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honestFeedback t1_jdo6esq wrote

Tech is just fucking weird. They seem to think they should be allowed to grow more rapidly than we've ever seen before, make billions of dollars, but have no accountability for the social chaos they cause because that would moderately impact the huge sums they make.

Facebook could moderate its content much better, but refuse to because it will affect their fucking massive bottom line. Needs to clamped down on hard IMHO.

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SuperSpread t1_jdpd13s wrote

That part is exactly the same it always has been in America. It was worse with the food industry a century ago. Much worse. So they passed laws and now it's a lot better.

Lots of industries grew as fast as tech, back when they were tech. Like planes, trains, and automobiles. Personal computers and their impact on business is far bigger an impact than tech. The industrial revolution was a much bigger impact on GDP than tech today. Almost an order of magnitude.

If you want to see no accountability, look up what the Dutch India company did in their territories. A literal startup company enslaved and committed genocide with their private armies, just for profit. There was a lot more social chaos from just that.

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OhHiMark691906 t1_jdpq0nd wrote

But the problem is that current lawmakers cannot wrap their heads around what's happening (Tiktok ceo hearing proved it) or they are in the pockets of these billionaires as they need funds for the elections. It's going to be a very difficult task to regulate the big tech.

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[deleted] t1_jdpusy9 wrote

[deleted]

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GenX_DILLIGAF t1_jdrzgm0 wrote

Because automobiles and trains were a progression of moving distances using horse and horse & cart, something which had been around for millennia. They were an advancement of transportation, a more efficient way to move longer distances in less time and move more people and goods those distances, not an entirely new concept.

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Fusional_Delusional t1_jdq33mo wrote

Even if they could, Congress ceased to function as a governing body unless the same party controls both houses since the mid 90s.

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altcastle t1_jdqh7di wrote

It doesn’t function now unless a party has filibuster proof senate except for a few things. And it’s impossible for democrats to ever get that due to how stupid senate distribution is.

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drncu t1_jdqtd8g wrote

My 2 cent on that is it’s a good thing. The US is pretty divided on both issues. Keeping them in a stalemate is preventing either side from making laws that would be unfavorable to the other 50%.

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Fusional_Delusional t1_jdqu8zp wrote

I used to believe this, but it assumes that all the stalemate is over legitimate disagreement, but at this point they will not permit a “win” even if they actually agree with the point. There should be space to legislate around the (admittedly few) points of legitimate agreement more substantive than naming a post office.

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mrcapmam1 t1_jdqxqec wrote

The problem is it's not 50% it's more like 30% and that 30% is blocking what most american's want

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Vorpishly t1_jdqu90i wrote

Oh they can, it’s just they are paid not too. That’s how lobbying works.

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OhHiMark691906 t1_jdquugv wrote

True. I mean SVB is a classic case of how lobbying works in this country.

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MutableReference t1_jdq0qsh wrote

Ahhhh capitalism, what will you do next? Yeah btw Facebook as been complicit in a genocide iirc so yeah…

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3eeve t1_jdqhesb wrote

And? Is this supposed to be a counter argument? If so, it’s tired trash. The ills of yesterday don’t diminish the challenges of today.

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LudereHumanum t1_jds3a82 wrote

Exactly. Besides, that it already happened a century ago should be an argument for more stringent regulations, not against it.

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FollowingFeisty5321 t1_jdp8x1f wrote

Big tech needs to be accountable for enabling malignant content to spread, profiting from scam apps, selling counterfeit goods etc, instead of this carte blanche they somehow wield.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdpc5n6 wrote

Also destroying functional institutions like taxi services and replacing them with unreliable substitutes that lower wages. That and gd Airbnb destroying housing affordability.

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Adventurous_Job_9555 t1_jdpeug3 wrote

everywhere i ever went taxi services were overpriced not functional institutions (Taxi drivers themselves complained about it)

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdphkku wrote

Lol now Uber and Lyft cost about the same and it's way harder to get a ride than it used to be so I guess tech didn't fix anything at all.

