Mastodawn

I find most of the discourse on "AI" right now really painfully polarized, which is why I've been avoiding talking about it -- I have no interest in getting sucked into it on either "side."

I obviously have thoughts (as an author and programmer) but they contain nuance and complexity, and I don't think there's a lot of room for that at the moment.

Dan Piponi Mar 16

@cliffle Well said.

@cliffle I would love to read more nuanced thoughts and opinions about AI. I don't think it's as black and white as a lot of public comments suggest.

@rickoooooo @cliffle someone blocked me today for having a mildly different read on what someone else said. It wasn’t even inflammatory and I was just saying what I thought about their conclusion.

People are absolutely unhinged around these topics on this platform, I’m getting the best information about emergent research on LinkedIn right now which says a lot about how absolutely garbage the discourse is.

Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Mar 16

@dotsie Yeah it's really impossible to say anything positive about AI here, or any other social media platform really, even Substack. I just stay low and join tightly gated/protected communities for sanity.

@rickoooooo @cliffle

Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Mar 16

@rickoooooo Here's one: https://elizabethtai.com/2025/10/14/conversations-about-ai-is-different-in-asia/
@cliffle

@liztai @cliffle thank you, I'll give this a read.

@liztai @cliffle I'm in the USA and must admit that I've only ever thought about AI in my own "context". Your essay made me realize that so thank you. I read another essay recently that discussed AI and how we only look at its effects based on our current environment. If in the US we had social safety nets like healthcare for all, UBI, etc, then worker displacement due to AI would not be as terrible. Instead it could even be good in that it would free up many people to start small businesses.

Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Mar 17

@rickoooooo did you mean my essay? Yes, it's true. So far I am not seeing many people being fired for AI reasons here. But we also have some safety nets. For eg, recently my bro was retrenched and he had six months of wage support from our government. Yes, we have something called EIS which enables us to have six months of wages while we find a new job. @cliffle

@liztai @cliffle the other essay I was referring to was by @Daojoan https://www.joanwestenberg.com/a-soft-landing-manual-for-the-second-gilded-age/

As for AI related layoffs, I have seen reports of this happening in the US but also research that suggests many of these companies are just blaming AI because it makes it look like a positive efficiency thing VS "we are hurting financially". So who knows?

A soft-landing manual for the second gilded age

By the summer of 1945, West Berlin had been reduced to rubble. Allied bombing, the Soviet ground assault and Hitler's insistence on Götterdämmerung had destroyed roughly a third of the city's buildings and left most of the rest damaged. There was no functioning government, no reliable electricity, no clean water

Westenberg.

@liztai @cliffle There's no reason the parameters of the environment can't change. However the situation in the USA right now feels pretty grim and I don't have any hope of expanded social safety nets of any kind being implemented any time soon.

Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Mar 17

@rickoooooo yea I honestly feel for US folks and I don't blame them for their hostility, tho I get annoyed when they drag me into their arguments, assuming I have the same concerns, and if I don't I am the devil 🫠 @cliffle

@liztai @cliffle I must admit I'm guilty of assuming folks I interact with online are in the same country as me unless there's an obvious clue that they live in another country. Not that I argue with folks online but I do have a tendency to make that assumption in general. Conversations like these help remind me that the world is a big place and I need to work on reminding myself.

Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Mar 17

@rickoooooo it's ok I often assume every westerner I interact with is from the US haha. We live and learn. @cliffle

degenerating degenerate Mar 16

@cliffle "What did you do while society was grappling with the implications of AI, Daddy?"

penguin42 Mar 16

@cliffle Yeh people do tend to get very shouty whenever I say anything about even trying stuff, or where stuff works for people.

@cliffle I think the core issue is a deep emotional revulsion (fear) of the idea that human brains are essentially neural networks.

There is a real monster under the bed, we know what it is, and we have no assurance that we can tame it.