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jonny (nonvenomous) (jonny@neuromatch.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 13:33:58 JST jonny (nonvenomous)

I don't know how much clearer it needs to be for any pro-"AI" academics than the collusion of government and tech giants announcing $500b in funding for "AI to cure cancer" while simultaneously preparing to gut the NIH: you are digging your own grave.

In conversation Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 13:33:58 JST from neuromatch.social permalink
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  jonny (nonvenomous) (jonny@neuromatch.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:53:36 JST jonny (nonvenomous)
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  Re: "the "AI" won't work"
  Yes. Of course it won't. None of it does. That should be a given. Criticising the "AI" as not working in most cases misses the point and detracts from the larger problems of power accumulation, labor deskilling, wealth extraction, etc. I feel like "it won't work" increasingly falls in the category of "the computers aren't thinking" as sort of true but orthogonal criticism.
  Another way of saying it is that even if it did work it would be extremely bad to replace all human scientists with a gigantic for-profit AI farm
  
  In conversation Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:53:36 JST permalink
  
  Rich Felker and tinydoctor repeated this.
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  jonny (nonvenomous) (jonny@neuromatch.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:53:37 JST jonny (nonvenomous)
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  excuse me, that should read "you dug your own grave"
  
  In conversation Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:53:37 JST permalink
  
  Rich Felker and anban repeated this.
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  JP (jplebreton@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:54:09 JST JP
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  @jonny i think "it (the current thing you are plugging) does not do what you just claimed it does" is important to say, but i see it as but one table leg of the larger, more important political/ideological arguments around labor and capital (which is obviously what this is really all about). whereas ceding "it actually works" gives them unearned tactical rhetorical advantages - because they unfortunately control the media narrative. https://web.archive.org/web/20250107105052/https://cohost.org/vectorpoem/post/5421000-please-avoid-getting
  In conversation Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:54:09 JST permalink
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    please avoid getting played by tech companies' claims that their dys/nonfunctional tech "will be so much more advanced in [timeframe]"
    
    from https://cohost.org/vectorpoem
    
    To be clear the most critical arguments, against the dogshit they're putting into the world right now, have and must continue to center on harms to people and labor power. But I think it's still really important to point out, every single time, when their shit just doesn't do what they claim it does, especially when it has no clear path to doing so in the future. Tech capitalists are used to not being called on this. Most of the media is eating out of their hands, they've developed these rhetorical reflexes that we've all come to recognize from years of uncritical coverage: "Soon, this could be everywhere", "Right now it can only do X, but you can easily imagine in a year or two's time...", "It may not be ready for prime time yet, but...", etc. And the thing is, tech capitalists ultimately don't even care whether or not what they're selling does what they claim it can. But calling bullshit hurts their sales pitch - and with enough people doing it loudly and well enough, it can truly shift the rhetorical power balance in a given situation. The recent Amazon "actually just a bunch of exploited workers" potemkin AI [https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai] store bullshit was apparently aiming for only 50 out of every 1000 transactions needing human intervention. They didn't get below 700/1000 [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/amazon-ends-ai-powered-store-checkout-which-needed-1000-video-reviewers/]. That shit was never going to happen, it was a pure fantasy by some executives giddy with the profits they projected if they could cut workers even closer to the bone, and roll that out as the Future of Retail, everywhere. But you know right up until they bailed, they were out there pointing to The Numbers (fudging them as needed, as one can always do with numbers when ethics are of no concern) and being like "see? our very sophisticated very cool Machine Learning is getting better and better at detecting stuff. why, in just a few years, it'll be pretty close to perfect!" (do not use this as a drinking game phrase. you will die.) So I think it's very important to bolster our central arguments - that this is a power grab for the future of humanity, perpetrated by capitalists who are wielding tech to exploit and control us - with the plain truth of technical critique, which is that in a vast majority of cases they are making wild extraordinary technical claims that do not hold up to scrutiny and that they are presenting without sufficient evidence. If you are a person knowledgeable in technical matters, this is a good use of the authority society has pretty much automatically granted you. Be rigorous, of course: ask for proof, point out flaws and discrepancies, distinguish marketing from reality. And be comfortable with the inherent ambiguities of forecasting: don't bother making a specific counter-claim unless you're nearly certain of it. The most important thing is to displace a tech capitalist's claim as the sole word on the matter. In a better world, people would default to doubting every single word out of these companies' mouths. This edge of the Overton window already has a nice handle on it. The biggest reason I think the past few hype waves have swept up so many people and had such far-reaching negative impacts is that the tech industry has secured this implacable position in the public mind, creating self-amplifying cycles of both positive (the yearly PR rituals, product launches etc) and negative reinforcement. Most media people still live in absolute terror of being the next "guy in 2007 who said the iPhone was going to flop" - the world they operate in means they will never be punished for being too credulous but punished severely for not being credulous enough (ie being critical). Tech has seized the entire territory marked "The Future" in the popular consciousness, and they've shown us very clearly what they intend to do with it. They're going to be capitalists, they're going to make our lives as precarious and powerless and miserable as possible as they further concentrate all wealth and power. Fighting to reclaim the future from them will be a generations-spanning project, and we have to get good at firing every effective weapon we have. The general public will pick up on this, the "techlash" is getting more and more mainstream every year. We can win this, but we have to go for the throat.
  Rich Felker repeated this.
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  JP (jplebreton@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:54:24 JST JP
  in reply to
  
  @jonny "it will/would/could work", on the other hand, isn't usually worth the energy to litigate because it's all fantasy anyway. "my cloned hippogryph will beat you up by FY2028" ok sure man
  
  In conversation Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:54:24 JST permalink
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  jonny (nonvenomous) (jonny@neuromatch.social)'s status on Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:54:36 JST jonny (nonvenomous)
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  - JP
  @jplebreton sure ya, agreed. what i'm referring to is sorta driveby sniping at something like "that won't work" and moving on, missing what the point is. you start with 'it won't work' sure but if that's the only thing being said about something then usually the particular system being captured/etc. is being missed.
  
  In conversation Thursday, 23-Jan-2025 17:54:36 JST permalink

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