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LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

arxiv.org

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Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#261

Post by aurareturn »

fallingfrog wrote: post #258
aurareturn wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very pessimistic look at things. There will be some growing pains for some, yes. But overall, I think it will ultimately create more jobs than ever. History is full of examples where people thought a new invention leads to catastrophic job loss, then the Earth had more jobs than ever. We have enough jobs in 2026 to keep most of the 8.3 billion people employed somehow.

That's an unbearably naive way to look at things. You wave your hands and say "oh it will be fine" without understanding any of the systems at play. Food, housing, and other resources are only obtainable under capitalism if you have the leverage to demand them- in other words if you are difficult to replace. AI will make you extremely cheap to replace. On what basis do you expect to be able to negotiate a wage that y…

Then go buy AI stocks if you think we are the horse.

Some will be horses, yes. Most will be riders.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#262

Post by SllX »

dagss wrote: post #256
SllX wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! You are correct. I frequently do this with religions & specific ideologies which seem to root themselves in people the same way that religions do & it certainly isn’t intended to be a charitable framing. The core of a virus in biology after all is essentially a packet of information which gets injected into host cells in order to repli…

The point was that when you do this you participate in name-calling/slurs, not making an argument. Many things that you personally think are good (I don't know you but say for instance ideas around democracy or liberty) can also be described as viruses in the same way.

> The point was that when you do this you participate in name-calling/slurs, not making an argument.

You admitted you don't know me, yet you still managed to jump to this conclusion. Good job, mate.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#263

Post by BenoitP »

Murfalo wrote: post #19

I love this line of thinking but the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable. Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! That is because, when viewed from an evolutionary biology perspective, ideas are the cognitive equivalent of genes (in fact, this is where the term meme comes from). There's a whole field, evolutionary memetics, dedicated to this. Cult…

> Is my friend a virus for recommending me their favorite book?

In that case the book would be a virus, and your friend a host.

But it generalizes way wider to ideas. Religions are viruses too for example. With very strong viral mechanisms sometimes. Some religions are so much entrenched so that they have become part of the fabric for entire societies or countries, morphing their culture; the same way that sometimes viral RNA can become part of the DNA of the host.

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