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[deleted] t1_jdpuzoo wrote

[deleted]

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdqwxoj wrote

When I go to the airport by my house there are tons of taxis just sitting there. I just get in and they take me to my house. The cost is the same or sometimes less than a rideshare.

If I try to do the same thing with a rideshare, I have to wait for 10-20 minutes for it to show up. The drivers are often inexperienced and don't know the shortcuts to get to my house (the area I live in is mapped inaccurately by Google). A lot of them speak zero English and me giving them directions hasn't helped.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr0dzo wrote

The airport is a pretty small subsegment of national taxi use and this isn't the common urban experience. They might be one place the taxi model worked. For those of us without cars and relying on taxis for normal transportation they were a nightmare.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdr12se wrote

It's pretty much the same deal at any airport I've been to in the past two years. Cabs have been way more efficient for me and sometimes cheaper. The only time I rideshare is when I return from an airport. You can say my experience doesn't matter, but that's a pretty weak argument imo.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr1dca wrote

I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I am saying there are other large markets where the cab solution made our lives a nightmare. You should choose what works best for you and the market can decide where taxis are working great and where they are failing.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdr2fpn wrote

The point is that exactly what you think is happening isn't. The rideshare companies are propped up with investor funds. They were only able to capture the market because of unsustainably low pricing. It is not a fair fight at all.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr913t wrote

I still use them, and they beat both expectations and earnings in Q4. We'll see what the market does, but I don't think Uber is going anywhere. I agree they used low pricing to capture market share and that wasn't a fair fight, but I am still not ever going back to taxis.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdrbtit wrote

Congrats, you bought into their marketing strategy. Remember when they used to argue rideshares would take cars off the road and reduce emissions through carpooling? People don't even remember why it's called ride-sharing in the first place. They basically lied in order to take over an industry using billionaire funds.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdrfucb wrote

I like the service for what it is, so I will still use it for what it is. I don't particularly remember or care what their marketing was. I judge it by the value it brings me today.

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Adventurous_Job_9555 t1_jdqav5f wrote

insane mental gymnastiscs to pretend those dont have advantages over taxi, you must be a taxi company owner or something

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mnemonicer22 t1_jdpoykg wrote

Nah, we got a shiny app to harvest all our data out of it.

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altcastle t1_jdqlmyf wrote

Paying ridiculous amounts like 1/4 maybe 1/2 a mil for a medallion, right? Insane.

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BasielBob t1_jdsmpyc wrote

They were overpriced in part because of all the regulations, standards, specialized equipment, medallion taxes, etc.

Uber / Lyft we’re allowed to compete in the same space but without having to follow the same rules and regulations.

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Rodgers4 t1_jdpry5f wrote

This is some revisionist history unless you’re specifically referring to a densely populated city that you can hail a cab. Before Uber/Lyft, if you weren’t in an urban core like Chicago or New York, you had to call the cab company and they would maybe show up in 30-60 minutes, not call you when they got there, and leave.

With Uber/Lyft you have a driver and know when they’re coming via the app and you can communicate with them. I’d pay more for that alone. Too many nights at a bar, calling a cab, and getting some BS “they’ll be outside in an hour” only to never hear back or get a cab.

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bony_doughnut t1_jdrkftm wrote

Oh, and don't forget how awesome it is to pay $200 for a hotel room then have to hide in the bathroom after your kids fall asleep because it's literally just a single, 50sqft room

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdqvzpf wrote

You assume no one cares about what happens in Chicago or New York. Pretty typical of the tech attitude. If it doesn't affect CA it doesn't matter.

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vonkempib t1_jdq03r0 wrote

No that’s how capitalism works. Taxis failed to innovate. Someone did it better.

Edit. Airbnb is different than Uber destroying taxi

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BasielBob t1_jdsmtv4 wrote

You’re conveniently ignoring the fact that Uber and Lyft don’t have to follow the same rules and regulations as the taxi industry.

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Hawk13424 t1_jdqm5o4 wrote

Sorry, taxis are a complete shit service. They were like cable TV. They’d get a lock on a city and then provide terrible service without competition. Overpriced, slow, no innovation.

