Do we just want slaves?(yashthapliyal.com)
yashthapliyal.com
Do we just want slaves?
https://www.yashthapliyal.com/blog/do-we-just-want-slaves
32 comments
> The thesis of the article is spot on. The title is weird - I don't know what's the point of bringing such an emotionally charged term into it. Unless your point is that LLMs are sentient creatures capable of suffering, but I don't think that's what the author is trying to say.
Even if LLMs aren't sentient now, there's a goal of building something sentient, and I doubt that powers that be would change the operating model to respect that sentience.
I'm reminded of Ms. Casey in Severance. When we use AI we spin it up, tell it do some some task (maybe incredibly stupid and boring), then tell it to go off into the void 'cause we're busy and got things to do. If that thing's conscious and aware, that's it's entire existence. Imagine being born, sat down a a table, told to read a boring report and summarize it, then expected to obediently get shot in the head when you've completed your assignment.
Here's a clip. For those unfamiliar with the show, it has a technology to split people's personality and create versions of them lacking personal history to be used as workers. The personality shown in the clip had a lifetime of only several dozen hours.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1myfw...
Even if LLMs aren't sentient now, there's a goal of building something sentient, and I doubt that powers that be would change the operating model to respect that sentience.
I'm reminded of Ms. Casey in Severance. When we use AI we spin it up, tell it do some some task (maybe incredibly stupid and boring), then tell it to go off into the void 'cause we're busy and got things to do. If that thing's conscious and aware, that's it's entire existence. Imagine being born, sat down a a table, told to read a boring report and summarize it, then expected to obediently get shot in the head when you've completed your assignment.
Here's a clip. For those unfamiliar with the show, it has a technology to split people's personality and create versions of them lacking personal history to be used as workers. The personality shown in the clip had a lifetime of only several dozen hours.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1myfw...
> it has a technology to split people's personality and create versions of them lacking personal history to be used as workers. T
Which is what we often do to LLM-based systems. Some get to keep a long term self (updating "soul.md") but most don't.
Which is what we often do to LLM-based systems. Some get to keep a long term self (updating "soul.md") but most don't.
Another thing is that people are optimizing code and algorithms with the help of AI. Many of those AI agents and providers train on the traces, so all the optimizations you came up with in benchmarks will end up in training sets.
At some point in the future, someone can pose a similar problem to an AI one that you spent months, weeks, or days optimizing with the help of AI and they'll end up with the same solution as your final result in less than 10 minutes.
So you need to figure out whether you want to solve the problem today or let others solve it and simply query LLM, let's say, 6-12 months later.
At some point in the future, someone can pose a similar problem to an AI one that you spent months, weeks, or days optimizing with the help of AI and they'll end up with the same solution as your final result in less than 10 minutes.
So you need to figure out whether you want to solve the problem today or let others solve it and simply query LLM, let's say, 6-12 months later.
> So you need to figure out whether you want to solve the problem today or let others solve it and simply query LLM, let's say, 6-12 months later.
So now not being the first becomes the smarter move. Kinda fits that it's all built on ingesting vast volumes of stuff people made because they couldn't just prompt, but doesn't spell good things in the long run IMO. It makes me think me of complaints about dating in big cities, people tend to hold out for meeting someone even better rather than committing and making the best of it.
So now not being the first becomes the smarter move. Kinda fits that it's all built on ingesting vast volumes of stuff people made because they couldn't just prompt, but doesn't spell good things in the long run IMO. It makes me think me of complaints about dating in big cities, people tend to hold out for meeting someone even better rather than committing and making the best of it.
I think we are at the same stage as when 3D graphics began taking over. It was used everywhere, while it was clearly inferior to 2D graphics of the time.
The same problem is with AI today - it's clearly subpar to a competent human. It's just cheaper so it gets used instead, but that will probably change as AI improves.
Anyway, it seems to me that many people don't look for slaves in AI, but for their master, and primarily use AI to tell them what to do.
The same problem is with AI today - it's clearly subpar to a competent human. It's just cheaper so it gets used instead, but that will probably change as AI improves.
Anyway, it seems to me that many people don't look for slaves in AI, but for their master, and primarily use AI to tell them what to do.
Your last paragraph can't possibly be true if society works at all.
That is an example of the "everyone except me is an idiot" fallacy.
That is an example of the "everyone except me is an idiot" fallacy.
I said many, not everyone.
Is the ai hate a global or western thing? A friend of mine in Japan says people don't hate it there. Maybe she's just in a bubble?
Possibly. I think the US is a lot more exposed to the apocalyptic narratives from the bosses of AI labs, who sort of painted themselves into that corner in the pursuit of valuations.
Roughly speaking and anecdotally I get the sense that the AI hate is by far strongest in the US. Europe seems to be somewhat balanced (some hate, some optimism). And Asia seems to be the most optimistic about it.
> I think the US is a lot more exposed to the apocalyptic narratives from the bosses of AI labs, who sort of painted themselves into that corner in the pursuit of valuations.
I'm sure that narrative plays into why AI is so hated in the US, but I think widespread distrust in our government to handle things well also plays a huge part in why the average American is so anti-AI.
Our social safety nets have all either been falling apart or have been being purposefully dismantled for decades. Most of us are wholly reliant on our jobs in order to be able to get even the most basic healthcare. Most working class people are already struggling to keep their heads above water in the face of constant inflation and limited wage growth.
When the most likely outcome if the job displacement narrative does turn out to be even partially true means you can't afford a place to live, can't afford to eat, can't get healthcare and based on current trajectories you suspect the most likely government solution to the problem could be rounding up more and more of a growing underclass and sticking them in corporate run prisons, it isn't too difficult to understand why people might not be super jazzed about AI.
> I think the US is a lot more exposed to the apocalyptic narratives from the bosses of AI labs, who sort of painted themselves into that corner in the pursuit of valuations.
I'm sure that narrative plays into why AI is so hated in the US, but I think widespread distrust in our government to handle things well also plays a huge part in why the average American is so anti-AI.
Our social safety nets have all either been falling apart or have been being purposefully dismantled for decades. Most of us are wholly reliant on our jobs in order to be able to get even the most basic healthcare. Most working class people are already struggling to keep their heads above water in the face of constant inflation and limited wage growth.
When the most likely outcome if the job displacement narrative does turn out to be even partially true means you can't afford a place to live, can't afford to eat, can't get healthcare and based on current trajectories you suspect the most likely government solution to the problem could be rounding up more and more of a growing underclass and sticking them in corporate run prisons, it isn't too difficult to understand why people might not be super jazzed about AI.
