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This is not the future

blog.mathieui.net

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Re: This is not the future

#111

Post by trinsic2 »

nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

One person has more impact than you think. Many times it's one person that is speaking what's on the mind of many and that speaking out can bring the courage to do what needs to be done for many people that sitting on the fence. The Andor TV series really taught me that. I'm working on a presentation of surveillance capitalism that I plan to show to my community. It's going to be an interesting future. Some will side with the Empire and others with side with the Rebellion.

Re: This is not the future

#112

Post by titzer »

vegadw wrote: post #95
titzer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been driving me nuts for at least a decade. I can't remember which MacOS update it was, but when they reorganized the settings to better align with iOS, it absolutely infuriated me. Nothing will hit my thunder button like taking my skills and knowledge away. I thought I might swear off Mac forever. I've been avoiding upgrading from 13 now. In the past couple of updates, the settings for displays is completely di…

... Did you just complain about modern technology taking power away from users only to post an AI generated song about it? You know, the thing taking away power from musicians and filling up all modern digital music libraries with garbage? There's some cognitive dissonance on display there that I'm actually finding it hard to wrap my head around.

> Did you just complain...only to post an AI generated song about it?

Yeah, I absolutely did. Only I wrote the lyrics and AI augmented my skills by giving it a voice. I actually put significant effort into that one; I spent a couple hours tweaking it and increasing its cohesion and punchiness, iterating with ideas and feedback from various tools.

I used the computer like a bicycle for my mind, the way it was intended.

Re: This is not the future

#113

Post by mason_mpls »

jgalecki wrote: post #94

This post rhymes with a great quote from Joseph Weizenbaum: "The myth of technological and political and social inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it. But, in fact, there are actors!"

Perhaps we need more collective action & coordination?

I don’t see how we could politically undermine these systems, but we could all do more to contribute to open source workarounds.

We could contribute more to smart tv/e-reader/phone & tablet jailbreak ecosystems. We could contribute more to the fediverse projects. We could all contribute more to make Linux more user friendly.

Re: This is not the future

#114

Post by madmountaingoat »

jjice wrote: post #55
tolerance wrote: post #16

This is high quality blog post! I’m all for a good argument that appears to challenge the notion of technological determinism. > Every choice is both a political statement and a tradeoff based on the energy we can spend on the consequences of that choice. Frequently I’ve been opposed to this sort of sentiment. Maybe it’s me, the author’s argument, or a combination of both, but I’m beginning to better understand how t…

I really don't like the "everything is political" sentiment. Sure, lots of things are or can be, but whenever I see this idea, it usually comes from people who have a very specific mindset that's leaning further in one direction on a political spectrum and is pushing their ideology. To clarify, I don't think pushing an ideology you believe in by posting a blog post is a bad thing. That's your right! I just think I ha…

I don't think you're wrong so much as you've tread into some semantic muddy water. What did the OP mean by 'inevitable', 'political' or 'everything'?. A lot hangs on the meaning. I lot of words could be written defending one interpretation over another and the chance of changing anyone's mind on the topic seems slim.

Re: This is not the future

#115

Post by white_dragon88 »

titzer wrote: post #51
cons0le wrote: post #27

>Your computer changing where things are on every update is not inevitable. This a million times. I honestly hate interacting with all software and 90% of the internet now. I don't care about your "U""X" front end garbage. I highly prefer text based sites like this

It's been driving me nuts for at least a decade. I can't remember which MacOS update it was, but when they reorganized the settings to better align with iOS, it absolutely infuriated me. Nothing will hit my thunder button like taking my skills and knowledge away. I thought I might swear off Mac forever. I've been avoiding upgrading from 13 now. In the past couple of updates, the settings for displays is completely di…

[dead]

Re: This is not the future

#116

Post by littlecorner »

flawn wrote: post #76
nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

I do partly disagree because Game Theory is based on an economic, (and also mentioned) reductionist view of a human, namely homo oeconomicus that does have some bold assumptions of some single men in history that asserted that we all act only with pure egoism & zero altruism which is nowadays highly critiqued and can be challenged. It is out of question that it is highly useful and simplifies it to an extent that we…

Hopefully without spoiling it, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time has an interesting take on game theory at the end

Re: This is not the future

#117

Post by DarkNova6 »

nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

Game theory is only as good as the model you are using.

Now couple the fact that most people are terrible at modeling with the fact that they tend to ignore implicit constraints… the result is something less resembling science but something resembling religion.

Re: This is not the future

#118

Post by orthecreedence »

Another post arguing against the profit mechanism and modern commercial capitalism without realizing it. It's arguing against the symptoms. The problem is a system that incentivizes creating markets where a market was not needed and convincing people it will make their lives better. Yes, the problem is cultural, but it's also deeply ingrained in our economic protocol now. You can't scream into the void about specific problems and expect change unless you look at the root causes.

Re: This is not the future

#119

Post by BloondAndDoom »

I understand artists etc. Talking about AI in a negative sense, because they don’t really get it completely, or just it’s against their self interest which means they find bad arguments to support their own interest subconsciously.

However tech people who thinks AI is bad, or not inevitable is really hard to understand. It’s almost like Bill Gates saying “we are not interested in internet”. This is pretty much being against the internet, industrialization, print press or mobile phones. The idea that AI is anything less than paradigm shifting, or even revolutionary is weird to me. I can only say being against this is either it’s self-interest or not able to grasp it.

So if I produce something art, product, game, book and if it’s good, and if it’s useful to you, fun to you, beautiful to you and you cannot really determine whether it’s AI. Does it matter? Like how does it matter? Is it because they “stole” all the art in the world. But somehow if a person “influenced” by people, ideas, art in less efficient way almost we applaud that because what else, invent the wheel again forever?

Re: This is not the future

#120

Post by rmah »

nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

The statement "Game theory is inevitable. Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives." implies that the "actors" are humans. But that's not what game theory assumes.

Game theory just provides a mathematical framework to analyze outcomes of decisions when parts of the system have different goals. Game theory does not claim to predict human behavior (humans make mistakes, are driven by emotion and often have goals outside the "game" in question). Thus game theory is NOT inevitable.

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