Got my first "AI is going to revolutionize the world" dude to that thread from yesterday.
But, I want to be very clear to anyone else thinking "I'll debate this person about AI's value because-"
Let me stop you there.
If you tried to engage me in a debate about eating my own shit, I'd also tell you to fuck off.
*Just* the *extant* externalities of this technology make it, independent of its "value", worthless. Add to that the fact that it's garbage, and again, debate is worthless.
I always described this urge to debate *everything* as sitting down with the person who kidnapped your kids and civilly discussing, over coffee perhaps, the relative merits of child rape.
Like, no, I'm not going to be open to conversing about whether or not your need to have an LLM stroke you when you're lonely at night is worth burning the planet to a crisp.
@johnzajac @stanley The demotion of ethics is really astounding. Ethical considerations used to be proscriptive. In medicine or science if an experiment or trial could not be run ethically, it *could not be run*. Full stop.
Techbros have seemingly turned ethical issues into just a part of a larger calculus; merely a negative weight that can be outweighed by strong-enough upsides. "Sure, lack of informed consent isn't *ideal* but think of the data we would collect."
@checkmite @johnzajac IIRC surgeons don't even take the Hippocratic Oath because it says, "Do no harm" and they cut into people. So, in terms of medical ethics, even life-saving surgery is considered borderline!
Compare that to software engineering. "Hmm, this might trigger a genocide but consider the ad revenue."
@checkmite @johnzajac @stanley
I think part of the reason why we've slipped down this slope is because the National Research Act of 1974 that mandates institutional review boards for research on human subjects only applies to research funded by the US Government. Unfortunately, quite a lot of our research is now conducted by private parties with private funding, and ethics regulations mostly don't apply.
@DaveMWilburn @checkmite @stanley
Interestingly, the vast majority of private commercial-application research relies on pure research funded by NSF et al. through grants to academic institutions, often State schools.
This is interesting, of course, because Trump and the oligarchs believe their own propaganda about things like pharma research and agricultural science and so have eviscerated US science funding
Soon-ish, US companies will collapse one by one as the global market moves on
@johnzajac @checkmite @stanley
It's not like we'll have anyone to conduct that kind of research after we've rounded up most of the scientists into camps.
@DaveMWilburn @checkmite @stanley
The good scientists will be long gone by then, if it comes to that. Just like the US essentially cornered the world on physics, materials science, military tech, nuclear tech, medicine, and most other industrial sciences by taking in scientists displaced by the Nazis, other nations have already started advertising shit like "we'll double your budget and let you do whatever you want".
When it becomes clear the US isn't recovering, they'll all emigrate.
@checkmite uhm…hate to break it to you, but the push for ethics is relatively new especially in medicine and social sciences. By relatively new, I mean horrible practices being normal are more recent than segregation… which even my mom was born into. I am greatful new generations were not born to it in many places, but it is very *very* recent history. Ethics became a thing when public became more aware. Some fought for better, others became disenfranchised completely with science as a whole. And some still want to return to that time that is in their own memory because they are horrible people who lack empathy.
Just as the right wants to sugar coat the past, let us not fall to that trap, lest we also repeat the horrors of the past ourselves.
@Myotis_cuniculus However recent, it was a solid trend that is now being reversed.
And I dispute that those on the front lines of reversing it represent old blood trying to regress to what they used to have. Those guys are certainly around, but your tech-hypers and AI bros aren't them, they are far too young.
John
Stanley Jones
Jake K
pL
Dave Wilburn 
Myotis 
Almad