How to Not Build the Torment Nexus • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#31

Post by mindslight » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 2:09 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #30

mindslight wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your view of imaginary property. But pushing in the right direction is much more important than being 100% correct about everything.

Demonizing the one good outcome of AI is the opposite of pushing in the right direction, though. It's like the author missed his own point, self-awarewolf style.

I think you're assuming a lot to call it a "good outcome". I foresee hefty regulatory capture and compensation deals made with the big copyright businesses, but no real increase in freedoms for individuals.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#32

Post by GauntletWizard » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 4:41 AM UTC

Apreche wrote: post #11

yummypaint wrote: post #7

It's pretty wild that software is the only "engineering" discipline without any concept of professional ethics or loyalty to human safety that superceeds the whims of the employer. Why do people think that is? Have there been any attempts to change this from the inside over the past decade? Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this? It's a shameful state of affairs and reflects poorly on the who…

When I was in college majoring in CS in the early ’00s I took several classes about ethics and technology. I also took plenty of liberal arts and literature classes throughout my entire education, as well as reading many sci-fi novels for pleasure. I learned the lesson of not building the torment nexus early and often. Thus far I have refused employment at any places doing so. I have an ethical and moral code that co…

I took the same professional ethics course as you in school (Hi from another RIT anime nerd), and I found that even by mid 2000s, most people coming into the program openly mocked the lessons of Therac-25 and the Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse as heavyhanded, but a disturbing few viewed these as lessons in how you could cut corners and avoid getting charged.

Google used to have ethicists ethicists and a culture of don't be evil. They were fired by the AI ethicists, who for the most part were among that latter group - Rationalists who were supremely good at rationalizing their choices rather than making good ones.

I don't think that any of the current efforts at regulation are going to work. The latter culture has taken over the institutions, and that's why you see so many baying for the institutions to be taken down.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#33

Post by yellowapple » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #31

yellowapple wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonizing the one good outcome of AI is the opposite of pushing in the right direction, though. It's like the author missed his own point, self-awarewolf style.

I think you're assuming a lot to call it a "good outcome". I foresee hefty regulatory capture and compensation deals made with the big copyright businesses, but no real increase in freedoms for individuals.

That would be the outcome of the Torment Nexus succeeding at kneecapping the first thing in decades with any hope of destroying it, not the outcome of the thing in question succeeding at destroying the Torment Nexus.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#34

Post by mindslight » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #33

mindslight wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're assuming a lot to call it a "good outcome". I foresee hefty regulatory capture and compensation deals made with the big copyright businesses, but no real increase in freedoms for individuals.

That would be the outcome of the Torment Nexus succeeding at kneecapping the first thing in decades with any hope of destroying it, not the outcome of the thing in question succeeding at destroying the Torment Nexus.

I don't really understand what you mean here, because I don't really know what you specifically mean by Torment Nexus. It wasn't bad for a rhetorical technique of pointing out the incentive-attractor(s) that we're already suffering (Mammon, the orphan grinder, etc), but the term doesn't really work for analyzing technicals unless you spell it out.

In general, now that the pump has been fully primed for capital to flow into developing "AI", I do not see how copyright law is going to make much of a dent in that trend. Nor do I see how "AI" companies are going to make a dent in copyright law for anyone but themselves. I foresee large "AI" companies being essentially unbound on training over small-owner copyrighted works, upstart "AI" companies needing to pay into a hefty protection racket, and individuals still bound by imaginary property laws whether directly (old fashioned piracy) or when using common genAI (sorry Dave, I can't do that).

I just ran into a situation where ChatGPT refused to quote me the relevant bit of the electrical code for my state (supposedly binding law), because those laws were created by wholesale importing the "National Electrical Code" which is copyrighted. At best, the situation is an open legal question. And yet de facto there is still a restriction that prevents me from using the tool to engage with the law in good faith.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#35

Post by musicale » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #7

It's pretty wild that software is the only "engineering" discipline without any concept of professional ethics or loyalty to human safety that superceeds the whims of the employer. Why do people think that is? Have there been any attempts to change this from the inside over the past decade? Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this? It's a shameful state of affairs and reflects poorly on the who…

> Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this?

https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics

However, ACM continues to accept money from companies that routinely and systematically violate this code (for example privacy in section 1.6) and seems to have little interest in sanctioning them.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#36

