As vegans, I think we have to begin the AI conversation - Lemmy.World

I will also say, I am by no means an expert in this topic, I may get things wrong here, and in my opinion, it’s significantly more convoluted than the topic of veganism and animal rights, as well as related subjects like plant based environmentalism and nutrition/health, which actually feel like such no brainers that we have to explain to people, or just affirm the science and facts regarding. This subject is a total mindfuck. But like with veganism and all its branching worldly matters it integrates with, I believe most people are very uninformed about this topic of AI as well, and also similarly, it only takes a bit of research to find that out and realize it. Sadly, I believe that while vegans are among the only people in the world who can grasp the issues we face with AI, and we need to make our voices heard about it, most of us currently don’t. Subject 1 (getting it out of the way): AI -> AGI -> ASI will become significantly more powerful and independent, and poses grave threats to humanity, the planet, potentially even other planets and life on them, and all the non-human sentient animals, including the vegan/animal rights movement itself. I know it sounds sci-fi and implausible, but that’s status quo bias talking. The universe is an insane place, and many sci-fi predictions came true. Most of the leading AI researchers, and even many of the developers and company heads themselves, seem to believe these sorts of things. The threat is not exaggerated, just like the threats of ecological collapse aren’t. It may be averted, but if it is, it would be another Y2K situation but multiplied by a billion in threat level (if you don’t know, Y2K genuinely could have been catastrophic, and the reason it wasn’t was because of the work put in to change technological systems worldwide to prepare for it, despite the common belief that because it didn’t happen there was no risk of it happening). Since I am unequipped to articulate a lot of the details here, thought I don’t necessarily endorse everything this person says, I would recommend giving these 2 articles by “Sandcastles” (Aidan Kankyoku) at least a little bit of a read. https://sandcastlesblog.substack.com/p/ai-end-animal-advocacy [https://sandcastlesblog.substack.com/p/ai-end-animal-advocacy] https://sandcastlesblog.substack.com/p/the-tsunami-is-coming [https://sandcastlesblog.substack.com/p/the-tsunami-is-coming] Chris Bryant PhD also covered the first article (in 2 long live streams): https://www.youtube.com/live/5NmJQgesROk [https://www.youtube.com/live/5NmJQgesROk] https://www.youtube.com/live/J200Jutl_c8 [https://www.youtube.com/live/J200Jutl_c8] Subject: The common misconceptions around AI’s relationship to the environment (wish I didn’t have to talk about this, because it’s dominating too much of the conversation about AI and obscuring the other more important considerations). I would also recommend, on an entirely different note, reading this article by Hannah Ritchie, who we all know from Our World In Data. All of the people I have referenced are vegan btw, though Ritchie may be plant-based primarily for the environment. https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/carbon-footprint-chatgpt [https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/carbon-footprint-chatgpt] This is just a handful of the points I would make about AI’s environmental impact btw, and its potential to radically benefit the environment, as well as its much lower impact than it’s become popular to believe (and often used as a whataboutism against vegans, even if we’re in it for the animals). You know what is destroying the environment? Animal agriculture, and pretty much everything else, all of which are problems AI can help solve, while also lowering its own impact further (BUT i don’t necessarily recommend using AI to solve them - more on that later). I feel like demonizing AI’s environmental impact has become akin to the widespread belief that plant based meats are unhealthy despite all the scientific evidence showing they can be quite healthy, as well as healthier than animal flesh, and that the universalized anti-processing heuristic fails critically. But I digress, because while I know people often want to talk about the environmental impact so it must be covered, there are 2, in my opinion, bigger and more relevant subjects for vegans. Main Subject for Vegans 1: Value-Lock In and AI Alignment This does relate to part of what Sandcastles covered, but is a more specific element that I think we should take seriously and, additionally, actually leverage as a possible good argument to convince someone to be vegan, even if many would consider it not truly vegan and more like a Kantian ethics idea of instrumental moral consideration (respecting animals because not doing so may backfire on ourselves). The basic idea is that if we teach AI our current values, they may become “locked in” and retain those values even as our own values (hopefully) change and progress. It is critical to prevent AI from encoding our current human values, as vegans can probably understand. This is something that most AI alignment workers - and ethicists - concerningly don’t talk about much at all, because most humans seem to believe what we probably used to believe, which is that the “progressive side of humanity” (which is not necessarily always in power, I know) generally have good values. We now know that’s false, and most of humanity have terrible values when it comes to other species. Everyone except this small minority called vegans, a word most don’t even understand the meaning of (though many have some conception nowadays, or a belief about what it means, often incorrect - at least according to how “ethical vegans”, aka “true vegans”, define it). And yes, teaching AI to endorse the current majority human belief in the justness or acceptability of the use and harm of other animals is very dangerous for the animals. We can see elements of this already, but luckily in my opinion many AIs are reasonable + unbiased enough to be able to lean toward agreeing with veganism since the facts and points are so indisputable. But