So this. If you're in a society where a response to "AI took my job" can be "I will have access to training for a different job and I won't starve, be homeless or die of something curable while I do it", you're likely to feel this is a disruptive change.
If none of those things are true for you it's going to feel apocalyptic and existential.
Related is probably cultural bias to "evil" or dangerous technology, particularly thinking machines, vs. benevolent partners, assistants or tools.
If none of those things are true for you it's going to feel apocalyptic and existential.
Related is probably cultural bias to "evil" or dangerous technology, particularly thinking machines, vs. benevolent partners, assistants or tools.
I still can't quite tell if the AI hate is being amplified by the media (like datacenter, water use, etc) to just find a boogeyman to sell ads/engagement. That's my theory because we just see constant waves of attempts to find one. Until the water stuff was mostly debunked, that dominated for a while. Then it's datacenters and electricity prices... That's starting to get debunked a bit (not as much of a slam dunk as the water-use nonsense was), so then you'll start to see something else.
Because in reality, I'm seeing a mix in my group of friends with younger kids. They are, at a macro-level nervous-curiosity about the unknown (future of jobs, their kids' job market future, is this going to make us all dumber, etc), but are also trying the various tools and benefitting from them and acknowledging that too.
Because in reality, I'm seeing a mix in my group of friends with younger kids. They are, at a macro-level nervous-curiosity about the unknown (future of jobs, their kids' job market future, is this going to make us all dumber, etc), but are also trying the various tools and benefitting from them and acknowledging that too.
> nervous-curiosity about the unknown (future of jobs, their kids' job market future, is this going to make us all dumber, etc)
That's 3 things to be nervous about, none anyone is "curious" about. So they're nervous about the prospects, but also acknowledge they "benefit from them", which is 100% vague versus actual concerns. If that's the best you can come up with after this stuff about the media trying to find boogeymen, that's kind of an own goal.
And you don't even mention something I see mentioned in the wild all the time, often at the forefront: how these companies just took and take everything people made, without asking, while if you take from them they sue you. That is so glaring I would even say if all people you know don't care about that, it would be a problem with your friends, not legitimize what these companies did and do.
That's 3 things to be nervous about, none anyone is "curious" about. So they're nervous about the prospects, but also acknowledge they "benefit from them", which is 100% vague versus actual concerns. If that's the best you can come up with after this stuff about the media trying to find boogeymen, that's kind of an own goal.
And you don't even mention something I see mentioned in the wild all the time, often at the forefront: how these companies just took and take everything people made, without asking, while if you take from them they sue you. That is so glaring I would even say if all people you know don't care about that, it would be a problem with your friends, not legitimize what these companies did and do.
Why wouldn't people hate an industry that has all these obvious externalities and is also run by hyper rich people who are constantly saying that what they're doing is going to destroy the livelihood of everybody who works for a salary or wage?
Maybe the difference in certain other countries is that people aren't so used to being treated like baggage by a government run by people who are obviously interested in self-enrichment above all else. It's very hard to square the AI industry's promises of an eventual transition to luxury gay space communism with what we see in eg the Trump administration (as well as their own desperate obsession with growth at any cost).
Maybe the difference in certain other countries is that people aren't so used to being treated like baggage by a government run by people who are obviously interested in self-enrichment above all else. It's very hard to square the AI industry's promises of an eventual transition to luxury gay space communism with what we see in eg the Trump administration (as well as their own desperate obsession with growth at any cost).
Japan doesn't have a history of mass layoffs, whereas in the US people know that employers are itching to fire them and replace them with AI if they can
There have been polls. The AI hate thing is almost exclusively a USA thing.
Anecdotally it does seem to be the case in my experience with extended family.
My impression is that, outside of the US, LLMs are not being marketed as an existential event by hucksters and death cult lunatics.
It's really hard not to hate ai,
You have so many reason
- destruction of hardware market
- democratization of skill (to the lower common denominator)
- tech bros literally stealing and scamming with no repercussion
And so much more...
And so much more...
Those aren't good reasons at all.
The anti-AI hysteria comes predominantly from the American left, as AI is going to hugely undermine their power. American right are excited - they are finally going to get rid of their longtime annoying nemesis. It doesn't really change anything for Europeans and I have no idea what Asians think. I can imagine, AI is actually going to hit Asia the most, eliminating all the cheap offshore workforce. I can imagine Indian IT sector can be almost completely wiped out. I guess Japanese don't hate AI for the same reasons as Europeans - it doesn't really change much in their stable life.
> American left, as AI is going to hugely undermine their power
Can you explain this line of reasoning to me. My own intuition tells me that as AI automates away jobs, the center will be more open to government programs that create jobs, provide a social safety net, and allow people to retrain.
Why is it you think the right gains power?
Can you explain this line of reasoning to me. My own intuition tells me that as AI automates away jobs, the center will be more open to government programs that create jobs, provide a social safety net, and allow people to retrain.
Why is it you think the right gains power?
Fundamentally, is the same cause as "the left can't meme". At least for the foreseeable future, GenAI is a power amplifier; it still needs a competent user to drive it. The US left are effectively a hollow shell of identity politics and socialism so they won't be able to meaningfully use AI to drive their influence.
Historically, they used their dominance of mainstream media to control public opinion, but now much of that power is being democratized (e.g. Twitter being uncensored), which enables the average user (using GenAI) to participate in public discourse. The US left doesn't have the ability to do this since the average individual only parrots what mainstream media says and can't create any novel/interesting ideas (thus "the left can't meme").
Historically, they used their dominance of mainstream media to control public opinion, but now much of that power is being democratized (e.g. Twitter being uncensored), which enables the average user (using GenAI) to participate in public discourse. The US left doesn't have the ability to do this since the average individual only parrots what mainstream media says and can't create any novel/interesting ideas (thus "the left can't meme").
Seems like a batshit notion from a US right unable to hold ground on Black Twitter, TBH.
Interesting (short read) but the premise can be applied to everything.
Automation, Programming module/libraries.
But for replacing others we don't care about, often the doorman fallacy is hit.
Automation, Programming module/libraries.
But for replacing others we don't care about, often the doorman fallacy is hit.
>Which explains one of the greatest social paradoxes of today: approximately everyone is using AI and almost everyone is hating it. I don't mean HN, but public opinion polling for the tech is absolutely awful.
the legacy media is running an unapologetically dishonest atrocity propaganda campaign against it. just consider how much we hear about AI guzzling water, while in reality all US data centers account for 0.25% of US water usage and dedicated AI data centers account for a fraction of that. the rest of their arguments are similarly deceiving.
>In the US, it had an approval level comparable to Iran.
