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Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

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Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#771

Post by sloum »

user34283 wrote: post #754
suralind wrote: post #727

I don’t really understand the hate he gets over this. If you want to thank someone for their contribution, do that yourself? Sending thank you from an ML model is anything but respectful. I can only imagine that if I got a message like that I’d be furious too. This reminds me a story from my mom’s work from years ago: the company she was working for announced salary increases to each worker individually. Some, like m…

He received what is arguably some AI-generated spam. Apparently this has enraged him and motivated an unhinged rant where he talks about raping the planet and vile machines. It's a hateful post and it seems disrespectful to anyone working in the industry, so some backlash has to be expected.

Yeah, but the industry is a big part of the problem and most people working in it are complicit at this point (whether or not they are reluctantly complicit).

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#772

Post by RossBencina »

herval wrote: post #757
trinsic2 wrote: post #748

>"For myself, the big fraud is getting public to believe that Intellectual Property was a moral principle and not just effective BS to justify corporate rent seeking." If anything, I'm glad people are finally starting to wake up to this fact.

confusing any law with "moral principles" is a pretty naive view of the world. Many countries base some of their laws on well accepted moral rules to make it easier to apply them (it's easier to enforce something the majority of the people want enforced), but the vast majority of the laws were always made (and maintained) to benefit the ruling class

I don't think this is about being confused out of naivety. In some parts of the western world the marketing department has invested heavily in establishing moral equivalence between IP violation and theft.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#773

Post by bartread »

user34283 wrote: post #754
suralind wrote: post #727

I don’t really understand the hate he gets over this. If you want to thank someone for their contribution, do that yourself? Sending thank you from an ML model is anything but respectful. I can only imagine that if I got a message like that I’d be furious too. This reminds me a story from my mom’s work from years ago: the company she was working for announced salary increases to each worker individually. Some, like m…

He received what is arguably some AI-generated spam. Apparently this has enraged him and motivated an unhinged rant where he talks about raping the planet and vile machines. It's a hateful post and it seems disrespectful to anyone working in the industry, so some backlash has to be expected.

> unhinged rant

Seems pretty hinged to me. Grounded firmly in reality even.

The data centres used to run AI consume huge amounts of power and water to run, not to mention massive quantities of toxic raw materials in their manufacture and construction. The hardware itself has a shelf life measured in single digit years and many of its constituent components can’t be recycled.

Tell me what I’m missing. What exactly is unhinged? Are you offended that he used the word “fuck” or something?

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#774

Post by sloum »

DetectDefect wrote: post #768

This reaction to one unsolicited email is frankly unhinged and likely rooted in a deep-seated or even unconscious regret of building systems which materialized the circumstances for this to occur in the first place. Such vitriol is really worth questioning and possibly getting professional help with, else one becomes subject to behavioral engineering by an actual robot - a far more devastating conclusion.

Funny, it seems perfectly appropriate to me.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#775

Post by numbsafari »

electroly wrote: post #739
suralind wrote: post #727

I don’t really understand the hate he gets over this. If you want to thank someone for their contribution, do that yourself? Sending thank you from an ML model is anything but respectful. I can only imagine that if I got a message like that I’d be furious too. This reminds me a story from my mom’s work from years ago: the company she was working for announced salary increases to each worker individually. Some, like m…

I'm not sure any humans were behind the email at all (i.e. "do that yourself"). This seems to be some bizarre experiment where someone has strapped an LLM to an email client and let it go nuts. Even being optimistic, it's tough to see what good this was supposed to do for the world.

It’s a marketing gimmick. Whoever did it wanted to trade on the social currency of the tech-famous people they sent public shout-outs to, hoping it would drive clicks, engagement, and relevancy for the source account from which it originated, either as an elaborate form of karma farming, or just a way to drive followers and visibility.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#776

Post by yomismoaqui »

As a Go fan (and ocassional angry old man) I love what he has done and spamming people using AI is shitty behavior, but maybe the reaction has too much of an "angry old man energy".

Personally when I want to have this kind of reaction I try to first think it's really warranted or maybe there is something wrong with how I feel in that moment (not enough sleep, some personal problem, something else lurking on my mind...)

Anger is a feeling best reserved for important things, else it loses its meaning.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#777

Post by SilasX »

nkrisc wrote: post #227

What is going through the mind of someone who sends an AI-generated thank-you letter instead of writing it themselves? How can you be grateful enough to want to send someone such a letter but not grateful enough to write one?

I mean ... there's a continuous scale of how much effort you spend to express gratitude. You could ask the same question of "well why did you say 'thanks' instead of 'thank you' [instead of 'thank you very much', instead of 'I am humbled by your generosity', instead of some small favor done in return, instead of some large favor done in return]?"

You could also make the same criticism of e.g. an automated reply like "Thank you for your interest, we will reach out soon."

Not every thank you needs to be all-out. You can, of course, think more gratitude should have been expressed in any particular case, but there's nothing contradictory about capping it in any one instance.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#778

Post by sloum »

user34283 wrote: post #767
llmslave2 wrote: post #105

It's nice to see a name like Rob Pike, a personal hero and legend, put words to what we are all feeling. Gen AI has valid use cases and can be a useful tool, but the way it has been portrayed and used in the last few years is appalling and anti-human. Not to mention the social and environmental costs which are staggering. I try to keep a balanced perspective but I find myself pushed more and more into the fervent ant…

[flagged]

Well, I couldn't disagree more with you: being anti-AI is absolutely not an extreme position. You are living in a bubble if you think it is. "Fervent anti-AI territory" is a good position, not hate speech.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#779

Post by consumer451 »

user34283 wrote: post #767
llmslave2 wrote: post #105

It's nice to see a name like Rob Pike, a personal hero and legend, put words to what we are all feeling. Gen AI has valid use cases and can be a useful tool, but the way it has been portrayed and used in the last few years is appalling and anti-human. Not to mention the social and environmental costs which are staggering. I try to keep a balanced perspective but I find myself pushed more and more into the fervent ant…

[flagged]

I use agentic LLM dev tools to work on two apps, around 14 hours per day, very happily. As a long out of practice dev who still has product ideas, these tools have created huge opportunities for me. I am also having the most fun of my professional life.

However, I would trade all of that to make "AI" go away in a heart beat. It's just impossible for me to believe that that this will not be a tragedy for society at large. I cannot imagine even a single realistic world-scale scenario in which the outcome will be positive.

Anyway, back to work....

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