There is a fascistic underpinning to much of the current push of "AI", c.f. the TESCREAL ideology bundle https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13636
But there are definitely also non-fascistic people involved in the hype cycle. They are invariably supporting a fascistic project, yes, but they are not motivated by the fascism. Conflating these groups will just make it harder to resist the movement, to pick it apart, to turn it on itself—which I think should be our goal.
I'm seeing this tendency among *some people* on here to make this a very black and white issue. Which is a common reaction when there are significant stakes, which there are. But it is seldom constructive.
In the AI hype movement we also find:
- Scam artists trying to make a quick buck
- Tech enthusiasts who stared into the eyes of Glyph's basilisk and became deluded, thinking it is making them faster c.f. https://mastodon.social/@glyph/116220257549451634
...
- Various professionals who have extreme FOMO and don't understand how everyone else is making LLMs work well (they aren't)
...and more.
I hope you see that I am not saying these groups are somehow excused in thwir behavior from not being motivated by fascism—the bar is not quite so low.
But understanding who these people are, means we can appeal to them, convince them, build a counter-movement and a space to land for ex-converts.
That's what I'd like us all to do.
Caveat: you absolutely get to rant about shitty AI-using people in your life, and will hear no complaint from me about that. I will probably agree. And social pressure is also an important factor.
If we want to win, though, and not move into the "AI" dystopia we are slowly approximating, we need a realistic approach for that part of the work too!
Another way to phrase this, which may be stepping on some toes, is: If the undercurrent of "and I'm so good for not touching AI and shunning everything related" in your posting bout "AI", it starts to look like it's more about you feeling good about yourself and signaling social group membership, than working towards real solutions.
I am upset at and think AI boosters should be held accountable. But I also feel sorry for a lot of the less powerful deluded tag-alongs out there.
We cannot fight fascism on fascism's terms. We cannot win over fascism by picking the opposing team on the playing field designed by fascism. "For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."
And with that, we're getting closer to this again: https://mas.to/@nielsa/116233438577511918
Kropotkin, late 1800s-early 1900s anarchist, suggests that it wouldn't be necessary to forcefully evict the rich from their huge, lavish homes. Sure, maybe delegate their spare homes to better uses, but there is no reason to take everything from them. Reorganize the economic system so nobody has to take the job of a servant to survive, live, eat and take care of their family, and very quickly nobody will want those jobs. Without servants, mansions are very hard to maintain.
I love this about the serendipity of the fediverse: this paper by @olivia et al appeared on my timeline right after I finished the above thread. I wholeheartedly agree with the aspirations they set out in the conclusion: https://scholar.social/@olivia/116357078510216125
In their terms, my take could be something like: avoidance purity is incompatible with increasing AI literacy, and increasing AI literacy is the best way to drag people out of LLM delusion/FOMO.
Attached: 1 image Finally, we end on: "The future [under the sway of AI risks being] a constant rehashing of the past, wherein human creativity and communication are not only mediated by but controlled by companies. In the midst of this nonsense, we must nourish hope in shared values" https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17786243 8/
A good introduction to AI literacy is Dr. Fatima's video: https://youtu.be/y85nqc2zm7M?is=tcS3-png_K5DDm_a
I think she's a bit too willing to look for productive use cases for LLMs in modes of use I think are untenable, and I think she's a bit too one-sided on the effect of social pressure, but it's a good primer on AI literacy and e.g. the negative correlation between AI literacy and AI adoption. As a start of a series, I find it interesting.
Edit: beware: more criticism of the video: https://scholar.social/@olivia/116359187901534566
@nielsa and this could be a good place for anybody, I guess, to start:
@olivia Thanks for calling this out! Maybe I'm biased by it being an early overview of AIL for me. As you can see above, I had issues with many parts of the video, but assumed the AIL part was good—at least interesting to me.
Will read your links and I'm sure I'll come to a better position! AIL is still a new concept to me!
@olivia What do you see as the core point of Fatima's video?
In my mind it's something like "shaming should be avoided in favor of teaching literacy", and as I said above, I disagree with her take on social pressure... am I missing something? Input very appreciated!
@olivia phew, some of those analogies were *not* stored in my brain from watching it 🫣
I completely agree with all those of your points, except that I maybe don't agree that a shaming is a fully nonsense frame, depending on whom it is applied to, and whether it is presented as an unequivocal bad, as Fatima does. So: I agree that her use of shaming as a frame is bad 😁
@olivia I think a general and growing negative sentiment towards LLM overuse can help pull people out of LLM use. E.g. seeing people on social media talk about how negatively they view colleagues using LLMs to mediate their responses, and how that feels could stop people using the tech in that way from doing so.
That would be social pressure/shaming working positively imo.
Niels Abildgaard
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ
