Dave RahardjaMar 14

RE: https://mastodon.social/@cslinuxboy/116225578585237555

This is not “normal”. Skilled and productive people falling heads over heels over a word predictor and thinking it’s sentient is not normal. This is not the kind of effects that normal automation tools do. This is WEIRD and NOT NORMAL.

Something strange is happening here. This “tool” is modifying well-adjusted human brains in a strange (and I think destructive) way, and we’re seeing it happen to some prominent person every week. How many people are being taken in that we don’t even hear about?

#ai

Show threadJohnMar 15

@drahardja

All COVID infections (even low symptom and asymptomatic) cause brain damage, resulting in reduced impulse control, reduced higher cognitive functioning, lower empathy scores, and worse short-term memory retention.

On average, every American has been infected 5 times. Each time causes more damage, cumulatively, because of the nature of SARS-CoV-2.

I'd be surprised if this phenomenon wasn't playing a role in these people being "abnormally" vulnerable to these averaging machines.

Show threadEmilis 🇺🇦Mar 15

@johnzajac @drahardja Even without COVID, 1/4 of people in the EU had mental health issues at least once in their lives.

So I wouldn't rule out Kent just being more vulnerable to this.

However, the vulnerable people should not have to suffer these effects of LLMs. There should be a system of protections in place, just like we have with allergens.

Show threadJohn

@emilis @drahardja

Sure; COVID doesn't "give" you a mood disorder, nor is its brain damage uniform.

Rather, it cumulatively increases your risk factors for developing a mood disorder, and causes brain damage commensurate with both your existing risk factors (including former COVID infection) and a measure of luck.

An irony of "protect the vulnerable" rhetoric is that COVID's main action is making people *more* vulnerable to everything from psychosis to kidney failure to thrombosis.

Mar 15 at 4:42pmWeb
Show threadJohn6d ago

@emilis @drahardja

It's worth noting that all the evidence we have points to each COVID infection being *significantly* worse for you than the last one. So when you're 5 infections in, you're exponentially worse off than you were after one.

Basically the social, economic, and health effects of repeated COVID infections are getting worse over time and for those of us who are grounded in the science, not the vibes, this was expected.