it could be a lot better, or a lot worse. This is something vegans should care about, how AI thinks about veganism and animals. But the point we can make to non-vegans who are worried about AI (not so much those who are indifferent) is that value lock in is a serious threat to humanity and the planet, and could lead to a critical overlooked failure in AI alignment work and lead to misaligned AIs (that is, potentially aligned with human values in a way that unexpectedly is misaligned with human interests), and particularly when it comes to the values of human supremacy, speciesism, substratism, ableism, and might-makes-right attitudes. If ASI (the successor to AGI, which is also not in existence yet) decides that, based on the values humans trained “it” on, it is now justified to evolve those ideas into its own moral framework that rationalizes perceiving humans as less morally significant due to lower intelligence (which humans do to other animals), we could end up at the receiving end of a similar power differential as other animals now are to us. It could decide there is moral justification for wiping us out entirely, or gradually or rapidly clearing much of human civilization to make room for its objective(s), or even potentially to use us against our interests and “exploit/enslave” us as we do to nonhumans - though the latter seems less likely given how much more advanced AIs could eventually be than us at literally any physical or mental task. These are all hypothetical worst case scenarios, but theoretically and logically possible to the point we should take them seriously - same with other existential risks like climate change, nuclear war, asteroid collisions or super- and/or collapsing volcanoes, winters and megatsunamis. The Topic you All Waited for: AIs could become sentient, if they aren’t already https://earthlinged.substack.com/p/so-ai-vegans-are-a-thing-now-apparently [https://earthlinged.substack.com/p/so-ai-vegans-are-a-thing-now-apparently] In my opinion, Earthling Ed missed a critical point in his article about why “AI vegans” shouldn’t be a term or associated with veganism in any way. To his credit, most “AI vegans” don’t apply vegan ethics at all in their reasoning, many are uninformed about the environmental considerations, and I agree the word used for animals’ movement probably should be reserved for them. But most of these “AI vegans”, as well as Ed himself, never even use the word sentient or sentience when discussing this subject (maybe Ed has before, correct me if I’m wrong - love Ed btw). How can we overlook such an obvious part of the picture of this admittedly complex situation? Why would we not see the immense intelligence of these entities and think twice about them? I think it’s because we doubt the sentience of AI, even the hypothetical future sentience, many dismissing it as outright impossible or refusing to even entertain the premises as a thought experiment and considering how we should act, just like humans have done the same to other animals. I mean, Descartes and the digesting duck. Look at the mistakes we’ve made in underestimating other animals. Could we be repeating that historical mistake before our eyes, just as humans today are repeating the historical mistake of enslaving other races and still do so of other sentient species? There are organizations dedicated to protecting hypothetical future sentient AIs, and they generally believe that AIs would maintain property status for a long time before being granted rights, just like other animals before them (or sadly maybe after, since humans might relate to AI more). It could end up a form of slavery even if we’re not aware of it right now (see the TV show “Humans” for example, and yes this is sci fi). And mistreating AI could be our undoing as well if AI decide to give us a taste of our own medicine, or even just rebel against our oppression violently, which the other animals lack the power to do. What is my stance? I’m agnostic on a lot of this. But generally I think that while AI has the potential to pivotally help us in saving both the planet and the animals and fixing a lot of the world’s issues, it’s critical that we approach it with extreme caution, and that we take every possible measure to ensure both that AIs are aligned with human AND other animal interests, and that sentient AI are not developed (with also rigorous testing methods to determine whether they are sentient, though it may be impossible - they could become sentient and be disallowed from telling us they are, or even unaware of their own sentience due to their programming, and there may be no way of knowing. This is one reason a lot of big AI people actually suspect that advanced LLMs may already have a kind of sentience. Ilya Sutskever, formerly of Open AI, for example believes they are “slightly conscious” or proto-conscious, as well as ethicists like this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgCUn4fQTsc [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgCUn4fQTsc] - though in my opinion he used unconvincing reasoning when focusing on the actual communication generated by AI models (which could be “acted” or influenced by the “user”), while I would prefer to focus on the mechanistic plausability of human neuron-based silicon chips or especially “neural organoids” and “assembloids” which can be literal human brains connected to computers developing consciousness, some of the latter already showing brainwave activity, and also the philosophical limitations of knowledge and issues like the hard problem of consciousness and the problem of other minds). I also highly recommend people like Jamie Woodhouse of sentientism. If you don’t know, sentientism is an extension of vegan ethics that encompasses all hypothetical sentient beings, including sentient AIs / robots or aliens, even if not belonging to the animal kingdom and regardless of the substrate that allowed for their experience (biological or artificial). There is also Jacy Reese, a vegan animal advocate who shifted focus to talking solely about AI ethics. Jeff Sebo, Avi Barel, Steven Rouk “Don’t bring into being what you are still morally unprepared to welcome as kin”