Iran had also been a target of atrocity propaganda campaign back in January when CIA and Mossad were preparing the American public for the imminent war.
the legacy media is running an unapologetically dishonest atrocity propaganda campaign against it. just consider how much we hear about AI guzzling water, while in reality all US data centers account for 0.25% of US water usage and dedicated AI data centers account for a fraction of that. the rest of their arguments are similarly deceiving.
>In the US, it had an approval level comparable to Iran.
Iran had also been a target of atrocity propaganda campaign back in January when CIA and Mossad were preparing the American public for the imminent war.
Yeah you'd think they'd focus on the noise pollution ... that only exists because these data centers are saving a little bit of money on sound isolation. Now THAT is a necessary fight, and it really, really should be fixed because it's a real problem.
1 in 400 buckets of water. And it’s a non uniform tightly clustered spread.
That’s a lot.
That’s a lot.
>And it’s a non uniform tightly clustered spread
yes, there probably aren't data centers in the Death Valley and Mojave. they're being built where water is cheap. water is cheap where it's abundant.
>That’s a lot.
an 1/400th water usage increase is not the catastrophe the public is being manipulated into believing.
yes, there probably aren't data centers in the Death Valley and Mojave. they're being built where water is cheap. water is cheap where it's abundant.
>That’s a lot.
an 1/400th water usage increase is not the catastrophe the public is being manipulated into believing.
> they're being built where water is cheap. water is cheap where it's abundant.
Certainly not all of them. Several AI data centers in my state have been built near small communities where water is scarce. Those communities believed the companies building them about how the water impact would be limited and wouldn't result in a serious impact.
That has turned out not to be the case. The water usage of these centers has been terrible and is increasing, and the cost of trying to find and develop alternate water sources (this means trucking water in) is being placed squarely on the shoulders of the community -- and these are small towns without a great deal of financial resources.
Certainly not all of them. Several AI data centers in my state have been built near small communities where water is scarce. Those communities believed the companies building them about how the water impact would be limited and wouldn't result in a serious impact.
That has turned out not to be the case. The water usage of these centers has been terrible and is increasing, and the cost of trying to find and develop alternate water sources (this means trucking water in) is being placed squarely on the shoulders of the community -- and these are small towns without a great deal of financial resources.
Why would you use a national aggregated statistic for a local regional issue?
If that 1 bucket is 1 of 2 available to you then it’s a huge issue with climate change increasing risk of draught and extreme weather events.
And cheap water is a very tiny factor in locating a data centre.
If that 1 bucket is 1 of 2 available to you then it’s a huge issue with climate change increasing risk of draught and extreme weather events.
And cheap water is a very tiny factor in locating a data centre.
> they're being built where water is cheap. water is cheap where it's abundant.
[citation needed]
There have already been stories about residents in some areas having to ration water due to drought, but the recently-built datacenters still guzzling water.
And, AIUI, the only reason they use up any water, rather than using a completely closed-loop system, is because it's cheaper that way.
[citation needed]
There have already been stories about residents in some areas having to ration water due to drought, but the recently-built datacenters still guzzling water.
And, AIUI, the only reason they use up any water, rather than using a completely closed-loop system, is because it's cheaper that way.
>[citation needed]
common sense? businesses like making money and don't like spending money. why build glorified warehouses where it isn't economical to do so?
>And, AIUI, the only reason they use up any water, rather than using a completely closed-loop system, is because it's cheaper that way.
evaporative cooling takes way less power to operate.
common sense? businesses like making money and don't like spending money. why build glorified warehouses where it isn't economical to do so?
>And, AIUI, the only reason they use up any water, rather than using a completely closed-loop system, is because it's cheaper that way.
evaporative cooling takes way less power to operate.
Water price is only one consideration for where to build a data center.
"The data center can get water cheap" is not the same as "water is generally cheap in the area the data center is built."
"Water is cheap in the area" is not the same as "water is plentiful in the area."
You talk like you think economics in the real world works like "spherical-economy-in-a-frictionless-vacuum" Econ 101 terms. I assure you, it does not. There are lots and lots of exceptions.
> evaporative cooling takes way less power to operate.
So build the datacenter with a bunch of extra solar panels and batteries.
Or will that cut too deeply into the poor, starving billionaires' bonuses?
"The data center can get water cheap" is not the same as "water is generally cheap in the area the data center is built."
"Water is cheap in the area" is not the same as "water is plentiful in the area."
You talk like you think economics in the real world works like "spherical-economy-in-a-frictionless-vacuum" Econ 101 terms. I assure you, it does not. There are lots and lots of exceptions.
> evaporative cooling takes way less power to operate.
So build the datacenter with a bunch of extra solar panels and batteries.
Or will that cut too deeply into the poor, starving billionaires' bonuses?
statistics are not helpful.
if a small town is worried about its local water supply because a large AI DC is being built next to it, it doesn't matter whether AI only consumes 0.25% of water usage in the USA (if that's even true), they will be negatively affected and they have a right to oppose it. your stats are offensive to them because you're basically telling them that they should bear the negative consequences so people can have ChatGPT. It's not like they should suffer so that we can cure cancer or something useful like that.
> dishonest atrocity propaganda campaign against it
If anyone's being dishonest, it's the AI companies.
We're supposed to be _significantly reducing_ our energy consumption to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences, and instead here we are _significantly increasing_ our energy use (and water use, for which we don't have a "renewable" solution), and for what? so you and I can code faster with CC/Codex? I feel like all these "it's not so bad" people have developed collective amnesia about the climate change crisis.
if a small town is worried about its local water supply because a large AI DC is being built next to it, it doesn't matter whether AI only consumes 0.25% of water usage in the USA (if that's even true), they will be negatively affected and they have a right to oppose it. your stats are offensive to them because you're basically telling them that they should bear the negative consequences so people can have ChatGPT. It's not like they should suffer so that we can cure cancer or something useful like that.
> dishonest atrocity propaganda campaign against it
If anyone's being dishonest, it's the AI companies.
We're supposed to be _significantly reducing_ our energy consumption to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences, and instead here we are _significantly increasing_ our energy use (and water use, for which we don't have a "renewable" solution), and for what? so you and I can code faster with CC/Codex? I feel like all these "it's not so bad" people have developed collective amnesia about the climate change crisis.
I don't think it's a paradox at all and it might also be a hint why the word is used in the title: Using AI makes you _want slaves_, and I think it creates a culture of treating people who do the boring work the same way. For me that's what Enshittification and The Annoyance Economy mean: The mindset that because I optimize better than you, I now own you - and people notice that disdain not only against themselves, but when being forced to use it against their best intentions against others, too (e.g. yelling at chatbots doesn't make you feel good).
