[object Object]Mar 12
“I’m just so exhausted by both sides of the AI argument” imagine being the kind of piss baby that sees a mass of people who are righteously furious at a system designed from the top down to fuck them over, and decides the anger is just as much of a problem as the exploitation
Show thread[object Object]Mar 14

oh cool yet another “I’m exhausted by all the anti-AI anger” post got boosted onto my feed

please don’t let anyone gatekeep your own anger away from you, especially when your ability to exist and to make a living are both under active attack. if you’re angry because of LLM-enabled war crimes, the loss of our software commons, or any of the other wrongs the AI industry has started that never stopped, you aren’t wrong. you don’t owe the people enabling and forgiving this stuff your kindness.

Show thread[object Object]Mar 14

and since there was some very off stuff in this last post about how “morality isn’t absolute” in “the trans discourse”, let me make something clear

the AI-critical spaces I help operate are for trans and marginalized people above all else. they are spaces with no place for people who exploit other people.

in AI and all other “discourse”, if that’s what we’re calling the trans genocide being orchestrated by the far right, I am and always will be against the side doing the exploitation.

Show thread[object Object]

I cannot keep doing this but since today’s has seen a number of boosts:

the people asking you to stop forcing slop and ongoing damage onto their communities are not purity testing you. they’re asking for basic human decency.

no, disliking LLMs doesn’t make you… a list of right-wing stereotypes for leftists???? is this what we’re doing now?

please don’t use ChatGPT to self-diagnose or treat medical issues. seriously, please don’t do that or advocate for it.

Mar 15 at 6:58amWeb
Show thread[object Object]Mar 15
it is of course rich as always that the examples for purity testing are shit like vegans being correctly harsh about the environmental impact of the meat industry (and I say this as someone who eats, medically, way too much meat) and not, for example, getting kicked out of a leftist group for expressing support for the people doing one of the ongoing genocides that use LLMs to both select targets and to hinder accountability for the resulting murders. you know, aka “kicking out an asshole”
Show thread[object Object]Mar 15

anyway seriously please don’t use ChatGPT or any other LLM to self-diagnose or treat a medical condition. it’s such a dangerous thing to do that OpenAI warns you to not do it and they’re the type that has no qualms about their technology being used to kill people at random.

LLMs are designed to trick people, and an LLM has already tricked you into being a fucking asshole. if you trust an LLM’s output for medical issues, it won’t be long until it tricks you into being a dead fucking asshole.

Show thread[object Object]Mar 15
oh no there I go purity testing again
Show thread[object Object]Mar 15
and while we’re fucking here, what insular group are you being purity tested out of again? cause if you talk to people outside of tech or read any of the polling that’s been done, you’ll realize very quickly that the general public fucking hates AI. they might not know why on a technical level but they don’t have to, they know a massive grift when they see one.
Show thread[object Object]Mar 15
so uh if we’re going with purity testing, how am I doing it and not the tiny group of tech assholes telling me I’m impure for not using the slop machine for literally everything, who have only shut up about the machine god being nigh because it became bad optics to attribute godliness to technology the general public knows is fucking busted?
Show thread[object Object]Mar 15
is it not purity testing when the capitalist class does it and failing the test means you can’t feed your family? that’s fucking grim
Show threadPassengerMar 15

@zzt

Prince Andrew got purity-tested out of being a royal, and I don't recall people complaining about that one. They only seem to complain about purity-testing when it's by people they dislike for things they don't think are wrong, which means the term becomes one of those "my freedom fighter, your terrorist" terms.

Show threadM Nesce DrakeMar 15

@passenger @zzt

Him facing consequences for crimes such as raping under age girls isn't being "purity tested."

Show threadPassengerMar 15

@nesce @zzt

Counterpoint: yes it is. "Facing consequences for his actions" is simply "purity testing" when you agree with it and consider the people doing it to be a legitimate authority.

