❝I said that I *absolutely in no way* want a slave, or a technology that simulates one. I want to do creative work using good tools. I *don't want* the experience of a slaver; in fact, I would go very far to never have that experience, because it is a demeaning and antihuman experience.❞

2/

❝He was completely unable to understand why. He kept arguing that since the LLM isn't an actual conscious person (which is correct), it ought to be treated like a slave, and that the arc of technology is to give everyone access to their own virtual slaves.❞

3/

❝It was *impossible* for me or anyone else present to get him to understand that *we don't want slaves, simulated or otherwise*.

I've thought about that a lot in the days since.❞

4/

I agree with the storyteller: the experience of having a slave is abhorrent, simulated or not, and this story is a window into something •deep• about the present moment. Even without having slaves, we are all in danger of having a •slaver mindset•. It’s a disease that’s running rampant now in billionaire-shaped techno-utopian circles.

I wrote this thread on the topic earlier:

https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/113295613785073188

…and even having written that, it’s still shocking — not surprising, exactly, but shocking — to hear those thoughts expressed so baldly by the colleague in the story above.

@inthehands I'm confused and feel like I'm missing something. But this feels like a category error.

No, we don't want slaves, real or virtual. But a machine cannot be enslaved, any more than a hammer can be. It's a tool, leave it alone and it does nothing. Tools are meant to be used.

Which is not to say that all tools are amoral, or should always be used. A machine to grind up puppies is a tool, sure, and also terrible and should not exist. But you did not force it to exist.

You don't want to treat people like tools, which is what slavery does - they're not people, they're machines, less than human.

You also don't want to treat machines as humans.

What am I missing? It feels this is like arguing over the taste of blue.

Edited to add: To be clear, I find this person's coworkers feelings to be terrible and seriously question the person's ethics and morality. So please don't take anything I'm saying as trying to excuse it. I just feel conclusions are being drawn that I don't see or understand

@Bfordham
The category error you are making is thinking that the distinction is about the •tool• instead of the •mindset of the person• who is using the tool.

I’d also be disturbed by somebody who thinks of their hammer as a slave.

@inthehands I don't think it's a category error, but I was definitely misunderstanding

"Slavery is OK as long as it's not a human slave" is terrible. The idea what slavery isn't evil, it just needs, y'know, so tweaks... that's a frightening way to think.

All of which I agree with. My mistake was thinking you were trying to say something you weren't actually saying. That was my mistake, not yours, and I appreciate your response.

I will add that, while a machine cannot be enslaved, and I don't think using machines to automate things is bad. But when it becomes "we can just fire all the people" then you are, in fact, treating people like machines.

And that's not even to mention the number of actual people who work to make the LLM machine go brrrr. The person in the story is totally disregarding their labor and humanity and treating them as nothings, as slaves.

@cm @inthehands Totally agree with that.

Slavery is bad. That's a blanket statement I'm fine with. Who (or what) is enslaved is irrelevant.

I'd say again that that attitude does not elevate a machine to the level of a human, it lowers humans to the level of machines. Which is, of course, necessary to some extent to enslave people, you have to feel they are lesser.