Post by musicale » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

musicale wrote: post #35

yummypaint wrote: post #7

It's pretty wild that software is the only "engineering" discipline without any concept of professional ethics or loyalty to human safety that superceeds the whims of the employer. Why do people think that is? Have there been any attempts to change this from the inside over the past decade? Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this? It's a shameful state of affairs and reflects poorly on the who…

> Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this? https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics However, ACM continues to accept money from companies that routinely and systematically violate this code (for example privacy in section 1.6) and seems to have little interest in sanctioning them.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#37

Post by musicale » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #7

It's pretty wild that software is the only "engineering" discipline without any concept of professional ethics or loyalty to human safety that superceeds the whims of the employer. Why do people think that is? Have there been any attempts to change this from the inside over the past decade? Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this? It's a shameful state of affairs and reflects poorly on the who…

> People who design bridges and vehicles have real responsibilities and standards they are held to, yet somehow the software that actually runs these things is exempt.

The most impressive accomplishment of the computing industry is avoidance of any kind of liability.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#38

Post by yellowapple » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 6:39 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #34

yellowapple wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the outcome of the Torment Nexus succeeding at kneecapping the first thing in decades with any hope of destroying it, not the outcome of the thing in question succeeding at destroying the Torment Nexus.

I don't really understand what you mean here, because I don't really know what you specifically mean by Torment Nexus. It wasn't bad for a rhetorical technique of pointing out the incentive-attractor(s) that we're already suffering (Mammon, the orphan grinder, etc), but the term doesn't really work for analyzing technicals unless you spell it out. In general, now that the pump has been fully primed for capital to flo…

> I don't really understand what you mean here, because I don't really know what you specifically mean by Torment Nexus.

I thought I made that pretty clear when I wrote in my original comment that "[i]ntellectual property and the enforcement thereof is in and of itself a Torment Nexus."

> In general, now that the pump has been fully primed for capital to flow into developing "AI", I do not see how copyright law is going to make much of a dent in that trend. Nor do I see how "AI" companies are going to make a dent in copyright law for anyone but themselves.

"AI" exists outside of the various corporations hosting LLMs on The Cloud™. The corporate-hosted LLMs get undue emphasis largely as yet another result of the Torment Nexus that is intellectual property.

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#39

Post by musicale » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 6:43 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #22

yummypaint wrote: post #7

It's pretty wild that software is the only "engineering" discipline without any concept of professional ethics or loyalty to human safety that superceeds the whims of the employer. Why do people think that is? Have there been any attempts to change this from the inside over the past decade? Where are professional associations like the ACM in all of this? It's a shameful state of affairs and reflects poorly on the who…

I agree with the crux of your point, but commonly held engineering ethics are still compatible with building weapons that directly attack other humans. The ethics basically focus on doing right by the employer/society you're working for. And for the surveillance industry, that society is the obscenely rich elites and us plebs are all just the targets.

> commonly held engineering ethics are still compatible with building weapons that directly attack other humans

"Once the rockets are up, Who cares where they come down? That's not my department," Says Wernher von Braun.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44702782

Re: How to Not Build the Torment Nexus

#40

Post by mindslight » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 7:50 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #38

mindslight wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand what you mean here, because I don't really know what you specifically mean by Torment Nexus. It wasn't bad for a rhetorical technique of pointing out the incentive-attractor(s) that we're already suffering (Mammon, the orphan grinder, etc), but the term doesn't really work for analyzing technicals unless you spell it out. In general, now that the pump has been fully primed for capital to flo…

> I don't really understand what you mean here, because I don't really know what you specifically mean by Torment Nexus. I thought I made that pretty clear when I wrote in my original comment that "[i]ntellectual property and the enforcement thereof is in and of itself a Torment Nexus." > In general, now that the pump has been fully primed for capital to flow into developing "AI", I do not see how copyright law is go…

> [i]ntellectual property and the enforcement thereof is in and of itself a Torment Nexus.

That does not make it clear. Saying that A is an instance of B does not define what B is.

> "AI" exists outside of the various corporations hosting LLMs on The Cloud™

You're speaking obliquely here, so I'm left guessing what you mean. I think you're just referring to how individuals can train/download/modify/run models locally. I don't see how that affects copyright, as it seems to fit in the same exact place as piracy of the source material (unfortunately). Downloading a model that has gotten the attention of corpos for "infringing" will be treated exactly how torrenting original works is now.