Comment by xpe
6 days ago
Some people make these kinds of claims for ethical reasons, I get it. But be careful to not confuse one’s ethics with the current state of capability, which changes rapidly. Most people have a tendency to rationalize, and we have to constantly battle it.
Without knowing the commenter above, I’ll say this: don’t assume an individual boycott is necessarily effective. If one is motivated by ethics, I think it is morally required to find effective ways to engage to shape and nudge the future. It is important to know what you’re fighting for (and against). IP protection? Human dignity through work? Agency to effect one’s life? Other aspects? All are important.
I run a music community that’s been around for 16 years and many users are asking me what they can do to avoid AI in their lives and I’m going to start building tools to help.
Many of the people pushing for a lot of AI stuff are the same people who have attached their name to a combination of NFTs, Blockchain, cryptocurrency, Web3 and other things I consider to be grifts/scams.
The term “AI” is already meaningless. So let’s be clear: Generative AI (GenAI) is what worries many people including a number of prominent artists.
This makes me feel like there’s work to be done if we want open source/art/the internet as we know it to remain and be available to us in the future.
It drives me a little crazy to see Mozilla adding AI to Firefox instead of yelling about it at every opportunity. Do we need to save them too?
Just because random people pivot from shit like not, crypto and block chains, the majority of people use AI because it has real benefits.
GenAI just works. People don't need to be pushed using it and continue using it.
OpenAI has 500 Million active users weekly.
Right. Too often people conflate (a) risk-loving entrepreneurs and their marketing claims with the (b) realities of usage patterns and associated value-add.
As an example, look at how cars are advertised. If you only paid attention to marketing, you would think everyone is zipping around winding mountain roads in their SUVs, loaded up with backcountry gear. This is not accurate, but nonetheless SUVs are dominant.
"Morally required to ... engage" with technologies that one disagrees with sounds fairly easily debunk-able to me. Everyone does what they can live with - being up close and personal, in empathy with humans who are negatively effected by a given technology, they can choose to do what they want.
Who knows, we might find out in a month that this shit we're doing is really unsafe and is a really bad idea, and doesn't even work ultimately for what we'd use it for. LLMs already lie and blackmail.
Five points. First, a moral code is a guidestar, principles to strive for, but not necessarily achieved.
Second. People can do what they want? This may not even be self-consistent. Humans are complex and operate imperfectly across time horizons and various unclear and even contradictory goals.
Third. Assuming people have some notion of consistency in what they want, can people can do what they want? To some degree. But we live in a world of constraints. Consider this: if one only does what one wants, what does that tell you? Are they virtuous? Maybe, maybe not: it depends on the quality of their intentions. Or consider the usual compromising of one’s goals: people often change what they want to match what is available. Consider someone in jail, a parent who lost a child, a family in a war zone, or someone who isn’t able to get the opportunity to live up to their potential.
Fourth, based on #3 above, we probably need to refine the claim to say this: people strive to choose the best action available to them. But even in this narrower framing, saying “people do what they can” seems suspect to me, to the point of being something we tell ourselves to feel better. On what basis can one empirically measure how well people act according to their values? I would be genuinely interested in attempts to measure this.
Fifth, here is what I mean by engaging with a technology you disagree with: you have to engage in order to understand what are you are facing. You should clarify and narrow your objections: what aspects of the technology are problematic? Few technologies are intrinsically good or evil; it is usually more about how they are used. So mindfully and selectively use the technology in service of your purposes. (Don’t protest the wrong thing out of spite.) Focus on your goals and make the hard tradeoffs.
Here is an example of #5. If one opposes urban development patterns that overemphasize private transit, does this mean boycotting all vehicles? Categorically refusing to rent a car? That would miss the point. Some of one’s best actions involve getting involved in local politics and advocacy groups. Hoping isolated individual action against entrenched interests will move the needle is wishful thinking. My point is simple: choose effective actions to achieve your goals. Many of these goals can only be achieved with systematic thinking and collective action.
Just responding to 5 here, as I think the rest is a capable examination but I think starts to move around the point I'm trying to make, that I disagree that one morally has to engage with AI. Its not just to "understand what you are facing" - that's a tactical choice, not a moral one. Its just not a moral imperative. Non-engagement can be a protest as well. Its one of the ways that the overton window maintains itself - if someone were to take the, to me, extreme view that AI/LLMs will within the next 5 years result in massive economic changes and eliminate much of society's need for artists or programmers, I choose not to engage with that view and give it light. I grew up around doomsayers and those who claim armageddon, and the arguments being made are often on similar ground. I think they're kooks who don't give a fuck about the consequences of their acceleration-ism, they're just chasing dollars.
Just as I don't need to understand the finer points of extreme bigotry to be opposed to it, we don't need to be experts on LLMs to be opposed to the well-heeled and breathless hype surrounding it, and choose to not engage with it.
2 replies →
I’m outside the edit window, but I have one thing to add. To restate #5 differently: Banging one’s head against barely movable reality is not a wise plan; it is reactionary and probably a waste of your precious bodily fluids — I mean energy. On the other hand, focusing your efforts on calculated risks, even if they seem improbable, can be worthwhile, as long as you choose your battles.