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AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

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Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#151

Post by parineum »

antonvs wrote: post #6
parineum wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaders are rarely shining moral beacons.

Are you suggesting that no meaningful distinction can be made in terms of morality between Trump and, say, Biden, Obama, Blair, the Bushes etc.? Some people will point to their supposed crimes or immoral actions while in office, having to do with execution of their duties as president. Large countries tend to do many questionable things. But the current US administration is pretty unique in terms of its corruption, a…

I'm suggesting that the morality of our leaders is not a barometer for the morality of the populace.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#152

Post by parineum »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #96
theshrike79 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is to many professions like the Knitting machines were to textile workers (where the word Luddite originated[0], people who opposed automation). Some "value" will be lost, but other will be generated. People WILL lose their jobs as what they did can either be done by AI directly or an AI Agent can write a script/program to do some or all what they did. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

They were not opposing automation. They were opposing loss of jobs, wages, dignity in work and all that. And they turned out to be completely right. AI is just the next attack from capitalism in a long line of attacks aimed at workers. And this time its coming for every single worker, given that the explicit purpose is to create AI that can replace every single person.

> AI is just the next attack from capitalism ...

Technology, not capitalism.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#153

Post by zingababba »

r33b33 wrote: post #131
barrell wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is a nihilist

How is not caring about things having a "value" being a nihilist? If everything is absolutely free for everyone, you see that as a bad thing?

Ah yes on this glorious day let us convene the committee for the meting out of free items to everyone. Ah shit someone stole them all.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#154

Post by masswerk »

renewiltord wrote: post #42
masswerk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's say, an alternative history novel, is it just ripping off a history textbook or is there more going on?

How about an exact duplicate of the all characters but they have sex with each other?

So, because of certain tech patents, patents and IP are bogus in general? What's the point, then?

(Meaning, if we're making generalisation from worst examples a virtue, there will be hardly an argument left. E.g., as there are buggy programs, LLMs are just yet another bug.)

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#155

Post by parineum »

r33b33 wrote: post #133
Ferret7446 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like inequality is a problem. If so, there's a really easy way to solve it: nuke the planet back to the stone age. Personally, I'd rather have inequality if it means everyone can live a peaceful life. Let the rich have their yachts or whatever. I don't see why the increased productivity provided by AI won't make things better, given that all of the ills of the world are caused by scarcity: that is, insuf…

> I'd rather have inequality if it means everyone can live a peaceful life Thank God a large majority of people with ironclad convictions don't think like you.

They actually do, if you ask them better questions. "Inequality" is a boogeyman that has a lot of baggage attached to it by society but, if you were to ask people if it was a good thing for millions of people to be lifted out of poverty if the cost was that on person was obscenely wealthy, most people would side on the side of inequality.

"Inequality" is just an academic word for "Keeping up with the Jones'". Each generation has more material good, both necessities and otherwise, than previous generations. It's only through comparison that people are made to feel poor. Rather than look at trends of poverty and flourishing, people are made to feel cheated by not getting a slice of someone else's pie.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#156

Post by zingababba »

Aperocky wrote: post #78

If the moral foundation is that majority of people must perform economically valuable work in order to exchange for their survival, then perhaps it should be broken. I'm cautiously optimistic because perhaps AGI will find a way to implement it - if it is sentient at that level, then it would be rather difficult to be owned by some person or corporation. Obviously LLMs are very far from there and remains just a tool f…

Why would anyone ever cede their decision making over to a machine? I think people are way overestimating the impact AGI will have on a certain type of person. Nothing will ever be implemented easily and without force even if some Meta AGI (TM) says its a good idea.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#157

Post by zingababba »

zkmon wrote: post #54

Ownership of things by humans is never a settled question. There is no ideal or correct model for ownership, as ownership itself is unnatural. People went through many models over centuries - famliy/community owneship, monarchies, socialism, capitalism etc. Capitalism is the worst of all, allowing extreme exaggeration of talent differences between people. AI is like back to monarchies. AI is exposing the myths of tal…

This is an interesting take that I don't think I have come across before. Thanks. Would you happen to have any further reading material on this topic either by yourself or others?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#158

Post by zingababba »

gaigalas wrote: post #145
barrell wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but what happens to society when art, labor, "intelligence" and productivity all become abundant? These are not comparable to salt. You are comparing an apple to every orange tree that has ever existed.

we stole the promethean fire humans won't have to work again the spark of intelligence is now living in machines by the way, we still have to make small annoying interruptions to digital content to display ads, everything falls apart if we don't do that -- Something feels off in this whole idea. I think you guys are overestimating the importance of AI. It's just another commodity.

Thoughts of chronically sedate individuals.

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#159

Post by jmathai »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #55
jmathai wrote: post #10

I feel a lot less pride in my creative work knowing it can be done much too easily with modern AI. It makes me less eager to create which is quite unfortunate. I haven’t felt to bad about my creative works being fed into training models. Taken by itself, my creations are minuscule. But it’s very apparent when I look at AI as a whole, having taken from everyone in aggregate. I feel that.

> It makes me less eager to create which is quite unfortunate. It's been the exact opposite for me. Coding assistance is a great boon towards productivity simply because otherwise I wouldn't work on any of my old ideas stashed in numerous note taking apps. It's way easier today to go from 0 to something like an MVP, and see if there's something there. If there isn't, not much is lost. But without these tools it would…

I've been creating more as well since there's much less friction. This includes things I simply would not have gotten around to. But what I create feels a lot less unique ... and I guess that's important in my motivation to create.

I don't know how it plays out in the long run. Will the ease of creating result in increased creativity or will the lack of uniqueness result in a decrease?

Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society

#160

Post by rickydroll »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #143
r33b33 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We focus on colonisation of Universe and becoming a Kardashev Type III civilisation. Literally that.

More likely we devolve into Kardashian Type society of shallow attention seekers. Or worse, we move towards a permanent divide of the insanely rich who own the machines and everyone else who struggle to make it through the day. There are some who would say that both of these have already happened.

krap! maybe earth is ark B
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