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Comment by GolfPopper

3 days ago

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders!" has been a meme for over a decade.

3 comments

GolfPopper

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hollerith  3 days ago

The intent of your comment is unclear to me, so I will ask you to clarify. And I will avoid any attempt at sarcasm from now on.

Great grandparent claimed (or at least strongly implied) that the labs have been saying that their creations might end the human race because the labs expect that saying such things will attract investment in the labs or purchases of their creations. I disputed that claim (using sarcasm).

Do you agree with me or disagree with me? (I honestly cannot tell.)

Would you say that the meme you quoted is sarcasm?

Do you believe that the meme you quoted has attracted investors or buyers?

That anyone ever expected that it would?

  • GolfPopper  3 days ago

    I did read your comment correctly as a sarcastic way to make the point that, "no, potentially wiping out the human race is not a way to attract investors". I disagree.

    I referenced the meme in order to show that yes, the zeitgeist does believe that the investor-class will destroy civilization for short-term profit.

    And yes, I believe at least a subset of investors are short-sighted and willing to inflict immense harm for profit, and that claiming the ability to cause incalculable damage is a deliberate attempt to appeal to such people.

    I believe the LLM-mania is in no small part driven by an ultimately fraudulent implicit pitch to investors that OpenAI etc will eventually Install Planetary Overlords, and that claiming "we could wipe out the human race" serves as marketing in furtherance of that implication.