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There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

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Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#61
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there is an unspoken factor here, which is that business leaders are not impressed by the WFH silent quitting attitude of junior staff, they’re happy to replace them with AI, and they don’t have sympathy because “yet another thing is hard.” I’ve seen the silent quitting attitude in a workplace and it is toxic. OTOH young people have had a lot to deal with, and social media is damaging their mental health. O…

I believe that most people naturally want to work, to contribute and build in groups. They want to do it and should expect to do it with reasonable boundaries and benefits for their labor. Silent quitting is a response to ever increasingly extractive work relationships for fewer and fewer benefits and increasingly irrationally low levels of compensation.

Not sure I agree. People seem to lose sight of what the default is, and how fortunate they are.

There are many systemic problems in society, but it’s rarely your direct employer’s fault.

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there is an unspoken factor here, which is that business leaders are not impressed by the WFH silent quitting attitude of junior staff, they’re happy to replace them with AI, and they don’t have sympathy because “yet another thing is hard.” I’ve seen the silent quitting attitude in a workplace and it is toxic. OTOH young people have had a lot to deal with, and social media is damaging their mental health. O…

Why do you assume it’s the juniors who are silent quitting?

Was in the case I was referring to, and in similar cases I am familiar with.

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOOOH its very naive to think that "quitting social media" is the solution. The earth is rotting from us leeching from it, there is no future for these juniors, and we're on the verge of more war and destruction, fascism, et cetera. There is nothing for them to build towards, other than the typical House, wife and kids, which will be in the same boat. Knowing this, if someone comes up to you and says "yeah, well, yo…

that attitude is a direct result of having your neuroticism farmed by social media

Catastrophising for sure, and unhelpful in that it obscures some of the more real issues young people face: unaffordable housing, student debt, employment market shifts, mental health problems caused by social media.

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#64
post #2

I'll just put the Willy Wonka tunnel clip here - https://youtu.be/Xkg7dp1QY9k

Is there any better metaphor for AI than that scene? Everyone is terrified at the speed of movement and then it turns out it was all a grift and they were barely moving at all

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#65
post #10

The commencement/graduating speeches including AI in the video at the end are infuriating. The message from people giving those speeches is literally "deal with it" and how tone deaf do they have to be to patronize those booing students with "I understand your fear". The graduation episode where the AI readout missing some student names and then the college saying "we used AI to readout and some names were missed. We…

I know calling anti-AI people luddites was considered a shallow strawman in 2024 but now I can't help but feel this position of "we should maybe slow down the developement and adoption of new tech to protect jobs / social order / the old way of life" fits luddism well?

I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone who is brave enough to deserve to be called a (Neo) Luddite.

People that have negative opinions about technological progress at least have the will to form an opinion backed by arguments. Contrast that with the faith order of dismissing negative opinions simply because they are negative about tech. Are technologist tech professionals? Or tech priests? (No wait, priests have to have a theological education where they are taught to make arguments. So can’t be that either.)

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#66
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI has ruined blogs, programming, killed girls in Iran and is used as an excuse for firing people. And you think it is going surprisingly well? It isn't. People are beginning to wake up now from their propaganda-induced sleep during the first three years. It is always the same. People are trusting and initially believe the con artists.

Don't forget deepfake harassment and spreading misinformation.

both around waaaay before LLMs

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget deepfake harassment and spreading misinformation.

both around waaaay before LLMs

Transportation was around way before container ships and diesel powered lorries.

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#68
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up Neuralink or medical use of LLMs is not an argument for allowing the theft. Anthropic etc. are free to start a prosthetics company and scrap their regular offerings. You are then allowed to use AI with a prescription.

This. As an artist I wouldnt have an issue with AI if it wouldnt be just generative generating full, fleshed out pieces. If AI is used allowing actual artists to use a brush or pen again and actually allows them expressing themselves through their own work, it would be great. People seem to think generating art from stolen pieces by typing 4 sentences in a prompt window is equal to this. It isn't. It is not true expr…

This is a thing that exists. There are many tools and workflows that let you sketch out something and then use a model to iterate imagery based on the draft, one small area at a time.

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. As an artist I wouldnt have an issue with AI if it wouldnt be just generative generating full, fleshed out pieces. If AI is used allowing actual artists to use a brush or pen again and actually allows them expressing themselves through their own work, it would be great. People seem to think generating art from stolen pieces by typing 4 sentences in a prompt window is equal to this. It isn't. It is not true expr…

This is a thing that exists. There are many tools and workflows that let you sketch out something and then use a model to iterate imagery based on the draft, one small area at a time.

Unfortunately, this is not how most self proclaimed AI artists use it though. They generate slop and cry about not being taken seriously by actual artists.

Re: There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going

#70
post #3

It’s crazy. Literally the only valid thing you can say about LLM use is “in the hands of an experienced person LLMs can be a force multiplier”. But no, we have to replace entire companies with it. All the problems of LLMs stem from inexperienced people using it (by inexperienced I mean not skilled in the domain in which the LLM is being applied).

We can also say the world is worse off when its in the hands of the oligarchy unconstrained by regulation.

We can say that, it's very easy and history has proven this many times.

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