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To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

musings.martyn.berlin

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Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#131

Post by wiseowise »

Silagi wrote: post #31

Controversial take: It's weird to see people in tech taking this stance. They've been riding the same wave of exploiting the average person through economies of scale for the last 20+ years, but now that it affects them, it's suddenly catastrophic. You dont get to benefit from the expansion of companies like Uber, airbnb or meta, then pretend like you were always focused on the success of the average person. You didn…

> Controversial take: It's weird to see people in tech taking this stance. They've been riding the same wave of exploiting the average person through economies of scale for the last 20+ years, but now that it affects them, it's suddenly catastrophic.

Let's not rewrite history, ok? VCs funded and killed professions, and now it's our head on the chopping block. You can always argue that "I just followed orders", and it would be true, but let's not create an impression that everyone working in tech is force of evil working against common people.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#132

Post by TaupeRanger »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #45

This is going to be an unpopular reply I imagine but this person is not well and their behavior should not be imitated. This is a classic example of omnicause anxiety, like people who refuse to have children because of all these things happening in the world as if the world hasn't always been a mess. Frankly, ridiculous.

It's part of this nihilistic undercurrent, especially among Millennials and younger generations. "I'm not having kids, have you seen the world?" "I'm not saving for retirement, Social Security won't exist and the oceans will swallow the continent by the time I reach retirement age." "I refuse to use AI tools that could help me create new things and reach my goals, because the influencers told me AI is going to poison the water". Quite sad actually.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#133

Post by bawolff »

skrebbel wrote: post #59

This is like a vegan refusing to be around, let alone eat with, meateaters. As vegans and vegetarians (and decades earlier, non-smokers) have shown, you can have a principled stance on something without forcing that stance on others. Yes, it sucks. Yes, your impact will be smaller. But it’s a lot easier to maintain than to break off contact with a friend who dares ask ChatGPT a question.

> As vegans and vegetarians (and decades earlier, non-smokers) have shown, you can have a principled stance on something without forcing that stance on others.

If you truly believe something is evil, i think that is difficult. Like imagine if someone said, i believe murder is wrong but i dont want to force that on others. Or, i dont really like slavery but that's just me and others should be slave owners if they feel that is right.

Obviously there is a spectrum of moral ills, and not all are created equal, but if you truly believe something is abhorent, you can't be a good person and tolerate it in others

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#135

Post by peteforde »

BoorishBears wrote: post #91
derac wrote: post #24

It's funny, I have the opposite experience of everyone around me hating AI. I'm not aggressively pro-AI around them at all but you aren't allowed to have any positive or nuanced opinion of the tech. I'm used to it though, I've been excited by the concept of AI since reading about Turing and such as a child 20 years ago. The idea has always been met with negativity, IMO because people want to feel that they have a par…

> The idea has always been met with negativity, IMO because people want to feel that they have a part of themselves that is beyond nature and has a "special" place in the universe. This is actually a big part of why being pro-AI is met with negativity today. As someone who's using and building with AI and also experiences the "anti" movement, you've chosen a pretty condescending minority of the reasons why they disli…

I appreciate this nuanced take. You've been added to my filter of people who have an opinion that bubbles to the top.

I wish the Dems could have this conversation about their policies and messaging!

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#136

Post by wiseowise »

dd8601fn wrote: post #98
Silagi wrote: post #31

Controversial take: It's weird to see people in tech taking this stance. They've been riding the same wave of exploiting the average person through economies of scale for the last 20+ years, but now that it affects them, it's suddenly catastrophic. You dont get to benefit from the expansion of companies like Uber, airbnb or meta, then pretend like you were always focused on the success of the average person. You didn…

There are about ten billion relevant and reasonable ways to differentiate and choose priorities in all of that. Suggesting that nobody is entitled to opinions on one category sounds kinda silly.

> Suggesting that nobody is entitled to opinions on one category sounds kinda silly.

How else would they feel morally superior to degenerate techies who finally got what they deserve? Didn't you get the memo? It's all Joe the Java developer who's the impetus of injustice in the world.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#137

Post by fasterik »

bawolff wrote: post #115
fasterik wrote: post #73

There's nothing wrong with having a moral stance on something. It only becomes a problem when the stance is disproportionate and detached from empirical reality.

Its always detached at some level. Morality always comes down to a choice of what you think is wrong vs right. You can't reason from the way the world is to the way the world ought to be, without picking some values.

[dead]

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#138

Post by 34asg »

Kuyawa wrote: post #126

What's wrong about a beautiful banner done beautifully with AI? What's wrong with a new app done in 5 mins by a coding agent? What's wrong about AI tracking a license plate crossing every corner with your kidnapped daughter? A couple of days ago I started having watery eyes and suddenly 'pink eye' was a term in DeepSeek with all the answers, viral, bacterial and fungal which I didn't know. According to symptoms it wa…

Tobramycin is not prescription-free. Cool story, bro.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#139

Post by motohagiography »

the argument reminds me of the uncanny sense of being managed. i think there was a belief that having the skills that AI synthesizes was some kind of intellectual equity, when this was more of a convention and a promise than any kind of social contract that preserves the value and meaning of ones past contributions.

imo we've been living out a decade or more of the Doorman Fallacy ( https://www.jaakkoj.com/concepts/doorman-fallacy ) where people are just liquid labour with some minimum constraints to distinguish them from chattel, where the ironic effect is everyone gets treated like they are chattel but for these minimum requirements. Maybe this will move the concerns and opinions class to act to conserve some of our cultural capital base?

mostly i am not sympathetic to the author because we are not of the same tribe, but the essential argument that there's something to conserve that we arent with AI is a worthy concern. we should look less at problems and solutions and more upstream of what we want to preserve and still grow.

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