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DJdangerdick t1_jdqhn0l wrote

It’s more Zillow and friends that destroyed ( and are still damaging) the housing market.

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bitfriend6 t1_jdplqtb wrote

Silicon Valley was founded upon a railroad that preformed the same social disruption in the 19th century, turning an otherwise quiet frontier state full of mexicans into a polluted industrial power plant capable of building nuclear weapons. It's not weird, it's capitalism, and the eighties are over. The growth era is over, and we can't expect these businesses to not abuse their power in the same way every other gigantic network has before them. The government needs to regulate them, if the Federal government is too paralyzed by the right than individual states can.

We literally did it with the railroads, and did it so hard where most Americans no longer consider railroads valuable or even important as we built a society utterly divorced from them. This has it's own social consequences, but demonstrates that it can be done if there is will to power.

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Fenix42 t1_jdprdab wrote

The thing is, tech is still in the new disruptive thing phase. It has not really even gotten started.

I am 42 amd a 2nd generation programer. My dad started in the 80s. He went over to the hadwareside after a few years. He still proframed at home as a hobby, though. I started programming at like 8 on my dads lap.

I have grown with tech. I got to learn it as it became more complicated. Tech passed the point a guy like me can keep up with all the new shit when I was in my 20s and working in the industry.

The speed has only increased since then.

I agree that we need to keep tech in check. There are major issues that need to be handled. We just need to be careful how we do it. There is still a lot tombe gained from it.

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seri_machi t1_jdqobwl wrote

AI is a field that is blowing up. Humans aren't done inventing technological revolutions yet (unless of course we start letting AI do it.) And the center of that is still Silicon Valley, the city of dreamers.

But yeah, regulate big tech. AI only makes that more urgent.

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WhatTheZuck420 t1_jdqx97h wrote

see the new knives out film. they're all there, only a million times shittier.

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Riversntallbuildings t1_jdrlxzr wrote

Dynamic, effective regulations are possible. We need a new generation of lawmakers that understand digital market and apply out existing Anti-Trust regulations to those digital markets.

Labor / worker rights a woefully outdated as well.

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b_lumenkraft t1_jdqbg0l wrote

> They seem to think they should be allowed to grow more rapidly than we've ever seen before, make billions of dollars, but have no accountability for the social chaos they cause because that would moderately impact the huge sums they make.

You describe externalities in capitalism quite nicely - not only tech.

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seri_machi t1_jdqorz4 wrote

Software is unlike all other major industries before it, at least in one way. For approximately $0 in materials, you can create a product that can be sold to a billion people with no shipping costs. Sucessful software companies are profit printing machines.

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b_lumenkraft t1_jdqqez6 wrote

I mean, you are not wrong, but you make it appear as if software would just spring into existence. That is of course not the case. There are costs involved. Creating software is labor-intensive and a very complex process. There are indeed costs involved.

Yes, it's a high-margin industry but not very different margins than, say, energy companies.

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ArmsForPeace84 t1_jdqcwc3 wrote

Boundless greed, entitlement, and outright fraud rebranded as "Effective Altruism."

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seri_machi t1_jdqpliy wrote

You thinking of Bankman-Fried? Effective Altruism is much bigger than him, and there's nothing saying people who commit fraud can't also donate to good charities. Some of my friends in tech take the Giving What We Can pledge, where they donate 10% of their salary to charities like the Against Malaria Foundation that have a high investment : life-saving ratio and low management costs. Effective Altruism an ethical thought movement heavily influenced by Peter Singer's philosophy. There are legitamite critisisms of it, but those critisisms are more philosophical, not "it's all fraud, actually."

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retief1 t1_jdpm4wd wrote

Ehhh, at their scale, paying humans to moderate is a tad infeasible, and ai-based moderation is very much a work in progress. For that matter, I think a lot of people would be really uncomfortable if a random human was reading the messages they sent to their mother. They could definitely do better, particularly when it comes to really widely spread stuff, but I doubt that they'll ever be able to get all objectionable content off of the site.

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MotorballPlayer99 t1_jdp9ea3 wrote

They promised a future of convenience and freedom.