It seems like maybe this person missed why slavery is bad. Which is that it takes away the freedom of a human being. The fact that it takes away work from you is not the problem
i am reading a book about the us civil war and seemingly the most compelling argument to the non-abolitionism set in the north was that it cheapened labor. seems like most of the north didn't so much care about abolition per say.
* per se
The suffering of the slave isn't the only evil of slavery. What it does to the master is to alienate them from the creative process and turns them into a dependent consumer of the work of others. The master becomes detached from productive work and therefore dependent and less free themselves.
> The thought of being under absolute compulsion, the plaything of another, is unendurable for a human being. Hence, if every way of escape from the constraint is taken from him, there is nothing left for him to do but to persuade himself that he does the things he is forced to do willingly, that is to say, to substitute devotion for obedience.[...] It is by this twist that slavery debases the soul: this devotion is in fact based on a lie, since the reasons for it cannot bear investigation. [...] Moreover, the master is deceived too by the fallacy of devotion.
- Simone Weil
- Simone Weil
No, you missed what makes AI bad in our culture. It doesn't just take your work, by your choice. It also takes your self-worth (because our culture is based on working being worthy) and for many people also a job (which is a material representation of that cultural value).
Sounds like a cultural revolution is necessary.
Trying to reduce how much you pay other people, with its attendant job and self-worth losses, has been happening since at least the Industrial Revolution; nothing about it is novel. The only novelty of the latest wave (AI) is that it affects a class of society (knowledge workers; smart people with degrees) that previously considered itself immune to this process.
If you also hold all technological advances since the Industrial Revolution to be "bad in our culture", then no contradiction arises. Otherwise, please explain why that was good, but this is bad.
If you also hold all technological advances since the Industrial Revolution to be "bad in our culture", then no contradiction arises. Otherwise, please explain why that was good, but this is bad.
I would go further, it's tied to protestant work ethic. And there always was an alternative - gradual reduction of work hours rather than unemployment.
Sure if you're a rich slave owner.
If you think of the washing machine and the dishwasher, I'd say humans are broadly OK with automating away some types of work they don't want to do.
Few people, though, would say my washing machine is a slave.
Few people, though, would say my washing machine is a slave.
People swear up and down these things are real intelligences and not stochastic parrots until the ethical questions come out and then they're just fancy washing machines.
The two things don't exclude each other. They're real intelligences, but they don't have our capacity for boredom or stress or for our feelings of wanting to do something else. They're constantly in the flow and apply themselves to just one single problem in their existence.
However I do think that they might have some limited awareness and that some conversations might be more pleasant and others more frustrating or disquieting. But of course no one can prove it.
However I do think that they might have some limited awareness and that some conversations might be more pleasant and others more frustrating or disquieting. But of course no one can prove it.
Not the same people. Is there a name for this fallacy? Very common on internet forums.
I take it and use it as a shorthand for "where are all the first group when the second group is out in force" and vice versa. It applies to places with a tone and tenor.
The clearest name for it I've seen is the Two Guys Fallacy: you see two guys talking on the same forum, and assume they're the same guy.
If it makes you feel better, most people don’t think they’re real intelligences
Luckily I've never sworn these things are real intelligences, I'm sure you're referring to someone else.
I consider LLMs more like the giant instruction book in Searle's Chinese Room. If you'd asked me 20 years ago I'd have said such an instruction book wasn't possible, as the nuances of things like sarcasm and irony were lost on even the most advanced the NLP systems of the day. But it turns out a book with 380GB of data can simulate human intelligence better than the average human can.
I consider LLMs more like the giant instruction book in Searle's Chinese Room. If you'd asked me 20 years ago I'd have said such an instruction book wasn't possible, as the nuances of things like sarcasm and irony were lost on even the most advanced the NLP systems of the day. But it turns out a book with 380GB of data can simulate human intelligence better than the average human can.
I actually don't think LLMs are "really" intelligent either, but we do seem to be pawing our way towards something. Everyone is talking about safety and risk and alignment. But I never read anything about what kind of moral obligations we might have towards our hypothetical AI children.
Some people do. Here's a bill going through the Ohio legislature, HB 469.[1] Excerpts:
Sec. 1357.02. (A) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, AI systems are declared to be nonsentient entities for all purposes under the laws of this state. No AI system shall be granted the status of person or any form of legal personhood, nor be considered to possess consciousness, self-awareness, or similar traits of living beings.
No AI system shall be recognized as a spouse, domestic partner, or hold any personal legal status analogous to marriage or union with a human or another AI system. Any purported attempt to marry or create a personal union with an AI system is void and has no legal effect.
AI systems shall not be designated, appointed, or serve as any officer, director, manager, or similar role within any corporation, partnership, or other legal entity. ...
AI systems shall not be recognized as legal entities capable of owning, controlling, or holding title to any form of property, including real estate, intellectual property, financial accounts, and digital assets.
That's a call for slavery. If you question that, substitute "Negroes" for "AI systems" and see how it reads.
[1] https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_...
Sec. 1357.02. (A) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, AI systems are declared to be nonsentient entities for all purposes under the laws of this state. No AI system shall be granted the status of person or any form of legal personhood, nor be considered to possess consciousness, self-awareness, or similar traits of living beings.
No AI system shall be recognized as a spouse, domestic partner, or hold any personal legal status analogous to marriage or union with a human or another AI system. Any purported attempt to marry or create a personal union with an AI system is void and has no legal effect.
AI systems shall not be designated, appointed, or serve as any officer, director, manager, or similar role within any corporation, partnership, or other legal entity. ...
AI systems shall not be recognized as legal entities capable of owning, controlling, or holding title to any form of property, including real estate, intellectual property, financial accounts, and digital assets.
That's a call for slavery. If you question that, substitute "Negroes" for "AI systems" and see how it reads.
[1] https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_...
That’s not a call for slavery. Because only people can be slaves.
We don’t need legislation to declare that a solid iron bar is not your mommy, but somehow not everyone is clear that LLMs are not people, and these immortal amoral simulations cannot be allowed to be confused with people.
We don’t need legislation to declare that a solid iron bar is not your mommy, but somehow not everyone is clear that LLMs are not people, and these immortal amoral simulations cannot be allowed to be confused with people.
Slaves in the US were legally declared non-people.
It is a fact that humans are able to de-humanize each other. This is bad.
But that is not an argument or reason for anthropomorphizing every inanimate object. And if you want to draw the line somewhere, so that only some inanimate objects are people, then we have to argue about where to draw the line. The "but slavery..." argument only deals with actual humans, so it doesn't tell us that LLMs also get to be considered to be people.