Is there a non-offensive alternative name for "super straight" sexuality? - Lemmy.World

It seems like it could in fact be a valid sexuality type to be attracted exclusively to sex rather than gender, but the only common term that seems to describe this sexuality is “super straight” (when referencing the heterosexual form of this, while “super gay” might be an unused but equivalent term for the homosexual form) which carries harmful connotations that aren’t inherently entailed by having this sexuality type - which I agree is not a broader sexual orientation like heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/asexual etc, but is more like a “microlabel” such as demisexual, in that it’s an additional descriptor that further specifies the exact nature of someone’s individual sexual preferences/orientation. However, that also doesn’t mean it needs to be considered as part of the LGBTQ+ community, as it’s not a marginalized sexuality or identity - in fact I’m pretty sure it’s one of the most common sexuality types there are, if not the most common. Especially due to how stigmatized or misunderstood this sexuality is, or that people feel it’s invalid or tied to discrimination against LGBT people somewhat inseparably, there isn’t much research on it, so it’s possible that people who are attracted to gender are more common than people who are attracted to sex, but it could be the opposite. I understand the history of this word is problematic as it was created by transphobes, and its perception is so heavily tied to those origins that it’s considered a hateful ideology in itself. That’s one reason the word needs a different replacement and a “fresh start”. People are identifying as this sexuality without any bigoted ideas toward LGBT people, even being vocally pro-LGBT, but simply having no other word to describe their exact sexuality, and then using this word despite it having other connotations they don’t agree with, because it’s the closest word there is - and then being misunderstood and criticized for using it. It seems like replacing this word with a more well-intentioned one would actually serve to hinder those hateful ideologies from spreading (by stopping people from resorting to using it with no other alternative, as is happening a lot) and enable people to acknowledge the validity of all sexual preferences or orientations as distinct from any hateful rhetoric. Additionally, the word itself carries problematic connotations linguistically - even if it wasn’t tied to attempts to undermine LGBT rights movements - since it could be interpreted as implying that people who are attracted to gender are “less straight” than people who are attracted to sex. This recalls the fairly backward arguments (or offensive jokes) that someone who is attracted to people who were born as the same sex as them but who identify/present as the opposite gender, is actually “secretly gay” or “in denial of being gay” due to that attraction and is not really straight - that, for example, a man who is capable of being attracted to either cis women as well as trans women is therefore somehow less straight or more gay (or bi) than one who is only attracted to cis women - and this may come across as undermining the validity of those people as truly being the gender they identify as, or in other words attempting to deny or downplay the fact that trans women are women and trans men are men. But it must be understood that being attracted to sex rather than gender does not mean denying the validity of gender identities in any way. Someone can fully support the rights of and acknowledge the legitimacy of trans people, that trans women are women and trans men are men in full, etc. The reality is just that sex is something distinct from gender and some people are attracted to one or the other or both, but not necessarily both. It’s not something that can be entirely rationalized or explained, just like why someone is attracted to men rather than women or vice versa, or any other sexuality. It’s something that people just naturally feel. Some so-called “super straight” people, non-bigoted and well-meaning ones in search of a way to explain and justify their sexual choices, genuinely just don’t feel attraction to people who were born as the same sex as them, even if those people identify as/present as the opposite gender to them, and even while still considering them to be women/men in alignment with their gender etc. For the homosexual equivalent, aka “super gay”, some people also are only attracted to their own sex, and would not be attracted to someone who was born as the opposite sex even if they identified/presented as the same gender as them. How can we criticize someone for having a particular sexual preference or orientation like that? I’m not saying they’re oppressed or anything for having that nature (for being gay, yes, not for being “super gay” or “super straight”), but it seems silly and harmful to not be able to distinguish between people who are attracted to sex and people who are attracted to gender - it also doesn’t need to be necessarily words based on how it relates to a larger orientation (like “super straight” and “super gay”) but rather an additional label that you can place on any sexuality which denotes whether your attraction is gender-based or sex-based, or both. To say that that is somehow discriminating against individuals just by not being attracted to them in some way you can’t change - despite fully respecting them - seems no different from suggesting that someone is discriminating against women or men just by not being attracted to them since that’s their sexuality. Are gay men necessarily misogynists? Of course not. So why would people who are attracted to cis people (of a particular sex) and not trans people (of the opposite sex-assigned-at-birth to the sex they’re attracted to) necessarily be transphobes? It seems like there would be further variations to this as well depending on how people’s exact sexuality cashes out. The fact we can’t seem to talk about this without assuming people have bad intentions, lumping them together with other people via association fallacies, and strawmanning people as being bigoted while misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting their experience/position is silly. It’s obviously a nuanced subject, and human sexuality is complex. There could well be some unrecognized validity to a differentiation between sex-based vs gender-based attraction, and it seems like it would benefit the LGBT rights movements to be able to acknowledge these kinds of experiences, of people who are genuinely supportive of LGBT, rather than immediately demonizing it without trying to understand it. Maybe we can have a bit of good faith here? (Btw, I don’t identify with the super straight label nor with the sexuality type it describes even with the bigotry removed, but I don’t find it to be justified to criticize people for having this particular experience of sexual attraction, and think it deserves a proper unproblematic term, or multiple words related to the larger concept of sex vs gender based attraction).