Instead AI is writing poems and creating art while we meatbags get technofeudalism.

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BayouMan2 t1_jdpq0vo wrote

At least the feudal period had people who produced and commissioned some beautiful art and buildings.

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BODYBUTCHER t1_jdqbqzp wrote

Why you don’t like plain white or solid colored walls everywhere devoid of any artistic expression?

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BayouMan2 t1_jdtfwc2 wrote

Bland, beige office buildings are soul crushing.

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Riversntallbuildings t1_jdrmau2 wrote

Hey, come on…Facebook & Google hired graffiti artists to paint the walls of their HQ’s.

Those are the citizens new cathedrals of worship. Just like Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel.

/s

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BobRobot77 t1_jdpxyo5 wrote

Really mediocre poems at that.

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pohl t1_jdqgizh wrote

It occurred to me the other day that while art is the dumbest possible thing for us to have ai pursue, it makes a certain amount of sense.

Art is subjective. When put to objective take machine learning algorithms tend to do poorly. They don’t mind lying, or rather they don’t have anyway to evaluate and value true things. A subjective task is perfect for a thing designed this way.

We don’t need AI art. It’s pointless. It just turns out that making pointless art is probably what this tech is best suited to. Ask them to do anything that can be objectively evaluated and you will be disappointed.

I could be convinced that the whole thing is a smoke and mirrors grift. The “art” seems impressive right what an expression of individuality!! But, it is actually just covering up that this entire line of research has led to systems that can’t do anything functionally useful. Since most people (myself included) are not really equipped to evaluate art. We don’t notice that it isn’t very good at art either.

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LawfulMuffin t1_jdqz6rs wrote

In theory, something with an objective outcome should be easier for AI to handle, but it turns out the work to get that objective outcome is the actual value which is what I think a lot of people are missing about the conversation.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq115l wrote

I wrote a couple of (not especially good) poems the other day.

There were a small number of users in the comments who immediately accused me of having tasked a glorified algorithm with drooling out what I’d written.

Now, had said accusations been meant as insults, that actually would have been less distressing than the truth, which is that people on the Internet are proving themselves to be even less literate than I’d assumed. I mean, fine, most folks don’t know how to use hyphens, and I’ve come to terms with that… but the idea that a person genuinely can’t tell the difference between human-written text and program-written text really, really saddens me. It’s the equivalent of being unable to distinguish between a chef-prepared meal and something with the Lunchables logo on it.

Chat-bots produce painfully average offerings; works that check all of the surface-level boxes, but that are completely flat. They still scare me, though, because they’re revealing the fact that people who are willing and able to recognize as much are apparently in the minority. Put another way – and reusing the idea of flatness – it’s starting to seem like much of the Web (and therefore the world) is populated by individuals who lack the ability to see in three dimensions… and as such, they’re conflating actual structures with façades.

In short, I’m not worried about ChatGPT ever being better than a real writer; I’m worried about the humans who are letting themselves be convinced that it will be. The façades will eventually fall over, I’m sure – a chat-bot can only ever be as good as the best content fed into it, after all, and it can’t actually innovate – but until that happens, there are going to be millions of people consuming shallow, empty junk and not understanding why they hate reading.

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Norci t1_jdq62nu wrote

> It’s the equivalent of being unable to distinguish between a chef-prepared meal and something with the Lunchables logo on it.

> Chat-bots produce painfully average offerings; works that check all of the surface-level boxes, but that are completely flat. They still scare me, though, because they’re revealing the fact that people who are willing and able to recognize as much are apparently in the minority.

I know it sucks not having one's effort as a creator appreciated, but frankly, you're kinda being a bit of a pretentious drama queen here. Your comment with the poem received 2k upvotes with only a couple heavily downvoted users implying it was made by ChatGPT (which is currently a trend to use in reddit comments). Obviously, they are in the vast minority, not the ones that recognized your efforts.

There's nothing new or controversial here, there have always been arrogant and/or ignorant people online eager to question and diminish professionals and creators, with or without AI. For every topic there are dozens of armchair experts waiting for their chance to jump into the conversation, AI or not.

