I agree; LLMs and generative AI are indelibly a product of capitalism, and they can’t exist without widespread theft, exploitation of labor, massive concentrations of capital, and a willingness to destroy the environment. they are the stupidest use of technology I’ve ever seen, and after cryptocurrencies the bar for stupid was pretty fucking high. that the products themselves obscure the theft and exploitation that went into training them is a feature for the corporations developing this horseshit, not a bug.
and that’s why it’s notable that the self-described AI researchers behind these garbage products can’t even do basic shit like have the LLM not call a journalist a pedophile without resorting to an absolute hack that won’t scale. there’s no fixing LLMs; systemically, they are what they are. and now this absolute horseshit is a component of what’s unfortunately still the dominant desktop operating system.
The really fucking dumb part of it, you can believe me or not, is that this appears to all circle back to ancient misunderstandings about the nature of man, and attempts to create automatons which behave like men but are perfectly obedient. There is a subset of the population which tries this exact same bullshit with every new technology we create.
I can see that as being one of the influences that fed into the formation of the TESCREAL belief package — “I have an automaton that behaves like a person but with supernatural qualities” really is an ancient grift, and the TESCREAL belief in omnipotent AGI being just around the corner is that same grift taken to an extreme
indelibly a product of capitalism
They’re being funded by the capitalists that want to replace all those annoying human workers with the cheapest possible alternative.
Of course, the problem is that while a LLM is the cheapest possible option, it’s turning out that it’s the most useless and garbage one too.
(Also, I’m shockingly infuriated that the tech workers that would end up being the ones replaced the soonest are so busy licking boots rather than throwing their shoes into the machinery.)
Also, I’m shockingly infuriated that the tech workers that would end up being the ones replaced the soonest are so busy licking boots rather than throwing their shoes into the machinery.
so much of our industry is dedicated to ensuring that tech workers, most of whom consider themselves experts on complex systems, never analyze or try to influence the social systems surrounding and influencing their labor. these are the same loud voices that insist tech isn’t political, while turning important parts of our public and open source tech infrastructure into a Nazi bar.
I don’t know if it’s the system keeping them from analyzing it so much as it’s simply that a good number of tech bros fall into the Actually a Nazi or the Paid Enough They Don’t Care categories and for the most part happily keep on doing what they’ve been doing. If any of them had actual ethics or morals they’d take action, but they just plain don’t.
Perhaps I’m too cynical, but after 20+ years working in tech, with most of the last 10 being in an abuse role at a PaaS company and seeing how management is willing to play endless whataboutism (my favorite was our Jewish lead council going on about how there’s nothing wrong with Nazis having a voice and a platform, and then some crazy story about bullying when he was a kid) and the majority of non-management is happy to just shrug and play along and so you end up with a Nazi bar, as you mentioned.
The problem is that, right now, ALL the bars in this horribly tortured analogy are Nazi bars and everyone gets subjected to the Nazi propaganda.