No it doesn't, because social media already did that. There's nothing left to be broken.
I like the one upping of cynicism here
AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
31–40 of 195 posts
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#32An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. I realize the hyperbolic framing of the idea, but none-the-less I haven't been able to get it out of my head. This article feels li…
> It's [sic] promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand No, it’s not. This is where your concept fails. AI is a tool, like any other tool. It doesn’t provide unlimited anything, and, furthermore, it needs human inputs and direction to provide anything. “Go make me a profitable startup from scratch” is not a useful prompt.
But that is exactly the promise that the heads of the AI labs are making. Sam Altman is repeatedly saying he wants to be able to ask it "go discover a new branch of physics".
Perhaps it's not how you use LLMs, but it is the promise of AI.
For the record, I make a distinction between LLMs (a current tool that we have today) and AI (a promise of some mystical all-powerful science-fiction entity).
There is nothing intelligent about what we have today, artificial or otherwise.
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#33An idea that has been living rent free in my head is that "AI is ultimately nothing but a pure destruction of value". It's promise is unlimited value to everyone on demand; but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable. Value and scarcity go hand in hand. I realize the hyperbolic framing of the idea, but none-the-less I haven't been able to get it out of my head. This article feels li…
> but if everyone can do everything without any effort, it is no longer valuable It's called utopia. But my issue with AI hype is that it's not clear how it will lead to "everyone can do anything." Like how is it going to free up lands so everyone can afford a house with yard if they want?
Everyone productive and working can afford a house with a yard now. You’ll be a few dozen miles from others.
If you want everyone to be able to afford a house with a yard within walking distance of downtown Palo Alto, there aren’t enough of them for everyone that wants to do that, and AI (and utopia) can’t change that. Proximity to others creates scarcity because of basic physical laws. This is why California is expensive.
This is something I always wondered about in Banks’ post-scarcity utopian Culture novels. How do they decide who gets to live next door to the coolest/best restaurant or bar or social gathering place? Does Hub (the AI that runs the habitat, and notionally is the city) simply decide and adjudicate like a dictator or king?
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#34Earlier 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 would argue that yes, there’s no meaningful distinction between Biden and Trump. (And perhaps that Trump is more moral than Biden.)
I’d find your argument would be more persuasive if you outlined what you believe Trump had done worse than the others — rather than argument-by-name-calling.
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#35I 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.
Perhaps i am a bit odd but i dont understood this take. Why do you do what you do? Why do you create anything?
Since before ai all my tiny little works have been public domain and it tickles me pink when i see something of mine out in the wild.
Journey before destination.
With that said though, the people who press the button and fashion themselves creatives piss me off. Heck anyone who has more than a passing interest in gen ai art disappoints me. After all, what is interesting about printing the Mona Lisa compared to creating your own shitty version by hand?
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#36Perhaps sovereign compute is the answer? We have open weights models, as a sort of ‘public commons’ that democratises that layer, but compute is still the bottleneck for big companies..
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#37In the past few decades, I learned to be skeptical of any piece of "true" media because it could be easily be photoshopped by an expert. Yet people still gave credence to a damning photo or soundbite shared around. AI has finally made it so easy to fake things that (I hope) people will re-learn skepticism of all they see/hear.
Likewise, I've felt like the meritocracy story that the author sets up as the "moral foundation" has heavily attenuated in this century. It's still used as the justification in America (I'm rich because I deserve it, you're not rich because you didn't work as hard/smart as me) but it feels like that story is wearing thin. Or that the relative proportion of the luck / ovarian lottery aspect has become so much larger than the skill+hard work aspect.
The trend of the rich getting richer, of them using their power to manipulate the system to further advantage them and theirs at the expense of everyone else, existed before AI burst into the public in '20-21. Maybe, like the fake media, it will finally be the kick people need to let go of the meritocracy trap* and realize we need a change.
* I like the notion of meritocracy, it just seems like America has moved from aiming for that, to using the story of it as an excuse to or opiate for the masses.
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#38I opened 10 PRs in 20 minutes today and it felt great. If I extrapolate that to everything else with a straight line then everything looks good /s
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#39I think that a lot of people are fine with intellectual property theft because most of people don’t have much valuable intellectual property.
No one steals from them.
So far AI companies were settling by throwing VC cash at it so the vocal ones that do have IP will be paid off.
Re: AI Is Breaking the Moral Foundation of Modern Society
#40AI could be a boon for mankind. it can be a useful tool. We could employ it in a manner which provides more dignity for workers. That is, let them work less hours, have more leisure time etc. That necessitates something which will keep the powers of capital in check, and people don't seem to think that this is possible.
Corporations are just so large and powerful, that people feel hopeless. Byt we could still get together and enact legislation which will override them. Othing is impossible, it just takes some imagination and organisation.
Like Chomsky once said, if the peasants of Haiti could organise and overthrow their government and create a functioning democracy, then surely we can too, with far more advantages.