However there have always been hundreds of shitty creators too, producing content that is as bad, or worse, than AI generated one, being cheered on by a cohort of yes-men, so you can't exactly fault people for not being able to tell the difference. I went to an open mic last week, and honestly, AI would produce more enjoyable poetry than some of the people there if we are to talk strictly about the structure and content.

Maybe to you, someone skilled in the craft, the difference between human and an AI's poems is day and night, but to the average Joe it all looks the same, and it's not their fault, the simple truth is that it takes knowledge and expertise to appreciate skills and effort. I'd bet if you were shown artwork done by AI and by humans, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference either. But since most people do have experience with food, anyone would be able to tell Lunchables from a professional meal. I know it's an exaggeration, but AI vs human content is nowhere near as obvious to average people.

Mind you, none of this should be some kind of shocking news to anyone, AI is not the culprit here. The reality is that many people have no sense of taste or quality. That's why you have garbage content being popular, be it TV shows like Jersey Shore, generic music, r/funny or asset flip games. It always has been and always will be the case, many people simply don't care about arts and won't be able to tell apart good one from bad, AI or no AI. Personally, I'm into board games and it's same thing here, the amount of people who likes Monopoly, despite it being a shitty game all things considered, is massive. Ironically, I too started out my journey into the hobby with it.

It's tough being a creator and realizing that most people have no appreciation for one's craft, but many do. Unfortunately that's what decades of shitty media does to society, and few have time and effort to learn the better, nor do many need too either. You just gotta try to filter out the noise and focus on people appreciating your art.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq83xj wrote

You know, I’d be willing to take that bet.

I don’t think that a person needs to be an expert in order to tell if something has “life” in it; they just need to care enough to look. You suggested as much yourself: It isn’t a lack of experience (or even taste) that causes junk to become popular; it’s apathy, and that same apathy is being enabled by the incredible amount of “content” available to people nowadays.

Granted, you could make the claim that humans just default to gorging themselves on garbage, and it isn’t much of a step to go from there to the idea that predators – be they television executives or designers of Skinner boxes masquerading as games – will rush to exploit that… but even then, on some level, people tend to realize when they aren’t actually enjoying themselves. That realization might take a while to grow from a vague sense of boredom to a conscious conclusion (and a person could very well move on before the transition takes place), but I’m pretty confident that everyone is capable of experiencing it.

Back to my point, though, the fact that the accusations were downvoted isn’t really relevant. What saddens me is the fact that said accusations were made at all. Yes, you’re right, the accusers are just armchair experts who aren’t really qualified to discuss the topic… but aren’t you the least bit bothered by the fact that folks like them are currently shaping the narrative about ChatGPT and its ilk?

Maybe I’m just getting old, but as that same narrative gets increasing amounts of attention, all I can see is a growing audience that’s going to waste a lot of their limited time on feeling dissatisfied.

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Ecstatic_Airline4969 t1_jdq2nuj wrote

> Chat-bots produce painfully average offerings;

Tbf your self awareness and writing ability seem significantly less developed than a modern AIs...

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq2w3i wrote

I’m not sure what you think is wrong with that clause, but maybe that proves your point.

“Self-awareness” needs a hyphen, incidentally, and “AI’s” needs an apostrophe.

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Ecstatic_Airline4969 t1_jdq503w wrote

> I’m not sure what you think is wrong with that clause,

This maybe proves my point about the self awareness thing.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq5gw9 wrote

Yes, maybe it does.

You might be proving a different point without meaning to, though.

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Ecstatic_Airline4969 t1_jdq5vq1 wrote

Really?

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gr4ntmr t1_jdq7e0n wrote

one of you get to the fucking point cos I wanna know what's wrong with that clause

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq8m72 wrote

There’s nothing wrong with the clause.

I was making an indirect joke about the fact that they couldn’t even read a full sentence before responding, which kind of undermines their ability to gauge the quality of someone else’s writing.

I’d still like to know what they thought was wrong with the clause, though!

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Ecstatic_Airline4969 t1_jdq9pwv wrote

I can't tell of you're actually this dumb or are just acting impenetrable so you don't have to take on criticism.

