TechTakes

I also feel like while it's absolutely true that the whole "we'll make AGI and get a ton of money" narrative was always bullshit (whether or not anyone relevant believed it) it is also another kind of evil. Like, assuming we could reach a sci-fi vision of AGI just as capable as a human being, the primary business case here is literally selling (or rather, licensing out) digital slaves. Like, if they did believe their own hype and weren't grifting their hearts out then they're a whole different class of monster. From an ethical perspective, the grift narrative lets everyone involved be better people.

I would also like to understand under what definition ChatGPT can be classified as "connection technology".

All connection technology is a force for homogeneity. Television was the death of the regional accent, for example.

Listen to a Geordie for five minutes and say that to me with a straight face. I fucking dare you. (Not you, the orange site member)

Also tell me more about how you don't have a lower-class or nonwhite-coded accent.

I'm in therapy and much better than I used to, but from my past before that, I am unfortunately quite experienced over many years in having existential worries and anxieties about extremely unlikely things.

And then I see this...

Cosmic rescue mission [...] These missions aim to identify and mitigate suffering among hypothetical extraterrestrial life forms

...and damn, that's next-level thinking, even for me.

According to some scholars, s-risks warrant serious consideration as they are not extremely unlikely and can arise from unforeseen scenarios.

Guys I have found a way to phrase my anxiety in a way where every single word is extremely load-bearing

It's like that Star Wars book where Chewbacca got a moon dropped on him

@UltimateNoob @techtakes This is … actually really neat feedstock for us SF authors, amirite?

Wait Ladybird is anti-woke? Sigh am I going to have to make my own browser?

(I know I know I'm a lot better about posting about wanting to do cool stuff than actually doing it, hazard of having a full time job)

Dominic Szablewski also founded the German image board pr0gramm where he is known under the name cha0s. It's similar to 4chan in many ways. That he enjoys the Ladybird crowd isn't surprising.

give this its own post

Concurring with everyone else that this is a 10/10 read. This article lays out a very reasonable theory that explains why tech maniacs are the way that they are.

Probably worth a thread in its own right. I find the "contempt" framing to be particularly powerful. Contempt as illustrated herein is the necessary shadow of the relentlessly positivist "you can do/be anything!" cultural messaging that accompanied the rise of the current tech industry. (I'm tempted to use Neil Postman's term "technopoly," but I feel the need to reread his book at least once more before appropriating it wholesale into these discussions.) The positivism is the seed that drives people to take an aggressively technical approach to reality, and contempt is one possible response to reality imposing constraints through technical limitations. Not necessarily one that I have ever chosen myself, but I see now that much of what we discuss here comes from people who have.

Overall I think this essay is going to be a bedrock reference for a lot of people going forward.

That is the kind of writing that absolutely anyone can get a thing out of. Will cause me to introspect.

✨The Vibe✨ is indeed getting increasingly depressing at work.

It's also killing my parents' freelance translation business, there is still money in live interpreting, and prestige stuff or highly technical accuracy very obviously matters stuff, but a lot of stuff is drying up.

It’s all gotta be in the models by now, but it’s gonna be a cool resource for something, right?

It'll also be helpful for helping the 'Net recover from the slop-nami once AI finally dies.