← Back to context

Comment by kyriakos

3 days ago

its the same as banning knives because they can be used to hurt people. we shouldn't ban tools.

> we shouldn't ban tools

When I see the old BuT FrEe SpEeCH argument repurposed to impinge civil rights I start warming to the idea of banning tools.

Alternately "Chemical weapons don't kill people, people with chemical weapons kill people"

  • Not really, its like banning chemistry sets cause they may be used to create chemical weapons.

    • Not sure the comparison works when it does all the work for you

      I've had very little success mumbling "you are an expert chemist..." to test tubes and raw materials.

In this case, image generation and editing AI is a tool which we managed just fine with until three years ago, and where the economic value of that tool remains extremely questionable despite it being a remarkable improvement in the state of the art.

As a propaganda tool it seems quite effective, but for that it's gone from "woo free-speech" to "oh no epistemic collapse".