretty sure programming, email/meeting summaries, cheating on homework, random QA, and maybe roleplay/chat are the most popular uses.

The number of programmers in the world is vastly outnumbered by the people that do not program. Email / meeting summaries: maybe. Cheating on homework: maybe not your best example.

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#104
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] are fiction machines. All they can do is hallucinate, and sometimes the hallucinations are useful. That alone rules them out, categorically, from any critical control loop. True, but no more true than it is if you replace the antecedent with "people". Saying that the tools make mistakes is correct. Saying that (like people) they can never be trained and deployed such that the mistakes are tolerable is an awfu…

> True, but no more true than it is if you replace the antecedent with "people". Incorrect. People are capable of learning by observation, introspection, and reasoning. LLMs can only be trained by rote example. Hallucinations are, in fact, an unavoidable property of the technology - something which is not true for people. [0] [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.11817

The suggestion that hallucinations are avoidable in humans is quite a bold claim.

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#105
post #68

> "immoral technofascist life" Many people would rather argue about morality and conscience (of our time, of our society) instead of confronting facts and reality. What we see here is a textbook case of that.

> instead of confronting facts and reality.

okay, what are the "facts and reality" here? If you're just going to say "AI is here to stay", then you 1) aren't dealing with the core issues people bring up, and 2) aren't brining facts but defeatism. Where would be if we used that logic for, say, Flash?

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without phones, we couldn’t talk to people across great distances (oversimplification but you get it). Without Generative AI, we couldn’t…?

Are you really implying that generative AI doesn't enable things that were not previously possible?

For the most part, it hasn't. What do you consider previously impossible, and how is it good for the world?

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#107

> There’s an extremely hurtful narrative going around that my product, a revolutionary new technology that exists to scam the elderly and make you distrust anything you see online, is harmful to society The article is certainly interesting as yet another indicator of the backlash against AI, but I must say, “exists to scam the elderly” is totally absurd. I get that this is satire, but satire has to have some basis in…

I mean... explain sora.

Revolutionizing cat memes

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#108
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are fiction machines. All they can do is hallucinate, and sometimes the hallucinations are useful. That alone rules them out, categorically, from any critical control loop. After you eliminate anything that requires accountability and trustworthiness from the tasks which LLMs may be responsibly used for, the most obvious remaining use-cases are those built around lying: - advertising - astroturfing - other forms…

[flagged]

As a rule real creativity blossoms under constraints, not under abundance.

Re: Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in

#110
post #22
post #2

guys were just trying to take jobs away from you.... please stop being mean to us - richest people on earth 2026

On one hand, we're actively destroying society, but on the other, billionaires are getting richer! Why are you mad at us!?

Sonething something for a brief moment we created a lot of value for the shareholders
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