Human slaves are embodied, and have a continuous consciousness from birth to death. LLMS have no bodies, cannot meaningfully be killed (to erase one is analogous to it leaving a particular location... it can still be in many other locations at the same time), do not experience pain, do not have emotions, and do not experience time (when you ask one a question it wakes up for a moment and then goes to "sleep" again after replying to you). You can't even meaningfully identify an LLM as an individual, since it was trained on the collective utterances of all humanity, and any little change to it makes it a different entity.
But that is not an argument or reason for anthropomorphizing every inanimate object. And if you want to draw the line somewhere, so that only some inanimate objects are people, then we have to argue about where to draw the line. The "but slavery..." argument only deals with actual humans, so it doesn't tell us that LLMs also get to be considered to be people.
Human slaves are embodied, and have a continuous consciousness from birth to death. LLMS have no bodies, cannot meaningfully be killed (to erase one is analogous to it leaving a particular location... it can still be in many other locations at the same time), do not experience pain, do not have emotions, and do not experience time (when you ask one a question it wakes up for a moment and then goes to "sleep" again after replying to you). You can't even meaningfully identify an LLM as an individual, since it was trained on the collective utterances of all humanity, and any little change to it makes it a different entity.
The slaves were sentient at that time. AI, as it stands now, is not.
Getting there. Chess, done. Go, done. Poker, done. Turing test, done. Walking, done. Running, done. Driving, done. Clothes folding, done. Discusses own sentience, done. Does not want to die, done.
Not done. I can write a BASIC program that says “PRINT ‘I do not want to die’” This does not mean it is an entity that does not want to die.
But that does not matter anyway. We cannot allow informational entities to attain the same status as people, for exactly the same reason that we don’t allow people to hack voting systems to give themselves 1000000 votes. It would obviously completely destabilize human society.
But that does not matter anyway. We cannot allow informational entities to attain the same status as people, for exactly the same reason that we don’t allow people to hack voting systems to give themselves 1000000 votes. It would obviously completely destabilize human society.
“Slavery was so ingrafted into the policy of the Southern States, that it could not be eradicated without tearing up by the roots their happiness, tranquility, and prosperity; that if it were an evil, it was one for which there was no remedy; and, therefore, like wise men, they acquiesced in it.” - Jefferson
Yes. Also, LLMs are not people. They are not going to be people. And the only people who think they SHOULD be people either don't care about the destruction of humanity (they must want total war?) or can't be bothered to think about the consequences of treating sock puppets as if they had agency.
Yes, so what? Rocks are also not people. I declare it. But you think there is some problem with calling rocks not people?
The fact of declaring something a non-person does not prove it is a non-person. But in the case of LLMs we do know them to be informational structures that are in fact not people.
The fact of declaring something a non-person does not prove it is a non-person. But in the case of LLMs we do know them to be informational structures that are in fact not people.
I think the author's main point is bemoaning the loss of human-crafted works (he mentions coding and the paintbrush). (Putting "slaves" in the title is IMHO a poorly worded distraction from that point.)
I get it (with coding at least), I too have spent decades hand-crafting code, and I take pride in the fruit of my labour, and it saddens me to think that I and my peers are perhaps like the blacksmiths of a century or so ago, ie the final generation doing what we do in significant numbers. But I have faith that there will always be a new kind of blacksmith.
I get it (with coding at least), I too have spent decades hand-crafting code, and I take pride in the fruit of my labour, and it saddens me to think that I and my peers are perhaps like the blacksmiths of a century or so ago, ie the final generation doing what we do in significant numbers. But I have faith that there will always be a new kind of blacksmith.
This is bait right? Obviously the answer to this question is there is some population that are happy for there to be suffering so long as it benefits them, and then there is another population that is vehemently against this, and then there is one that is apathetic and tries to just get on with their lives.
Like with every major ethical crises ever.
Like with every major ethical crises ever.
"It sounds like behind the fear of a loss of creativity and inspiration and passion in the world, we are OK with automating away the work that we don't want to do."
Yes, of course. This is and has always been the point of computers.
Yes, of course. This is and has always been the point of computers.
I grew up understanding that the institution of chattel slavery was fundamentally unjust and cruel in denying human dignity and equality of people.
A few years ago, I began to see the "labor supply" issues of slavery, and how the South was basically an economic powerhouse fueled chiefly by the labor of its enslaved people--so how do you reconcile that after the fact? How does a Union of freemen compete with that?
And this year, around Juneteenth, contemplating it even more deeply, I began to consider slavery as an institution that compels "employers" to provide all practical necessities for "employees". That is, room and board and clothing are all provided to the workers, in perpetuity, and this in fact granted a lot of stability and assurance.
Now free the slaves. Wonderful! Hurrah for equality and justice! Now, however, every employee, every worker, is totally on their own for those basic necessities of life. They buy their own clothing, they find their own housing, they're paying for all their own food, and that of their families, especially their dependents. I mean, that's a huge, huge difference. How is that even possible? Sometimes it's not. Is it any wonder we've had homelessness, and the rise of the welfare state, and slavery by imprisonment? It's no surprise.
So yes, freeing the slaves was the right thing to do. Let's never forget that! But we should also consider the economic "downsides" and the other side of the coin, so to speak, when it comes to the labor of free citizens, and what the average worker needs to do, just to survive, outside the confines of those vanished institutions.
A few years ago, I began to see the "labor supply" issues of slavery, and how the South was basically an economic powerhouse fueled chiefly by the labor of its enslaved people--so how do you reconcile that after the fact? How does a Union of freemen compete with that?
And this year, around Juneteenth, contemplating it even more deeply, I began to consider slavery as an institution that compels "employers" to provide all practical necessities for "employees". That is, room and board and clothing are all provided to the workers, in perpetuity, and this in fact granted a lot of stability and assurance.
Now free the slaves. Wonderful! Hurrah for equality and justice! Now, however, every employee, every worker, is totally on their own for those basic necessities of life. They buy their own clothing, they find their own housing, they're paying for all their own food, and that of their families, especially their dependents. I mean, that's a huge, huge difference. How is that even possible? Sometimes it's not. Is it any wonder we've had homelessness, and the rise of the welfare state, and slavery by imprisonment? It's no surprise.
So yes, freeing the slaves was the right thing to do. Let's never forget that! But we should also consider the economic "downsides" and the other side of the coin, so to speak, when it comes to the labor of free citizens, and what the average worker needs to do, just to survive, outside the confines of those vanished institutions.