Also you seem a bit invested in this what with checking back for replies to other peoples comments, you're a little bit upset about this aren't you? Why?

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq9vxh wrote

I must be incredibly dumb, then.

If you see something wrong with that clause, please feel free to point it out.

As for the “why,” I already covered that in my original comment. If you’d like, you can read it… or you can keep checking other people’s replies, which it looks like we’re both doing.

“People’s” needs an apostrophe there, by the way.

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Ecstatic_Airline4969 t1_jdqaf3p wrote

I pointed it out in my original comment and its more a comment on your whole school rather than just the indicative quote I picked out.

I read it.

My lack of effort with my throwaway comments here isn't really relevant to your shite attempt at a well written comment about shite writing. It's doesn't take a carpenter to tell you your house is squint. I'm checking back when people reply to me, you seem to be checking back to see if anyone has replied to me, not the same.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdqarg5 wrote

In other words, there’s nothing wrong with that clause; you just don’t like the perspective.

For someone intent on avoiding effort, you sure went through a lot of it to avoid admitting that.

You can feel free to get the last word in.

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Ecstatic_Airline4969 t1_jdqbbg7 wrote

No, you got that wrong. I think you are just trying impenetrable.

>You can feel free to get the last word in.

Lol. "What can I do to prove I'm not quite salty and weirdly invested?", you're quite reactionary aren't you?

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mickeyr2 t1_jdq6yga wrote

I was really expecting this comment to end with “written by chatbot GPT”.

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seri_machi t1_jdqqow2 wrote

I agree that it is a bit sad, and a bit scary.

> Chat-bots produce painfully average offerings; works that check all of the surface-level boxes, but that are completely flat. I encorage you to check out the demo page on openAI.

I'm sorry but if you're not wrong about this now, you will be in the next few years. GPT-4 can write some incredible poetry incredibly quickly, and at most all you have to do is edit them together and sand them a bit. There's no reason to think it won't keep improving.

Remember, you too are just a bunch of neurons trained on input, and you can be creative. GPT-4, likewise, can innovate. It can reason how to get through a maze, or explain a meme. It can pass the Bar Exam at the 90th percentile. We used to think our knowledge and intelligence made us special and irrepplacable, but we're realizing that maybe we're not. I think we have to admit that. Writing will have to be something you do for the joy of it, not to get others' validation, because there will always be a question now that a machine wrote it. I say that as a person who considers themselves a writer, too.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jdrcakx wrote

The comparison to neurons is flawed, and it’s one of the main reasons why this debate is even happening.

Chat-bots do not understand or comprehend. They are physically incapable of non-linear thinking, and increased amounts of data won’t change that; it’s a function of their underlying architecture. They don’t have neurons, nor do they have anything even functionally close. They absolutely do not innovate; they just iterate to a point that fools some humans.

If you consider yourself a writer, then you know that comprehension and empathy are vital to decent writing. Until such time as a computer can experience those (which – to be completely clear – is fundamentally impossible for as long as it’s being built according to modern computing principles), it won’t be able to match anything offered by someone who already does.

Put bluntly, it isn’t doing anything impressive; it’s revealing that the stuff being thrown at it is less complex or reason-based than we have assumed.

Edit: Here’s a great example.

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seri_machi t1_jdrvd6f wrote

I'm actually a programmer and at least know the basics of how machine learning works - I took a course in it as well as data science. I do not on the other hand know how the brain or conciousness works. Therefore, I am not asserting it can "truly" comprehend or reason or empathize, but I think it can simulate comprehension and reasoning and empathy (pretty darn well from the outside)[https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712]. It's not perfect, it hallucinates and is poor at math, but it's certainly proving our capacity for art/creativity isn't as unique as anyone would have argued... say, four years ago. To me it brings to mind the old aphorism about no art being truly original. My point about neurons was to point out that there's no evidence of a magic spark inside of us that makes us creative, we are as far as anyone knows just combining and recombining different ideas based on the data we've been "trained" on. There's no such thing as an "original" poem or piece of art (although Chat-GPT does an excellent job extracting themes from poems I wrote.)

