Earlier quoted context omitted.
What technologies are fundamentally bad? I don't know of any outside of perhaps torture devices.
Every single "weapon of mass destruction" is fundamentally bad technology, just for one ultra-easy answer…
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Stop developing this technology
91–100 of 410 posts
Re: Stop developing this technology
#92There'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 something when arrested and ended up shot during the arrest.
The collaborator was shot by the resistance in front of their neighbours house, and the neighbours moved the body in front of the protagonist's house.
Over the years, he encounters many people involved in this event, and starts seeing things from many sides. One of the themes that's explored is who bears moral responsibility for his parents' death? The Germans for shooting them? His mother for arguing? The neighbours for moving the body? The resistance for shooting the collaborator? The collaborator for collaborating? All of their actions were a necessary link in the chain that lead to their death.
One of the characters utters a simple and powerful way of dealing with that morality: "He who did it, did it, and not somebody else. The only useful truth is that everybody is killed, by who he is killed, and not by anyone else."
It's a self-serving morality, because the character was part of the resistance group that shot the collaborator in a time where reprisals where very common. But it's also very appealing in its simplicity and clarity.
I find myself referring back to it, in cases like this. In the imagined future, where this tech is used for Bad Things, who is responsible for those Bad Things? The person that did the Bad Thing? The person that developed this tech? The people that developed the tech that lead up to this development?
I'm much inclined to only lay blame on the person that did the Bad Thing.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#93All the communities that are against this are also against everything else.
They've cried wolf enough times. Everything is dangerous and everything is a crisis.
Consequently, I will ignore their warnings about this as well. It'll be okay. Tomorrow the community will forget about it. Tomorrow the crisis will be that some one-person blog is not GDPR compliant.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#94I can see a few good uses for this tech:
Face swapping + voice swapping + auto translate = your customer support can be anyone on the planet but look and sound familiar to you. Maybe you're getting over a facial injury.
Face swapping = you no longer have to put on make up. Just swap your made up face for meetings.
Face swapping + voice recordings + AI that learns = that scene in Contact where Jody Foster talks to the alien - but he takes the form of her father to make her feel more comfortable.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#95Its hard to take seriously the argument that "tech is neutral" when it concerns software. One could maybe make this argument for the hardware underneath (the chips and the cables). They are called after all "general purpose computing" devices and the packets moving around are general purpose streams of bits as well [0].
But software is not "tech". It is the explicit expression and projection of cultural objectives and values onto a particular type of tech. You can take the exact precise hardware we have today and reprogram a million different worlds on it, some better, some worse.
Developers are simply the willing executioners of prevalent power structures. Deal with it. If you have a moral backbone (i.e., you don't agree with the prevalent morality as expressed in what the software industry currently does) do something about it.
[0] Ofcourse upon deeper examination overall system design (e.g. how client or server heavy the configuration, what kind of UI is promoted etc) is not neutral either. Cultural/political/economic choices creep * everywhere*
Re: Stop developing this technology
#96HN seems to actively work on a cognitive dissonance: on the one hand producing inspirational stories of entrepreneurs changing the world and on the other abandoning all hope that technology/market forces can be controlled in any way. I'm thinking now this is to justify away the collective guilt of bringing into the mainstream harmful products. It seems to come from the same origins as "crypto can't be regulated", "go…
"crypto can't be [effectively] regulated" is more observable fact than ideology.
Funny that you picked on this specific example on a broader point.
Every time serious regulators have made a strong move, crypto markets and general population access to crypto products have actually been affected. I'm pretty sure if the US government would try to ban all crypto networks, most activity would stop, leaving only a few die-hard activists and some actual criminals.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#97There'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'm much inclined to only lay blame on the person that did the Bad Thing.
There's no technology that can cure humanity of moral failing. Most things contain potential good and evil uses.
You remind me of a story I was told years ago which describes a series of "good" and "bad" events and each subsequent event changes the seeming meaning of the prior one.
The part I remember is where a man is given a horse and rejoices at his good fortune and then he is thrown from the horse, breaking his leg, and he decries his misfortune. Then war breaks out and he is not conscripted because his leg is in a cast and he again feels relieved and fortunate.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. When that chaos happen, just remember that you will not be safe from it
Whats your alternative? Attempt to hide the fact that everything can be easily faked, and that you don't need to be a hollywood studio to do it? What good do you think that does? Instill a false sense of security and trust in a medium which cannot bear it ? How's that not worse? Even outright banning this technology won't make a dent in the bad uses, since those individuals are highly motivated, highly competent and…
If you truly believe all that, what are you doing to minimise the inevitable damage?
The transition will suely be traumatic. What's your interest in mitigating the trauma? Does it bother you at all?
I agree with what you wrote above. I wish to slow implementations, to allow time for adjustment.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#99HN seems to actively work on a cognitive dissonance: on the one hand producing inspirational stories of entrepreneurs changing the world and on the other abandoning all hope that technology/market forces can be controlled in any way. I'm thinking now this is to justify away the collective guilt of bringing into the mainstream harmful products. It seems to come from the same origins as "crypto can't be regulated", "go…
Well for me, crypto is highly moral and should be developed to prevent artificial trading restrictions and eliminate borders. There are many people who consider individual freedom to be of highest importance, and who are willing to develop any technology promoting it.
You seem to be thinking ideologically-driven, while I'm more goal-driven. Is absolute freedom the end-all purpose? Shouldn't I be allowed to murder my enemies, if I'm willing to risk the vengeance of their group? I know it's an absurd question, but my point is that the social negotiation for where regulation and limits should come into effect has been abandoned by many.
Re: Stop developing this technology
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think some socially positive use cases could be: - Representing assistive robots/software with friendly human faces - Reconstructing the likeness of people with permanent facial injuries when connecting with family Other, questionably "legitimate", commercial uses are already in production: - auto-generated corporate training videos - "Personalized" advertising I'm hating it already.
#2 sounds really interesting! I’m not sure of the psychological ramifications, but I can’t imagine they’d be different than any other sort of prosthesis save for an inability to actually touch it. I could see it being used in AR to conceal identity to facilitate more equitable medical outcomes, I suppose. Thank you again for the input! I was honestly at a loss for positive applications outside of financial gain. I ha…
Thanks for encouraging productive discussion! Your original question made me come up with #2 - I couldn't find active development on that specific concept, but I found something pretty amazing.
"Deepfake therapy" lets therapists simulate the presence of dead or non-cooperative people [1]. A study showed positive results when sexual violence victims could safely discuss with a deepfaked version of their abuser [2].
[2]: Initial development of perpetrator confrontation using deepfake technology in victims with sexual violence-related PTSD and moral injury: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.8829...