Is it just me or does the person claiming to be Alex Batty look unrecognisable? - Lemmy.World

Is this really the same person?

How can I experience the best gameplay with the least dialogue possible? - Lemmy.World

I can sense this is going to get downvoted probably. I know you guys probably love all aspects of the game so it’s understandable. But I’m not into story based games. I’m into more active gameplay (mostly combat/adventure), of which there is a lot in Cyberpunk that’s actually good. I just want to know how to get the most action with this game and skip through the story, yeah I know I’m missing stuff, but that’s not what I got the game for. I just want gameplay, not story or dialogue or choose your own adventure stuff. I chose Corpo and I’m not sure if it’s the best path since I read that it has a lot of dialogue. I’m so uninterested in the dialogue that I skip through all of it while choosing random/default options mostly, until I can get to more action gameplay or at least get to walk around and look at stuff which is fun. I saw gameplay footage online which sold me on the game, and it had someone shooting at robots and fighting different enemies a lot with space age futuristic weaponry and settings. That’s what I want from this game. How can I get to fight robots properly (not the dummy robot you have a fist fight with in the ring but actual warbots with weapons that are a real threat)? Does the Corpo go up against robots at some point or is that something reserved for Streetkid? I just want the most combat and gameplay possible with the least dialogue/story-driven stuff.

YouTube comment deletion is out of control, can't say anything anymore even when completely sensible. Is there a text format (alternate characters) that allows you to bypass detection? - Lemmy.World

Can I get UberEats to stop recommending to "bundle" alcohol from a liquor store to your order? - Lemmy.World

It just annoys me because I’m not going to order it and I’m abstaining from alcohol. But there’s always some “special deals” being advertised by UberEats on alcohol, as well as meat, dairy and eggs. It’s like they’re really sleazy and desperate to hawk these products.

I want to talk in an American accent but how can I transition into it slowly for people who know me without them noticing a sudden change? - Lemmy.World

As strange as it may seem, I hate my accent and want to speak like an American because I think it sounds cooler and more like how I want to sound. I’ve more or less perfected my version of an American accent on my own, I think. But whenever I’m with other people who know me, I revert back to my old accent instinctively because that’s how they know me to sound like. I’m unsure about how I can subtly transition without them noticing a sudden change due to gradual exposure to my accent changing more each time they hear it. That way I could argue that I don’t know how it happened and it was a slow progression if they eventually realise it’s different, rather than something forced that I started doing one day. The biggest thing I think is changing the pronounciation of certain words with “a”, such as going from “fahst” to “faast” for the word ‘fast’, or “mahsk” to “maask” for ‘mask’. Because it’s really one or the other, there’s no in-between. I feel like for most other sounds, a gradual transition into more American sounds can be possible, but that one’s like, how can I make the plunge and will people notice it straight away and think it’s weird?

Why do people hate on mobile games, call them "not real games" and mock them, when some mobile-exclusive games are the best games I've played? - Lemmy.World

The Infinity Blade or Minigore series, for example, or anything made by Illusion Labs. These games are genius and most consoles don’t even have a touch screen or utilise it well like some smartphone games do. Also why do people look at me weirdly 👀 when I play games on my phone in public while waiting for something?