It was only a few years ago we said (a computer could never win at Go)[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/ai-experts-were-way-off-on-when-a-computer-could-win-go-2016-3%3famp], and at the time jt would make you a laughing stock if you ever claimed AI would soon be able to pass the Bar exam. The goalposts just keep shifting. You're going really against the grain if you think it's not doing anything impressive. If you've fooled around with Chat-GPT and are drawing your conclusions from that, know that Chat-GPT was neutered and not the cutting edge (although it's still very impressive, and I think it's purely contrarianism to state otherwise.) Have some imagination for what the future holds based on the trend of the recent past. We're just getting started, for better and for worse. This field is exploding, and advances are developed in months, not years.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_jds0kei wrote

> I'm actually a programmer and at least know the basics of how machine learning works

Then you know that I'm not just grasping at straws when I talk about the fundamental impossibility of building comprehension atop an architecture that's merely complicated instead of complex. Regardless of how much data we feed it or how many connections it calculates as being likely, it will still be algorithmic and linear at its core.

>It can extract themes from a set of poems I've written.

This statement perfectly represents the issue: No, it absolutely cannot extract themes from your poems; it can draw on an enormous database, compare your poems with things that have employed similar words, assess a web of associated terminology, then generate a response that has a high likelihood of resembling what you had primed yourself to see. The difference is enormous, even if the end result looks the same at first glance. There is no understanding or empathy, and the magic trick falls apart as soon as someone expects either of those.

>It wasn't long ago we said a computer could never win at Go, and it would make you a laughing stock if you ever claimed it could pass the Bar exam.

Experts predicted that computers would win at games like Go (or Chess, or whatever else) half a century ago. Authors of science fiction predicted it even earlier than that. Hell, we've been talking about "solved games" since at least 1907. All that victory requires is a large-enough set of data, the power to process said data in a reasonable span of time, and a little bit of luck. The same thing is true of passing the bar exam: A program looks at the questions, spits out answers that statistically and semantically match correct responses, then gets praised for its surface-level illusion.

>The goalposts just keep shifting.

No, they don't. What keeps shifting is the popular (and uninformed) perspective about where the goalposts were. Someone saying "Nobody ever thought this would be possible!" doesn't make it true, even if folks decide to believe it.

>You're going really against the grain if you think it's not doing anything impressive.

It's impressive in the same way that a big pile of sand is impressive. There's a lot of data and a lot of power, and if magnitude is all that someone cares about, then yes, it's incredible. That isn't how these programs are being presented, though; they're being touted as being able to write, reason, and design, but all they're actually doing is churning out averages and probabilities. Dig into that aforementioned pile even a little bit, and you won't find appreciation for your poetry; you'll just find a million tiny instances of "if X, then Y."

Anyone who believes that's even close to how a human thinks is saying more about themselves than they are about the glorified algorithm.

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krum t1_jdpibr6 wrote

They're not afraid. If they were afraid they would change their behavior. What I do believe is that they want us to believe that they're afraid. They probably commissioned this article.

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dlxw t1_jdphb6k wrote

That was an invigorating read. Time to do a Milton and burn down Initech

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popthestacks t1_jdpll8z wrote

Yes, so scared they switched to wiping their asses with $100 bills instead of $500 bills

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TitusPullo4 t1_jdpfphz wrote

Afraid of what.?

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28mmAtF8 t1_jdqbazf wrote

Of paying taxes and of social responsibility outside of offering free bagels to their serfs on Fridays.

I work in tech, some of the C level players are absolute ancap goblins.

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Western-Jury-1203 t1_jdpk7cr wrote

Maybe you should read the article.

−3

TitusPullo4 t1_jdpmj9b wrote

The article vaguely suggests they should be afraid of either murder or activism

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Western-Jury-1203 t1_jdpmtpx wrote

So you read one paragraph into it?

−2

hcwhitewolf t1_jdq15jt wrote

The author spent half the article romanticizing domestic terrorism… it’s way more than one paragraph.