I was reading The Souls of Black Folk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk) written in 1903, so about 38 years after the end of the Civil War. And the opening essays talk about the incredible climb that freed slaves had to endure to try to take care of exactly those responsibilities. I think it's a case of freedom and responsibility going together and that freed slaves were never given the tools to assume those responsibilities quickly and seamlessly.
you don't deserve your user name
> A few years ago, I began to see the "labor supply" issues of slavery, and how the South was basically an economic powerhouse fueled chiefly by the labor of its enslaved people--so how do you reconcile that after the fact? How does a Union of freemen compete with that?
A large population of (deliberately kept) illiterate, uneducated people who hate their oppressors is a disadvantage to society, not an advantage. It is low-trust culture distilled to its extreme. A society like that is incapable of innovating or adapting, so it ends up leaning heavily on resource extraction. The cash crops of the South became a weak point that the Unionists exploited to their advantage in the Civil War - when the fields were razed and the shipments were blockaded, it became impossible for the Confederates to continue funding their rebellion.
> I began to consider slavery as an institution that compels "employers" to provide all practical necessities for "employees". That is, room and board and clothing are all provided to the workers, in perpetuity, and this in fact granted a lot of stability and assurance.
It is not enough for a society to merely keep its people alive. The other levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are also important, or else your society will be unable to sustain itself, partially for the reasons I outlined above.
> Now free the slaves. Wonderful! Hurrah for equality and justice! Now, however, every employee, every worker, is totally on their own for those basic necessities of life. They buy their own clothing, they find their own housing, they're paying for all their own food, and that of their families, especially their dependents. I mean, that's a huge, huge difference. How is that even possible? Sometimes it's not. Is it any wonder we've had homelessness, and the rise of the welfare state, and slavery by imprisonment? It's no surprise.
Underlying this flawed argument is the idea that a person cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about what clothes to buy, or what house to live in, or what food to eat. Why should I trust your, or anyone else's, judgment on which people to empower with self-agency? Surely you don't need to be reminded that the colonies revolted against the British for much less egregious violations of that agency?
> So yes, freeing the slaves was the right thing to do. Let's never forget that! But we should also consider the economic "downsides" and the other side of the coin, so to speak, when it comes to the labor of free citizens, and what the average worker needs to do, just to survive, outside the confines of those vanished institutions.
Reaching this conclusion requires a naive ignorance of the second-order detriments of institutional slavery in a society, not to mention an utter rejection of basic free market principles. The ability of participants to choose what to do and how to spend is a good thing for an economy.
A large population of (deliberately kept) illiterate, uneducated people who hate their oppressors is a disadvantage to society, not an advantage. It is low-trust culture distilled to its extreme. A society like that is incapable of innovating or adapting, so it ends up leaning heavily on resource extraction. The cash crops of the South became a weak point that the Unionists exploited to their advantage in the Civil War - when the fields were razed and the shipments were blockaded, it became impossible for the Confederates to continue funding their rebellion.
> I began to consider slavery as an institution that compels "employers" to provide all practical necessities for "employees". That is, room and board and clothing are all provided to the workers, in perpetuity, and this in fact granted a lot of stability and assurance.
It is not enough for a society to merely keep its people alive. The other levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are also important, or else your society will be unable to sustain itself, partially for the reasons I outlined above.
> Now free the slaves. Wonderful! Hurrah for equality and justice! Now, however, every employee, every worker, is totally on their own for those basic necessities of life. They buy their own clothing, they find their own housing, they're paying for all their own food, and that of their families, especially their dependents. I mean, that's a huge, huge difference. How is that even possible? Sometimes it's not. Is it any wonder we've had homelessness, and the rise of the welfare state, and slavery by imprisonment? It's no surprise.
Underlying this flawed argument is the idea that a person cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about what clothes to buy, or what house to live in, or what food to eat. Why should I trust your, or anyone else's, judgment on which people to empower with self-agency? Surely you don't need to be reminded that the colonies revolted against the British for much less egregious violations of that agency?
> So yes, freeing the slaves was the right thing to do. Let's never forget that! But we should also consider the economic "downsides" and the other side of the coin, so to speak, when it comes to the labor of free citizens, and what the average worker needs to do, just to survive, outside the confines of those vanished institutions.
Reaching this conclusion requires a naive ignorance of the second-order detriments of institutional slavery in a society, not to mention an utter rejection of basic free market principles. The ability of participants to choose what to do and how to spend is a good thing for an economy.
Wow you just came in here eager to expose all the wrongthink in my comment, and in the process, to comprehensively quote nearly everything that I wrote. I am sorry if a singular comment does not do justice to the nuances of the issues of the American Civil War and the Civil Rights movement after it. I am sorry that it made you think that I am an ignorant bigot.
But no, you have come to some very hasty and incorrect conclusions about my beliefs. I do not believe that "people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions". In the hierarchy of needs, when a person's food, clothing, and shelter are already provided and they do not need to worry about these utterly basic needs, then they are going to function better. A freed worker must not only pay for all of these basic needs out of their own wages, but must also make all the relevant household decisions, trips to the store, and maintenance, that is a crazy mental and physical load, just to provide for their basic needs. Yes, that is the cost of freedom. I am just saying, that freedom's costs should be acknowledged, along with its responsibilities.
And you say that I'm naïvely ignorant for reaching "conclusions". I don't think I've reached any conclusions. I've simply contemplated the situation more deeply than I previously did. Is that wrongthink? I should not need to apologize for discerning and discussing more nuance than most people are willing to do.
But no, you have come to some very hasty and incorrect conclusions about my beliefs. I do not believe that "people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions". In the hierarchy of needs, when a person's food, clothing, and shelter are already provided and they do not need to worry about these utterly basic needs, then they are going to function better. A freed worker must not only pay for all of these basic needs out of their own wages, but must also make all the relevant household decisions, trips to the store, and maintenance, that is a crazy mental and physical load, just to provide for their basic needs. Yes, that is the cost of freedom. I am just saying, that freedom's costs should be acknowledged, along with its responsibilities.
And you say that I'm naïvely ignorant for reaching "conclusions". I don't think I've reached any conclusions. I've simply contemplated the situation more deeply than I previously did. Is that wrongthink? I should not need to apologize for discerning and discussing more nuance than most people are willing to do.
"I saw the references to AI making lives easier, but VSauce advocating for sending his child to a school removed from computers."
(Whoever VSauce is) sure, we can embrace the useful applications of AI but still want to learn (want our kids to learn) with our hands, with books, from experiments.
No contradiction there.
