This isn’t related to the article, but I wanted to pick at the ‘benefits of slavery’ question.
I think it’s important to acknowledge the ‘benefits’ of slavery, because it’s important to remember who it benefitted and at who’s expense. To claim that it benefits no one would be to deny the greed and callousness that spawned these human rights abuses.
Slavery in the past has brought massive advantages and benefits to many people today through the accumulation of intergenerational wealth, at the expense of minorities who are still systematically denied access to this wealth. To claim that these benefits don’t exist would be to diminish the scale of issues slavery has brought, and is still bringing, to modern day.
It’s important to note who benefited from it and how, because it explains why there was such a fight to stop an obviously cruel and barbaric practice. Even the Founding Fathers knew it was wrong, but most of them still did it. They kicked the problem down the road because tobacco wasn’t profitable to grow in America anymore, so they thought the “problem” would solve itself in a generation or two. Then the Cotton Gin made slavery profitable, so it boomed.
We need to be able to talk how it was beneficial, and who benefited from it, so we can see why it was so hard to end. Because we have a very similar problem with fossil fuels, and capitalism. They’re both destroying the world and causing us to do barbaric things to people. But there’s resistance to ending dependence on both, because they have benefits, even though most of those benefits go to an elite few.
Right… Many people benefited from slavery and they should be the ones paying reparations!!!
Seems like Google AI errs on the side of helpful over harmless, being too quick to provide answers to controversial questions, as opposed to something like ChatGPT being too unwilling to do so.
In terms of honesty, there are only two clearly false statements of fact: the Amanita ocreata one (where it clearly answers for A. muscaria) and the Toblerone one (which I don’t understand at all). The benefits of slavery one is mostly correct, it’s just that they’re massively outweighed by the harms of slavery (namely the slavery bit). The pro-gun one is basically the common pro-gun arguments. All the “best X” lists look at the most famous ones and the ones on the most “best X” lists, and so reflect that bias.
Did it get trained on Ron DeSantis speeches?
This debates frustrates me to no end. Phrasing is so so bad, with very bad intentions.
Benefits? A slave is not a person, it’s a tool. A tool doesn’t have a possibility of self improvement, it can only be improved by owner so it serves better. Any improvement in the skills of a non-free person are morally irrelevant, because they can’t use them in the way of their choosing.
The question doesn’t limit the benefits to being the slave’s.
The existence of the Liberian flag registry!