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TitusPullo4 t1_jdpmvqw wrote

Do you mean the whole article? Then yes

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Western-Jury-1203 t1_jdpn7cy wrote

Well there was a lot said in the article. it’s funny that all you got out of it was mild death threats when it was about sabotage in the 1970s.

−5

TitusPullo4 t1_jdpqb9w wrote

Fine I'll do more than skim read it.

It's about the violent activism from the 70s targeting tech companies for their involvement in the Vietnam war, including four bombings and a kidnapping. My earlier comment wasn't far off the mark

10

K----_ST t1_jdps08g wrote

"Waving away legitimate questions about the industry's labor inequities, climate impacts and civil rights abuses, they claim that the press is biased against them and that they’re besieged on all sides by "woke" critics."

​

Lol, the legitimate questions have to do with data and privacy. What a junk piece.

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fireky2 t1_jdqkmi8 wrote

I don't know a lot about tech sectors hiring but those questions are generally legitimate for any fortune 500 company.

3

MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr0vr0 wrote

Yeah, but if they apply to everyone then the article isn't really about tech or that interesting. The ways in which tech is unique are the interesting questions.

1

littleMAS t1_jdpirix wrote

From what I remember, 'the good old days' could be every bit as terrible as today, and sometimes much worse.

11

slashinvestor t1_jdobaoh wrote

Maybe because silicon valley keeps coming up with ideas like this?

https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2014/07/silicon-valley-wants-split-california-six-new-states-out-selfishness

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Monkookee t1_jdoje3o wrote

This article is talking about two people in a basement fighting over skittles......not based in any reality for those who live there beyond this handful of nutjobs. Like the 5 people standing outside Trump tower who were going to stop the cops Tuesday from processing him. They may support a particular view in an echo chamber, but not abject reality.

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rogerflog t1_jdp274c wrote

I didn’t read the article.

Just came here to say I’d sit in a basement and fight anyone over skittles.

And if it’s your first night in the basement … you have to fight over skittles.

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happyscrappy t1_jdppo64 wrote

Silicon Valley doesn't "keep coming up" with ideas like that.

Yes, the guy is a kook. Every group has kooks. Just this guy had the money to get his kooky idea to a ballot.

There have been other bigtime kooks too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1999/03/31/the-ceo-from-cyberspace-joe-firmage-a-master-of-the-universe-at-28-wants-to-defy-gravity-and-visit-the-far-corners-of-his-realm/6e8fcc00-2e11-4000-9213-c2d2f313757c/

6

Ghostbuster_119 t1_jdpuvt8 wrote

You see how many people post "eat the rich" and your wallet feels a bit heavy I imagine.

5

HarkonnenSpice t1_jdq12xf wrote

Any real coordinated effort to go after them would need to take place on the exact platforms they have absolute control over.

3

hcwhitewolf t1_jdq117k wrote

  1. Working adjacent to a lot of leaders in technology and biotech companies, no they aren’t scared. This author is full of shit.

  2. It’s a bit unnerving how long this author spent kind of romanticizing domestic terrorism. Like I don’t know how the editor at Yahoo Finance/LA Times greenlit this one. Guy literally spends half the article talking about domestic terrorism with hints that it should happen again. What a lunatic.

1

BenContre t1_jdr5jx5 wrote

Some (not all!) people in tech have absolutely no connection with humanity. They are wizards in their technical field. Narrowly focused. Gobbling up RSUs or whatever they’re called. Riding the stock market boom. I know bc I was this way in a field outside of tech. I also used to miss the forest from the trees.

Others outside of tech share this as well. However, the former have vastly more influence. It is terrifying for me to dawn on the realization that they have no responsibility, recognition, or appreciation for what they do impacts the lives of many.

I think of someone flipping switches and turning dials and not knowing what happens when they do this only to know in a remote part of the world (heck just down the street in SF) life is forever altered.

The Wall Street of the West. Money driven. No values. Just hoodwinked others with talk about disruption, innovation, and changing the world. Patagonia and vests instead of suits and nice shoes. Psychedelics instead of coke.

Source - time spent in Soma, DP, FiDi, Sand Hill Road.

1