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Stop developing this technology

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Re: Stop developing this technology

#401

Post by tremon »

mihaic wrote: post #272
LeanderK wrote: post #238

Again and again I am astonished that people without ethics exist, that they are confident in what they are doing and that they appear to be completely unable to reflect upon their actions. They just don't care and appear to be proud of it. If this is used to scam old people out of their belongings then you really have to question your actions and imho bear some responsibility. Was it worth it? Do the positive uses ou…

Agree, I've come to believe that social ethics is something that needs to be indoctrinated from an early age, otherwise it can't naturally be developed in many people.

At one point we tried to teach "good citizenship" at schools (and in most of Europe, we still do). Then the unethical people started claiming that schools were brainwashing their children, and here we are.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#402

Post by mihaic »

tomjen3 wrote: post #397
mihaic wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much yes: my points was that there are plenty of ideas that a rational individual would be convinced of, but that are basically unarguable logically to large parts of the population. The flat-earthers are an extreme example, but not unique in any way.

They are also 0.01 percent of the population. But you also seem to assume that different people would come to the same conclusion rationally, without taking into account different experinces, knowledge, ideas and priorities. And of course, you assume the ideas that YOU came up with are what that rational person would come up with. Which is the part that scares me. You have a perfect excuse that cannot be disproven: y…

You say 0.01 percent, while I think that the majority of the population needs to have some basic values instilled from an early age, if only to achieve the minimum homogeneity of a stable society.

And simply because an evil group uses a tool doesn't mean that tool is broken in itself, it just implies further consideration. For all their atrocities, Nazi Germany did some great engineering and also ran one of the most successful anti-smoking campaigns ever.

I think we have too many differences of opinion to reconcile over internet comments, but thank you for the rebuttals.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#403

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #325
jolmg wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're very intertwined. A paperclip factory produces things; they don't do tech development (shouldn't do much at least). Tech development is about pushing the edge. Science, obtaining more knowledge about the universe we have to work with, helps, but it's also about finding new applications for what we've already known. Tech development doesn't necessitate the production of things, even intangible ones. Technology…

Technology is the practical application of knowledge about the world. Science is the acquisition of such knowledge. There certainly can be an overlap in the Venn diagram here, but the distinction remains valid and important. In any case, I was not saying that your perspective is incorrect. I was just saying that my worldview seems rather different from yours.

[deleted]

Re: Stop developing this technology

#404

Post by CatWChainsaw »

dtx1 wrote: post #90

This is akin to developing Bioweapons. Can it be done? Yes. Should it be done? Absolutely not. > “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Only in this case it's software engineers. They don't get a free pass.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#405

Post by CatWChainsaw »

salt4034 wrote: post #326
return_to_monke wrote: post #322

if this was a discussion on generative AI, I'd agree that the cat is out of the bag and there's no stopping this now. BUT. what are people using deepfakes for, in good faith? can someone provide one example that isn't malicious? the best I could imagine is maybe amateur filmmakers deepfaking their faces onto existing footage to cut costs - but it doesn't seem that this outweighs the drawbacks

Film studios can use deepfakes to bring back actors who passed away. Whistle-blowers could use it to have video calls with journalists without being identified. Privacy-minded regular folks could use it to have a YouTube/Twitch channel without revealing their identity. These are just a few good-faith applications, but I think the list goes on.

>Film studios can use deepfakes to bring back actors who passed away.

That just reminds me of the short story about a society where nobody died. It wasn't meant to be a happy story.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#406

Post by CatWChainsaw »

epistemer wrote: post #277
yipbub wrote: post #11

I'm convinced that this idea that technology is completely neutral is wrong. It is not neutral in the face of human psychology. The human species is a different animal that the human individual, and it is powerful, but does not make truly conscious decisions. Once you let the genie out of the bottle, a wish will be made. A technology might not be inherently bad, but neither are knives, and we don't leave those lying…

The idea technology is completely neutral is obviously stupid and obviously wrong. Neil Postman has two amazing books on this subject. It is not even that technology is good or bad, any technology will have good and bad aspects but the main issue is that we have surrendered culture and agency to technology as a society. There is no going back or fix now. The fix for all was a culture that devalues bad uses of technol…

>The fix for all was a culture that devalues bad uses of technology

>The solution is not Luddism either. Especially a ridiculous techno-Luddism.

Cough.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#407

Post by CatWChainsaw »

JohnFen wrote: post #335
giraffe_lady wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are a single human lifetime into a world that has that technology. If we are to live we will live with it for thousands more. Let's give it a bit more time before we decide how well it's turned out?

On the other hand, history is full of technological developments that caused far more harm than necessary before society figured out a way to deal with it simply because nobody thought these things through at the start.

What examples stick out to you? And what do you think of the solutions that arose?

Re: Stop developing this technology

#408

Post by CatWChainsaw »

Veen wrote: post #307
LeanderK wrote: post #238

Again and again I am astonished that people without ethics exist, that they are confident in what they are doing and that they appear to be completely unable to reflect upon their actions. They just don't care and appear to be proud of it. If this is used to scam old people out of their belongings then you really have to question your actions and imho bear some responsibility. Was it worth it? Do the positive uses ou…

What's as worrying, judging by the comments here and in that GitHub thread, is that there is no correlation between technical ability and ethical understanding. Perhaps naively, I'd have thought someone intelligent enough to develop a technology like this would also be intelligent enough to understand the complex ethical issues it raises. It seems, unfortunately, that there is no such correlation. In fact, anecdotall…

Guided missiles, misguided men.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#409

Post by leobg »

watwut wrote: post #106
lucumo wrote: post #92

There's a book in Dutch literature, The Assault by Harry Mulisch. It's a great read if you're interested in multi-faceted morality. It deals with guilt and responsibility when there's a chain of things that need to happen for a bad outcome. During WWII the protagonist's parents are shot by Germans after a body of a collaborator was found in front of their house. The parents were arguing with the soldiers about someth…

Yeah, it is Germans for shooting them. Everyone else is a victim there. Blaming mom for arguing, blaming neighbours for not wanting to be shot themselves is just victim blaming at its finest. It was Germany who created the situation as part of their quest for world dominance, it was Germany who trained their soldiers to be violent and cruel, who created the policies and it was German soldiers who shot.

You do realize that “Germany” does not exist as a real-life entity, with behavior and agency in a way that assigning blame would make any sense. In fact, it could be argued, that assigning blame to the entire country of Germany, namely after WW I, was the very cause of Hitker coming to power in the first place.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#410

Post by leobg »

lucumo wrote: post #92

There's a book in Dutch literature, The Assault by Harry Mulisch. It's a great read if you're interested in multi-faceted morality. It deals with guilt and responsibility when there's a chain of things that need to happen for a bad outcome. During WWII the protagonist's parents are shot by Germans after a body of a collaborator was found in front of their house. The parents were arguing with the soldiers about someth…

I want to thank you for the recommendation. I am reading it right now. It is excellent!
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