Interestingly, I don’t think I share this sentiment.

I’m no fan and personally don’t use AI (I barely touched it early ChatGPT days). But people use it to do things in successful fulfilment of their initial purpose.

I’ve seen it. Maybe I’ve seen the successes and not the failures in some cases. And I’ve certainly seen badly failed attempts to use it, but in those cases I’m happy to ascribe the failure substantially to a misapplication of the tool (which to be fair certainly invites gross misapplication).

My point though is that I don’t think an absolutist “AI is never useful” position is persuasive any more nor absolutely accurate.

Which, in my view, makes addressing the “rest of the situation” all the more fundamental. Indeed, I think everything g other than its efficacy was always the important part.

Part of the problem is that ethical arguments are difficult for people and many just switch off when it comes to the common good. Which is all of course part of the problem too.

But I think that’s gravity of the situation right now: our collective instincts may be misaligned for the moment. Our personal habits vulnerable from our prior corruptions. And our societal architectures already mutated, perhaps beyond repair, and therefore ill equipped for this.

Doomy, yes, but you’ve got to fight the fight you’re in, not the one you’d wish you’d won.

Another way I could put this counter, is that I feel like so much of what’s bad about AI was bad before AI, and that society from 2005-2020 badly mishandled technology. Whether AI “works” or not doesn’t matter. So long as it can fit into the same shape and meet the same urges that tech did 2005-2020, it will be adopted. But if the consequences of its adoption are graver than what came before, then the whole stack of that history needs to be addressed.

And with how this particular AI technology only works by consuming all of the internet’s and our libraries’ data … it’s not just a transfer, it’s pretty much theft.

Generally, I’m completely with you.

The questions this prompts for me …

Are there limits to what technologies can be aligned with a “healthy” human life and society?

I’m inclined to think so, which, if true, means that steering technological progress toward what’s “healthy” would totally make sense.

How adaptable are people over time/generations such that they can naively learn to tolerate poorer forms of society and technology? I’d say a lot, which makes the former question slippery. But, if true, suggests that maximising society should involve more experimentation and exploration over shorter inter-generational time lines …?

How privileged are we in this outlook of yours in being accustomed to controlling the solution and work from conception to materialisation? A work force of automation supervisors is maybe both viable and natural under capitalism (however dark)?

Well I liked it. Saw it straight after 28 years later and thought they went well together.

Anyone ride wonder if there’ll be an asymmetry between the ease/speed at which bugs/vulnerabilities are found and at which they’ll be fixed with AI systems?

That is, AI assistance may find and exploit bugs more easily than it can fix them?

positioned in 3D space using CSS transforms.

Wait … how does the gameplay work? There is t any JS?!

Feudal serfdom. I keep call AI this and they keep giving me reasons.

They’re not smart computers, it’s all of our data give agency. It’s us sold back to us by those who happen to own data centers and platforms that were never valuable in the first place without us.

Cliche, but maybe we should wake the fuck up … if not now, it could be very soon … we’re in one of those historical moments not merely the gradual progress of society.

Yea … it’s the but I don’t get why people don’t care about this more.

If we’re replaced, there’s nothing really left for us in the terms of the way we’ve conceived our whole world for centuries. Sure maybe we go native again or something, but let’s be real, that is a massively tough transition even if it’s viable.

Certainly feels like we’re on the precipice of being lost to a techno-dystopian timeline.

It’s been a long while in the making, but even so, it also feels like we’re sleepily walking right into it.

Glad to hear! And interested to know how you find it.

I’ll add to all the recommendations to read Hyperion … just do it, seriously.

But I’ll also add that the sequel, while it splits people, contributes on the internet & AI sci fi front and mid probably worth a read if you’re enjoying those aspects of the first book. Generally, together, I think they’re great commentaries on modern tech, especially for books from the 80s.

A shallow response I know, but … what the hell timeline is this!!??

Huh, didn’t know. Thanks!

Not close to the space … but I think I noticed this too.

I’d guess a dynamic is that things went a bit mainstream which focused things on pre-built products.

I’ve certainly gathered that younger types on TikTok are into “thocky” sounding keyboards and the general aesthetic aspect of the experience … not so much the DIY & customisation aspect.

Recently rewatched it and looked it up on Wikipedia afterwards … and was also surprised it was a box office flop.

Which just affirmed for me how real the “did well on VHS/DVD/TV” thing is … because I was too young to see it at the cinema but definitely knew all about it as a kid and always liked it.

Someone must have been showing it to me knowing there was audience!

I was also pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed on rewatch (after many years). The closing third drags a bit I think … but the opening half is really tight and interesting story telling. The way it uses flash backs to Scotland to explain what’s actually going on in the present worked really for me.

From what I’m seeing, soooo many are naive to this dynamic. They think of it like it’s the latest nifty app and not the directed disruption of the labour market that it is.

Almost like thinking and social awareness has already been outsourced to big tech’s social media empire and this is just the next step.

Interesting. I saw it only once, in the cinemas, and liked it very much and appreciated its glowing reception. But I always wondered if it would fare poorly on rewatch and become a bit like American beauty in making sense really only a moment.

I think they mean in parallel, as in the government steps in and regulates with guarantees etc, not that these reforms would come from the AI itself.

I keep saying that AI is the death of the Internet as we know it. It’s just no longer the same thing at all.

Completely flipping and question how everything we do on it should probably be the default stance.

Also, Siri, Alexa and Cortana were seen as “intelligent” at the time, as well (or were supposed to be seen, depending on who you ask).

Intelligent for the time, sure, but ever pitched as doing more than a Secretary that never encroaches on or gets involved with your actual job and cognitive skills? Because that’s the divide that’s being enforced: women for the menial dumb tasks and men for the serious, difficult and actually valuable and important stuff.