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This is not the future

blog.mathieui.net

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Re: This is not the future

#171

Post by empressplay »

wongarsu wrote: post #99
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…

In a world ruled by game theory alone marketing is pointless. Everyone already makes the most rational choice and has all the information, so why appeal to their emotions, build brand awareness or even tell them about your products. Yet companies spend a lot of money on marketing, and game theory tells us that they wouldn't do that without reason Game theory makes a lot of simplifying assumptions. In the real world m…

> Game theory makes a lot of simplifying assumptions.

It does because it's trying to get across the point that although the world seems impossibly complex it's not. Of course it is in fact _almost_ impossibly complex.

This doesn't mean that it's redundant for more complex situations, it only means that to increase its accuracy you have to deepen its depth.

Re: This is not the future

#172

Post by terminalshort »

devin wrote: post #102
square_usual wrote: post #79

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.

Everyone who runs a Google search and doesn't read past the Gemini result uses an LLM. That's easily a majority without even getting into other products.

Re: This is not the future

#174

Post by strangescript »

"This post is to underline that Nothing is inevitable."

Inevitable and being a holdout are conceptually different and you can't expect society as a whole to care or respect your personal space with regards to it.

They listed smartphones as a requirement an example. That is great, have fun with your flip phone, but that isn't for most people.

Just because you don't find something desirable doesn't mean you deserve extra attention or a special space. It also doesn't you can call people catering to the wants of the masses as "grifters".

Re: This is not the future

#175

Post by paganel »

Everything mentioned in the article was inevitable (maybe not in this exact form, but as a principle) for us fans of Jacques Ellul and Uncle Ted. At least the money was quite good for many in the industry, for some of them it still is.

Re: This is not the future

#176

Post by rng-concern »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #119

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…

Apologies, but I'm copy/pasting a previous reply of mine to a similar sentiment:

Art is an expression of human emotion. When I hear music, I am part of those artists journey, struggles. The emotion in their songs come from their first break-up, an argument they had with someone they loved. I can understand that on a profound, shared level.

Way back me and my friends played a lot of starcraft. We only played cooperatively against the AI. Until one day me and a friend decided to play against each other. I can't tell put into words how intense that was. When we were done (we played in different rooms of house), we got together, and laughed. We both knew what the other had gone through. We both said "man, that was intense!".

I don't get that feeling from an amalgamation of all human thoughts/emotions/actions.

One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.

Re: This is not the future

#177

Post by Zigurd »

lekevicius wrote: post #28

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…

This appears to be overthinking it: sure it's inevitable that when zero trust systems are shown to be practicable, they will be explored. But, like a million other ideas that nobody needed to spend time on, selling NFTs should've been relegated to obscurity far earlier than what actually happened.

Re: This is not the future

#178

Post by ActivePattern »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #119

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…

> I can only say being against this is either it’s self-interest or not able to grasp it.

So we're just waving away the carbon cost, centralization of power, privacy fallout, fraud amplification, and the erosion of trust in information? These are enormous society-level effects (and there are many more to list).

Dismissing AI criticism as simply ignorance says more about your own.

Re: This is not the future

#179

Post by empressplay »

lekevicius wrote: post #28

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…

It was all inevitable, by definition, as we live in a deterministic universe (shock, I know!)

But further, the human condition has been developing for tens of thousands of years, and efforts to exploit the human condition for a couple of thousand (at least) and so we expect that a technology around for a fraction of that would escape all of the inevitable 'abuses' of it?

What we need to focus on is mitigation, not lament that people do what people do.

Re: This is not the future

#180

Post by Cthulhu_ »

nancyminusone wrote: post #164
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #119

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…

Art is not just about the physical painting or book itself, and if you think otherwise you have been and are missing the point.

As someone else put it succinctly, there's art and then there's content. AI generated stuff is content.

And not to be too dismissive of copywriters, but old Buzzfeed style listicles are content as well. Stuff that people get paid pennies per word for, stuff that a huge amount of people will bid on on a gig job site like Fiverr or what have you is content, stuff that people churn out by rote is content.

Creative writing on the other hand is not content. I won't call my shitposting on HN art, but it's not content either because I put (some) thought into it and am typing it out with my real hands. And I don't have someone telling me what I should write. Or paying me for it, for that matter.

Meanwhile, AI doesn't do anything on its own. It can be made to simulate doing stuff on its own (by running continuously / unlimited, or by feeding it a regular stream of prompts), but it won't suddenly go "I'm going to shitpost on HN today" unless told to.

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