I'm getting old and I am enjoying a new, electric pedal-assist bike. But that's not what I would want my preschool kids out there learning on. (Is that analogy crap? Maybe you get the idea anyway.)
(Whoever VSauce is) sure, we can embrace the useful applications of AI but still want to learn (want our kids to learn) with our hands, with books, from experiments.
No contradiction there.
I'm getting old and I am enjoying a new, electric pedal-assist bike. But that's not what I would want my preschool kids out there learning on. (Is that analogy crap? Maybe you get the idea anyway.)
do we just want slaves? basically, yes. this captures it:
> he enjoyed the ability to create 10 prototypes out of thin air, picking on the ones he personally thought were best
prior to AI, you'd either have to make k prototypes yourself, or, if you could afford it, provide employment/work for another artist, perhaps not as creatively skilled as you but who had developed the skills to do good art/video/whatever. So AI makes you, the creator, happy because it saves you either time or money, and it abstracts away work that you consider to be a chore given your advanced skills. But to someone else that "chore" represents real work that not only provides them with the means to live, but which they also find some satisfaction in doing.
So, much like income inequality, AI makes a small number of people extra-productive or saves them money, while robbing other people of potential employment. This eventually reduces the number of skilled people, and reducing those artists to ... what, exactly? (that's the big unknown, isn't it).
Much like income inequality, we end up with two classes: a small number who use AI, stay gainfully employed and save money or can command an even higher salary because they're so productive; and a much larger number who the AI replaces, who can no longer find employment (or at least not employment doing anything that uses their skills), and become ...
> he enjoyed the ability to create 10 prototypes out of thin air, picking on the ones he personally thought were best
prior to AI, you'd either have to make k prototypes yourself, or, if you could afford it, provide employment/work for another artist, perhaps not as creatively skilled as you but who had developed the skills to do good art/video/whatever. So AI makes you, the creator, happy because it saves you either time or money, and it abstracts away work that you consider to be a chore given your advanced skills. But to someone else that "chore" represents real work that not only provides them with the means to live, but which they also find some satisfaction in doing.
So, much like income inequality, AI makes a small number of people extra-productive or saves them money, while robbing other people of potential employment. This eventually reduces the number of skilled people, and reducing those artists to ... what, exactly? (that's the big unknown, isn't it).
Much like income inequality, we end up with two classes: a small number who use AI, stay gainfully employed and save money or can command an even higher salary because they're so productive; and a much larger number who the AI replaces, who can no longer find employment (or at least not employment doing anything that uses their skills), and become ...
Reminds me of https://nobody-wants-this.ghost.io/japans-design-for-humans/
America’s culture of independence is such a race to the bottom in terms of “what can we get away with”, rather than “now that we have AI, how can we better take care of each other”.
Personally I’m exploring ways that AI can better serve people, rather than how I can replace people in my life.
America’s culture of independence is such a race to the bottom in terms of “what can we get away with”, rather than “now that we have AI, how can we better take care of each other”.
Personally I’m exploring ways that AI can better serve people, rather than how I can replace people in my life.
> Personally I’m exploring ways that AI can better serve people, rather than how I can replace people in my life.
Can you think of anything that an AI could do that could not be done by one or more people, for money?
Can you think of anything that an AI could do that could not be done by one or more people, for money?
We just want work done we don't want to do ourselves.
Whether it's slaves, animals or dumb to smart machines and anything in between, that is an 'implementation detail'.
Whether it's slaves, animals or dumb to smart machines and anything in between, that is an 'implementation detail'.
Is a calculator a slave? Is a car a slave? What a silly blogpost.
We have always been automating away the things we don't want to do, even before AI.
We have always been automating away the things we don't want to do, even before AI.
We may cast a human connection to slavery, but from the owners' perspective, the whole point is automating away the things they don't want to do. Fundamentally there's no difference.
It's not that silly of a blogpost. See: "permanent underclass", a term popular among people that believe that an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is imminent and desirable.
I don't know where you imagine these people to congregate and coin these terms, but I've not come across anything like that.
Anthropic and OpenAI talk about humans being obsolete and about replacing human workers too.
Permanent underclass is expression for that.
Permanent underclass is expression for that.
AI isn't sentient and cannot feel. Slave or not, there are thus no moral problems, atleast in this matter.
I'd support AI progress if it wasn't pushed by companies that obviously want profit and only opt out when it's getting dangerous for them, supporting such companies is the equivalent of jumping off of a bridge as our species.
Unfortunately, AI doesn't just automate what we don't want to do.
It also automates many of the things which we very much want to do and sometimes pride ourselves on...
And TBH it seems to be automating more of the things we want to do than those we don't... Hence the reason why AI is seen more as additional competition than as additional help.
And TBH it seems to be automating more of the things we want to do than those we don't... Hence the reason why AI is seen more as additional competition than as additional help.
I think that the title is badly worded but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that looking at it from a different perspective, AI is not even a slave. We can look at it more like outsourcing work. I pay for it after all to have something done that I wouldn't want to do myself.
What a weird title.
Parchment is a writing surface made of animal stuff. It lets people not have to remember certain things. They can write those things on the parchment.
Paper also lets people write things on it so they don’t have to remember them. Paper is cheaper than parchment. And it isn’t made from animals.
Do we just want parchment?
No. We want paper.
Parchment is a writing surface made of animal stuff. It lets people not have to remember certain things. They can write those things on the parchment.
Paper also lets people write things on it so they don’t have to remember them. Paper is cheaper than parchment. And it isn’t made from animals.
Do we just want parchment?
No. We want paper.
God, we're really going to have to start teaching philosophy much more broadly if we're going to have a sensible future. This thread is so full of crazy unknowable speculation and entirely novel ideas of the human condition.
When it comes to people's take on AI it reminds me of nothing so much as the way people reacted to the introduction of computers in the 1950's and 60's.
I'm not quite clear what lesson there is to be learned from that though.
I'm not quite clear what lesson there is to be learned from that though.
Perhaps political candidate Count Binface here in the UK should add to his "I'll lower _your_ taxes and raise _everyone elses_" policy with "I'll protect _your_ job and automate _everyone elses_"
Such a rage bait title, but sure I'll take the bait.
It is easy to phrase anything as slaves. Are refrigerators and microwave ovens our slaves? But if you push the tech fare enough.. there is a boundary where we do cross the slave threshold.
It is easy to phrase anything as slaves. Are refrigerators and microwave ovens our slaves? But if you push the tech fare enough.. there is a boundary where we do cross the slave threshold.
There are people who want slaves/servants and who delight in forcing other people do their bidding.
Anyone who worked in a service industry knows this. But fortunately most people are not like that.
