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   Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 06:18:36 JST Rich Felker

   • tante
   • altruios phasma

   @woe2you @altruios @tante Because if we gobbled up millions of copyrighted works and produced derivatives of them, we'd be facing decades in prison, billions in fines. But when they seize our stuff that way and enclose it and use it to manufacture slop, in gross violation of copyright, it's deemed legitimate business.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 06:21:52 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • tante
     • altruios phasma

     @woe2you @altruios @tante You should understand that LLMs have no legitimate purposes. They do not produce intelligence or knowledge or information. They produce *information-shaped* slop. The only way they get better is getting better at deceiving fools that the slop is what it looks like.

     If you don't understand what they are, what they're doing, and how they do it, then kindly stop calling the reactions by people who do "knee-jerk".

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     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 11:12:14 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     • tante
     • altruios phasma

     @dalias @woe2you @altruios @tante and i say "fake literature", because in addition to fake websites, we're also getting fake books.

     Here's a 3-toot vision of a future where the fake books drowned out the real books just by sheer volume:
     https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/113815941187816696

     Note that, as Holmér pointed out, this vision is, in a large number of cases, already a reality for the web.

   • Embed this notice
     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 11:12:14 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     • tante
     • altruios phasma

     @dalias @woe2you @altruios @tante i love technology that works for the benefit of people.

     but from what i've seen so far, it looks as if "a.i." is in the process of destroying some of the foundations of *human* intelligence.

   • Embed this notice
     altruios phasma (altruios@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 11:12:14 JST altruios phasma

     in reply to

     • tante
     • James Widman

     @JamesWidman @dalias @woe2you @tante capitalistic entities are doing that using a tool that can be leveraged for much better.

     Google flooding search, advertising getting more eyeballs. Magazines looking for subscriptions. The exception is educational systems, which however are subject to the same capitalistic survival needs… competition will look for any edge.

     Capitalism is the problem. AI is a tool… a hammer doesn’t wack a nail by itself.

   • Embed this notice
     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 11:12:15 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     • tante
     • altruios phasma

     @dalias @woe2you @altruios @tante 100%
     On top of that, the output of gen-a.i. (namely, fake literature, including fake websites) has been reducing the usefulness of search engines over time, as Freya Holmér explained in detail:
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-opBifFfsMY

     ...to the point where, in many cases, the only potentially-useful & potentially-legitimate thing on the first page of search results is a link to wikipedia (and the rest is links to fake literature).

   • Embed this notice
     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 11:12:15 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     • tante
     • altruios phasma

     @dalias @woe2you @altruios @tante and on top of *that*, both academics and students have been reporting a rise in dependence on fake literature & fake chats, to an extent that people try to use it as a substitute for critical thinking:
     https://ohai.social/@resuna/113533400798237448

     ...which seems like it would lead to an atrophy of critical thinking skills and research skills.

   • Embed this notice
     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 11:12:15 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     • tante
     • altruios phasma

     @dalias @woe2you @altruios @tante and some of us may appreciate the convenience of controlling home automation with natural language, but i'd suggest that the benefit does not outweigh the costs that we've learned about so far (which is probably not the complete set of costs).