131–140 of 430 posts
Sure, the technology that real people in your life, including most "normies" who only use tech to get stuff done, are using ChatGPT, but it's not "inevitable".
Your claim that most people (even "normies") are using LLMs is just an offshoot of the inevitability nonsense. Most people _aren't_ using LLMs.
What is inevitable? The heat death of the universe. You probably don't need to worry about it much.
Everything else can change. If someone is proposing that a given technology is, "inevitable," it's a signal that we should think about what that technology does, what it's being used to do to people, and who profits from doing it to them.
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…
We are headed towards (or already in) corporate feudalism and I don't think anything can realistically be done about it. Not sure if this is nihilism or realism but the only real solution I see is on the individual level: make enough money that you don't have to really care about the downsides of the system (upper middle class).
So while I agree with you, I think I just disagree with the little bit you said about "cant expect anything to change without-" and would just say: cant expect anything to change except through the inertia of what already is in place.
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…
This is also my core reservation against the idea.
I think that the belief only holds weight in a society that is rife with opposing interpretations about how it ought to be managed. The claim itself feels like an attempt to force someone toward the interests of the one issuing it.
> Is my choice to write some boiler plate code using gen AI truly political? Is it political because of power usage and ongoing investment in gen AI?
Apparently yes it is. This is all determined by your impressions on generative AI and its environmental and economic impact. The problem is that most blog posts are signaling toward a predefined in-group either through familiarity with the author or by a preconceived belief about the subject where it’s assumed that you should already know and agree with the author about these issues. And if you don’t you’re against them.
For example—I don’t agree that everything is inevitable. But I as I read the blog post in question I surmised that it’s an argument against the idea that human beings are not at the absolute will of technological progress. And I can agree with that much. So this influences how I interpret the claim “nothing is inevitable” in addition to the title of the post and in conjunction with the rest of the article (and this all is additionally informed by all the stuff I’m trying to express to you that surrounds this very paragraph).
I think that this is speaks to the present problem of how “politics” is conflated to additionally refer to one’s worldview, culture, etc., in and of itself instead of something distinct but not necessarily inseparable from these things.
Politics ought to indicate toward a more comprehensive way of seeing the world but this isn’t the case for most people today and I suspect that many people who claim to have comprehensive convictions are only 'virtue signaling’.
A person with comprehensive convictions about the world and how humans ought to function in it can better delineate the differences and necessary overlap between politics and other concepts that run downstream from their beliefs. But what do people actually believe in these days? That they can summarize in a sentence or two and that can objectively/authoritatively delineate an “in-group” from an “out-group” and that informs all of their cultural, political, environmental and economic considerations, and so on...
Online discourse is being cleaved into two sides vying for digital capital over hot air. The worst position you can take is a critical one that satisfies neither opponent.
You should keep reading all blog posts with a critical eye toward the appeals embedded within the medium. Or don’t read them at all. Or read them less than you read material that affords you with a greater context than the emotional state that the author was in when they wrote the post before they go back to releasing software communiques.
Now seems like a good time to remind folks of the Stanford dead fish fMRI study: https://law.stanford.edu/2009/09/18/what-a-dead-salmon-remin... fMRI has always had folks highlighting how shaky the science is. It's not the strongest of experimental techniques.
I do disagree that some of these were not inevitable. Let me deconstruct a couple: > Tiktok is not inevitable. TikTok the app and company, not inevitable. Short form video as the medium, and algorithm that samples entire catalog (vs just followers) were inevitable. Short form video follows gradual escalation of most engaging content formats, with legacy stretching from short-form-text in Twitter, short-form-photo in…
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…
It matters because the amount of influence something has on you is directly attributable to the amount of human effort put into it. When that effort is removed so to is the influence. Influence does not exist independently of effort.
All the people yapping about LLM keep fundamentally not grasping that concept. They think that output exists in a pure functional vacuum.
The species as a whole will evolve inevitably; the individual animal may not.
>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…
However, I support ~80 non-technical users for whom that update was a huge benefit. They're familiar with iOS on their phones, so the new interface is (whaddya know) intuitive for them. (I get fewer support calls, so it's of indirect benefit to me, too.) I try to let go of my frustration by reminding myself that learning new technology is (literally) part of my job description, but it's not theirs.
That doesn't excuse all the "moving the deck chairs" changes - Tahoe re-design: why? - but I think Apple's broad philosophy of ignoring power users like us and aligning settings interfaces was broadly correct.
Funny story: when my family first got a Windows computer (3.1, so... 1992 or '93?) my first reaction was "this sucks. Why can't I just tell the computer what to do anymore?" But, obviously, GUIs are the only way the vast majority will ever be able to interact with a device - and, you know, there are lots of tasks for which a visual interface is objectively better. I'd appreciate better CLI access to MacOS settings: a one-liner that mirrors to the most recently-connected display would save me so much fumbling. Maybe that's AppleScript-able? If I can figure it out I'll share here.