Show threadNick AppleyardMar 15
@zzt
Remember that is essential to follow the approved purity testing protocols. If not, then you are at risk of not doing purity testing properly, opening yourself to criticism from purer purity testers.
Show threadDavid Cantrell 🏏Mar 15
@zzt if you talk to people *in* tech, most of them think that pretty much everything that is being done with LLMs is really fucking stupid too.
Show threadGeorge CollinsMar 15
@zzt for some time, predating the AI thing, people have seen the dehumanisation and mechanisation of every interaction they have with officialdom or corporations, and it's all awful. Everyone can see the direction of travel.
Show threadbrib ​ Mar 15

@zzt Oh I saw that post boosted into my feed too. That was exactly my reaction.

Regardless of your stance on LLMs it is literally and provably unsafe to turn to them for medical advice and that's the very last usecase anyone should promote.

I didn't want to start an argument, but it made me so angry. Thanks for putting this into words

Show thread[object Object]Mar 15
@brib of course! I have a couple more posts about it in this thread too: https://mas.to/@zzt/116232736363646650 which might be interesting. there’s so many dangers to using and advocating for LLMs like this, and it feels so bad to see people falling into patterns that I’ve seen have terrible consequences before.
[object Object] (@[email protected])

@[email protected] this one hit close to my heart because I’ve had two family members die in large part because their caretaker ignored medical advice and used awful alternative medicine information from the internet to try and treat them. an LLM can’t do critique. as you’ve said, truth is not a data type in an LLM. all of these models suck in every form of medical crankery available on the internet, mix it with words from authentic medical sources, and present it all as credible.

mas.to
Show threadbrib ​ Mar 15
@zzt Yeah, I've been following the studies on the matter fairly closely (yay bromism!). iirc the OP mentioned using LLMs for mental health advice too which also has a body count
Show thread[object Object]Mar 15

@brib shit that’s even worse, we have very recent examples of the severe consequences of trusting LLMs for mental health advice.

I really do hope that OP finds the help they need that isn’t an LLM. I don’t want there to be more victims of this stuff.

Show threadEnola KnezevicMar 16
@brib @zzt I blocked the poster and unfollowed the booster. It is attentional hygiene.
Show threadRootWyrm 🇺🇦Mar 15

@zzt I'm at the point where anyone who relies on ChatGPT for medical advice should absolutely have to use ChatGPT to treat the results of that. And nothing else at all.

Quoth the techbros: "it's only a sacrifice if we didn't want to dump them."

Show threadRycochetMar 15

@zzt My response to people who keep banging on about AI being inevitable and resisting it being bad for society is to have them ask themselves, 'If you saw a man in a bar 'flirting' at someone who clearly and vocally did not want them to, someone who repeatedly stated that going home with them was inevitable and saying no was only making the night worse for both of them, you'd be repulsed right? You would interrupt, tell the staff or at the very least keep an eye on the target's drink for them. Why is that level of attack on consent acceptable here because you like the tech?'

It's not purity testing to want to be able to say no to something and have that be heard. Consent is important for society to function and it isn't being granted, the insistence that consent no longer matters because billionaires and people who want to code worse but faster want something doesn't change that fact.

Show threadSamuelJohnsonMar 15

@Rycochet @zzt This applies in other domains too. I had dinner w an Eli Lily exec once who was sure that the synthetic bovine somatotropin hormone should be used to increase milk yields and resisting its use was futile. "Because it's identical to the natural version."

At the time Trump was blackmailing Canada about its refusal to accept US milk in order to sustain viability of Canadian family-owned dairy businesses.

Social consent seemed a novel idea. He felt that because we can, we must.

Show threadKevin GranadeMar 15
@Rycochet @zzt I'm afraid part of the answer is your analogy is accurate and a LOT of people wouldn't be disgusted because they're *that guy* themselves even if they don't act it out.
Show threaddraNgNonMar 15

@zzt I had a tech at my house to upgrade my internet connection and we got to talking. He told me he had COVID a couple years back and digestive issues since but he was using Grok to self diagnose and my soul climbed out of my body and hid in the ceiling corner above. I gently tried to dissuade him from this path and suggest he see medical professionals

But I'm in the US and a stranger to him who knows if he paid any attention