Comment by saltcured
3 hours ago
I completely disagree with the way you frame this.
The "abundance" is not all positive valence. It is a flood of superficial good with an unmanaged ratio of negative byproduct mixed in.
Some of the "change" is not merely doing things a bit differently. The LLM flood is effectively attacking existing feedback and control mechanisms without any attempt to establish appropriate replacements.
I think there are several more dangerous sentiments coursing through civilization these days:
1. That people bear no moral responsibility to act in good faith, and the corollary that one can enjoy the fruits of production while externalizing all the liabilities.
2. That strategies like "move fast and break things" and "fake it until you make it" are universally applicable and appropriate, rather than only in the low-stakes entertainment/media/marketing fields where they flourished in recent decades.
3. That mere acquisition of capital gives one the right to perform N=1 experiments on global civilization, the economy, and the enviromment.
“The LLM flood is effectively attacking existing feedback and control mechanisms without any attempt to establish appropriate replacements.”
I think these are problems to be worked on and they are being worked on. The work just looks boring and will not make any newsfeeds anytime soon. Our systems are changing and adapting as we speak.
See my other comments as to why that sentiment is the most dangerous sentiment. It’s easy to point to the problem of oligarch’s or clearly labellable “bad actors” and incompetence.
But neighbors agitating to block housing, unions blocking productivity enhancing technologies? Much more difficult to treat these as a “problem” as they are just a mass of historically disenfranchised people protecting their interests. But they are doing wide damage, and that same sentiment is now coming to software developers.