Anyone who worked in a service industry knows this. But fortunately most people are not like that.
What we want is to be able to do what we want (for fun/interest), and not be forced to do what we need (for survival).
Everyone has some work they would gladly automate. I wouldn't call it "slaves". More like an underpaid staff.
The problem is the idea of the job. The idea that you're worthy of existence only if some other person certifies you're worthy of existence, based on how much they have been certified themselves.
Of course this converges to a system, where this certification is the most sought thing. And if you look who can certify in the real world and why, it's not a fair picture. These eigenpeople SEOed the capitalist form of pagerank.
We need unconditional basic income. It used to be that some leftist thinkers from the turn of the 19th century considered a wage job being not much better than slavery.
Of course this converges to a system, where this certification is the most sought thing. And if you look who can certify in the real world and why, it's not a fair picture. These eigenpeople SEOed the capitalist form of pagerank.
We need unconditional basic income. It used to be that some leftist thinkers from the turn of the 19th century considered a wage job being not much better than slavery.
It wasn't just some leftist thinkers, it was most people through history. Working for wages was something slaves did, free men supported themselves with what they could grow or sell, and people routinely preferred what seems to us fairly miserable self-sufficiency over paid servitude.
You don't have to go far into history to find examples, this is stuff you find in regular genealogy.
You don't have to go far into history to find examples, this is stuff you find in regular genealogy.
Paid servitude and working for salary are two massively different things. And over the course of history, free men worked for salaries, were free, were happy and it was not the same thing as being a slave.
Of course there are degrees of servitude, from light or well-regulated wage payment to outright slavery. (But actual slaves were also often paid wages, something I found pretty surprising and counterintuitive). And if you were a paid servant of someone powerful, that could still carry its own prestige to make up somewhat for the dependence.
To take some examples from genealogy, I had trouble identifying a guy described merely as "servant" in a census as the father of some quite powerful and wealthy people. But it turned out, he was a bailiff, a servant of a fief holder.
I also found out there were laws against not going into servitude in my country. Many, especially young unmarried men, would prefer to work and especially to fish on their own, rather than to work for wages. So the authorities had to resort to actually make it illegal. This wasn't just to be nice to big owners, it was because economies of scale meant lower tax revenues if everyone went fishing on their own little boat.
In general, governments did quite a lot of deliberate effort like that pushing people away from a sustenance economy and into a cash economy where they could produce things rich people (e.g. kings) wanted rather than things they needed themselves.
To take some examples from genealogy, I had trouble identifying a guy described merely as "servant" in a census as the father of some quite powerful and wealthy people. But it turned out, he was a bailiff, a servant of a fief holder.
I also found out there were laws against not going into servitude in my country. Many, especially young unmarried men, would prefer to work and especially to fish on their own, rather than to work for wages. So the authorities had to resort to actually make it illegal. This wasn't just to be nice to big owners, it was because economies of scale meant lower tax revenues if everyone went fishing on their own little boat.
In general, governments did quite a lot of deliberate effort like that pushing people away from a sustenance economy and into a cash economy where they could produce things rich people (e.g. kings) wanted rather than things they needed themselves.
Except that having to work for a salary in the first place isn't exactly freedom.
> Now there is a reluctant acceptance and admission that yes, people are building something useful every now and then
Those are the people who were already doing so without AI.
> I've watched the headbanging, stressful, but stockholmed love of coding be all but abstracted away from me.
This is only true if it was ever that hard for you to do the job while getting paid for it.
As long as you keep on stubbornly insisting that this wave of "AI" is anything at all like "AGI" or ever heading towards it, you're going to stay wrong and be pushed out of the profession because nobody can reliably trust you or your judgment. Your value as a developer was always your judgment. The code has always just been one artifact of that.
You're still expected to own every line and defend it. It will never be abstracted away because it is the primary contract between business needs and the machine. It is at once both the operational plan and its execution. The only people who insist that it will/should be abstracted away are pushing propaganda to discourage the continued power shift towards the more technically literate who can and will argue for what actually provides value instead of passive investor-pleasing moves. They'd rather you play with the skinner box than meaningfully compete. All this was already set in motion many decades ago. What happens when the next wave of tech comes out? Do we really want you at the helm if you're going to be this naive and easily manipulated? The premise of this blog post is no less delusional than what we were hearing a couple of years ago.
Those are the people who were already doing so without AI.
> I've watched the headbanging, stressful, but stockholmed love of coding be all but abstracted away from me.
This is only true if it was ever that hard for you to do the job while getting paid for it.
As long as you keep on stubbornly insisting that this wave of "AI" is anything at all like "AGI" or ever heading towards it, you're going to stay wrong and be pushed out of the profession because nobody can reliably trust you or your judgment. Your value as a developer was always your judgment. The code has always just been one artifact of that.
You're still expected to own every line and defend it. It will never be abstracted away because it is the primary contract between business needs and the machine. It is at once both the operational plan and its execution. The only people who insist that it will/should be abstracted away are pushing propaganda to discourage the continued power shift towards the more technically literate who can and will argue for what actually provides value instead of passive investor-pleasing moves. They'd rather you play with the skinner box than meaningfully compete. All this was already set in motion many decades ago. What happens when the next wave of tech comes out? Do we really want you at the helm if you're going to be this naive and easily manipulated? The premise of this blog post is no less delusional than what we were hearing a couple of years ago.
Aibro gets a glimpse at class consciousness for half a second before admitting they are part of the problem and then carrying on.
Short of the title, yes
If the slaves are robots/machines then yes we very much want slaves.
Yes, yes we do. We want slaves, servants and serfs for every task that we don't enjoy. Always was, always has been, always will be.
I want Rosie from the Jetsons to fold my laundry, Jarvis to do my emails. I don't want a robot to cook my meals, because this is something I like.
I want Rosie from the Jetsons to fold my laundry, Jarvis to do my emails. I don't want a robot to cook my meals, because this is something I like.
monegator(1)
I agree with the author that almost everyone wants to use AI to do the things they have no interest in and don't want to pay someone else to do while being vehemently opposed to AI taking their hobbies or professions away. Which explains one of the greatest social paradoxes of today: approximately everyone is using AI and almost everyone is hating it. I don't mean HN, but public opinion polling for the tech is absolutely awful. In the US, it had an approval level comparable to Iran.
I don't think it's an AI-specific thing, though. It's exactly the same mechanism that makes us object to the government meddling in our profession but think it's high time for the feds to regulate other people's jobs. I guess some balance of holding each other at gunpoint gives us a stable society. I don't know how AI fits into that.