I am increasingly worried about the current AI hype cycle taking down all of computer science with it. The more I think about it, the field is on the verge of a legitimacy crisis from several root-causes.
I've seen some AI/ML people (Timnit, etc) talk about the need for an anti-AGI movement. I think that applies to #CS generally. If the public at large comes to equate CS with AGI, it will kill the whole field for a decade when AGI implodes.
How I see this happening:
* AGI gets falsely presented as a real thing. The singularitists amplify this.
* Snake-oil vendors pop up, offering supposedly AGI-based solutions for replacing whole swaths of jobs. Mid-2000s style outsourcing comes back in vogue.
* These fail utterly or get revealed as theranos-type scams backed by offshore labor.
* Public opinion turns sharply against CS generally, resulting in deep funding cuts, bad legislation, etc.
To be clear, I'm not advocating any kind of ludditism. Ludditism and primitivism need to die of fucking Ebola.
CS and particularly the industry needs to get back to basics: solving problems and enabling people.
We need to get *a lot* better at calling out kooks, crackpots, and snake-oil. We absolutely have our own analogues of anti-vaxxers, homeopathy, and flat-earthers. We've done a shit job of policing that, and we've allowed it to grow unchecked.
@emc2 agreed, but will add a small comment that Luddites were not anti-technology, they were anti exploitation that some employers engaged in by using technology in a particular way.
It wasn't about not using technology at all, it was about not using it to exploit people.
We *need* a modern-day Luddite movement — one that interrogates the hype around new technologies through the lens of how they affect labor and society in general.
-isms refer to belief systems, not people.
Also, both those -isms are cool with returning to a condition where actual people frequently die of horrible diseases.
@noblessefemina oh absolutely. And one way towards fixing the overarching system is interrogating the way new technologies are used to exploit people and putting that in focus, and making a lot of noise about it.
Kinda like Luddites did.
@rysiek reviving a centuries-old failed philosophy whose modern meaning is overwhelmingly negative and trying to run appologia for it is a losing proposition.
We have modern groundwork that's proven its effectiveness. Build off of that.
@emc2 sure.
At the same time reinforcing the misconceptions around that centuries-old philosophy is unnecessary, and I would also argue it is harmful — it is easy, trivial even, to paint people who are critical of AI today as "Luddites/Ludditists", so if we ourselves use these terms in a negative way, we ourselves prepare the field, so to speak, for AI-hypers here.
luddites advocate for worker control over means of production and the produce, and direct action against the forced substitution of workers with machines
what's your problem with this position? will it rob you of your current income because you're middle class and administrate workers rather than work?
@troglodyt funny, I've spent an entire career assiduously avoiding being pulled into management, but go on, tell me more about myself.
I don't buy your false equivalence between advocacy for workers and anti-technology. One does not imply the other. Moreover, crash-stopping infrastructure is a monumentally stupid political strategy (unless you're a strongman). That's my problem with it.
your bio says senior middle class
i did not present such an equivalence, and the malignment luddites still endure speaks volumes about the success of this tactic
[note that there is somewhat widespread (in certain tech crit circles) 'reclamation' of luddism as a position opposing/calling out the unequal distribution of the benefits of automation (& furthermore the unequalizing higher-order effects of wealth concentration, &c) and the ways that tech boosterism (which also helps create opportunities for snake oil) can less-than-critically launder it]
[i suspect that worrying that crackpots, scammers, & overambitious VCs will discredit an entire field/industry (or engineer general bearishness to protect their prospects/reputation as investments fail to pan out? i'm reminded of big SVB depositors predicting/promoting/hoping for market implosion to try & get fedgov to step in & save their balances) to the detriment of those who actually use the products/services/technology would not be viewed unsympathetically in modern lud circles]
@emc2 I don't work in and barely know anything about cs but I found this whole thread fascinating. What's spoken about here can be applied to almost every area of science/technology and in a lot of cases politics and societal structures in general.
Every time I thought of something I could add to the conversation I'd scroll 1 or 2 more replies and it was said so instead I'll just say thankyou to everyone that contributed to the thread and hope that people in my bubble will also read it.
Discussions like these where intelligent people discuss a topic in good faith without insult or offence are what make the fediverse so great.
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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
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