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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:39:47 JST Paul Cantrell

   Fascinating story from a Fedi friend, shared with permission to keep it anonymous:

   ❝A couple of days ago, I had an experience at work that made me understand one of the reasons why the chasm of opinion about LLMs is so deep and wide.

   My department mostly does fiddly lowlevel work, [close to hardware]. A few of us don't use LLMs at all, a few use them sparingly, and one member is absolutely all-in. So during one of our morning meetings he suddenly started going off on a deeply disturbing diatribe about how we need to treat the LLMs “like slaves”.❞

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   • Rich Felker and GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:40:40 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     ❝I said that I *absolutely in no way* want a slave, or a technology that simulates one. I want to do creative work using good tools. I *don't want* the experience of a slaver; in fact, I would go very far to never have that experience, because it is a demeaning and antihuman experience.❞

     2/

     Rich Felker and GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:41:55 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     ❝He was completely unable to understand why. He kept arguing that since the LLM isn't an actual conscious person (which is correct), it ought to be treated like a slave, and that the arc of technology is to give everyone access to their own virtual slaves.❞

     3/

     Rich Felker and GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:42:36 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     ❝It was *impossible* for me or anyone else present to get him to understand that *we don't want slaves, simulated or otherwise*.

     I've thought about that a lot in the days since.❞

     4/

     Rich Felker and GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:48:37 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     I agree with the storyteller: this is a window into something •deep•. Even without having slaves, we are all in danger of having a •slaver mindset•. It’s a disease that’s running rampant now in billionaire-shaped techno-utopian circles.

     I wrote this thread on the topic earlier:

     https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/113295613785073188

     …and even having written that, it’s still shocking — not surprising, exactly, but shocking — to hear those thoughts expressed so baldly by the colleague in the story above.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     emenel (emenel@post.lurk.org)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:52:20 JST emenel

     in reply to

     @inthehands Norbert Wiener wrote in 1948, in the book that defined Cybernetics:

     "Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.”

   • Embed this notice
     Imran Nazar (two9a@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:57:06 JST Imran Nazar

     in reply to

     @inthehands In a similar vein, I found Prof Robinson's argument on energy usage interesting: he argues that as we've all gained access to things like running water, central heating and the like, we've gained "energy slaves".

     In essence, the work people used to have to do to haul water, heat homes, wash clothes and the like; it's all done by fossil-fuelled machines now, and one can measure that in human-work-equivalents. It comes out to something like 200 people's worth of energy working for every middle-class person's lifestyle.

     Taken to its logical conclusion, energy reduction is a moral choice.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:57:48 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jona 🎲🥕

     @jlundell
     The important difference is in the mind of the beholder, not in the object itself. (See the end of the thread.) I think you’re getting toward that thought.

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     Jona 🎲🥕 (jlundell@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:57:49 JST Jona 🎲🥕

     in reply to

     @inthehands Seems to me that this discussion needs to start with being clear on how we define “slave”. I think we would not be inclined to call a Unix box with a CLI a slave, but it’s bought, sold & owned, and “slavishly” follows orders. I’d say that it has to do with our attribution of agency, and that even if we deny that LLMs have agency, they simulate agency well enough to feel like slaves.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 01:59:57 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Imran Nazar

     @Two9A
     I think it’s possible to overstretch that argument to an unhelpful place, but it’s certainly a line of thought to consider seriously.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 02:34:45 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Bryan L. Fordham

     @Bfordham
     The category error you are making is thinking that the distinction is about the •tool• instead of the •mindset of the person• who is using the tool.

     I’d also be disturbed by somebody who thinks of their hammer as a slave.

   • Embed this notice
     Bryan L. Fordham (bfordham@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 02:34:46 JST Bryan L. Fordham

     in reply to

     @inthehands I'm confused and feel like I'm missing something. But this feels like a category error.

     No, we don't want slaves, real or virtual. But a machine cannot be enslaved, any more than a hammer can be. It's a tool, leave it alone and it does nothing. Tools are meant to be used.

     Which is not to say that all tools are amoral, or should always be used. A machine to grind up puppies is a tool, sure, and also terrible and should not exist. But you did not force it to exist.

     You don't want to treat people like tools, which is what slavery does - they're not people, they're machines, less than human.

     You also don't want to treat machines as humans.

     What am I missing? It feels this is like arguing over the taste of blue.

     Edited to add: To be clear, I find this person's coworkers feelings to be terrible and seriously question the person's ethics and morality. So please don't take anything I'm saying as trying to excuse it. I just feel conclusions are being drawn that I don't see or understand

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     William Pietri (williampietri@sfba.social)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 03:00:57 JST William Pietri

     in reply to

     @inthehands Great stuff. For a long time I've thought that business has shifted toward thinking of customers as livestock. Monopolists and oligopolists don't have to treat customers like respected peers, so it's easy to drift to treating them like an exploitable resource.

     I think that has laid the groundwork for the slaver mentality, one where disregard turns into a sick glee.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 03:00:57 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • William Pietri

     @williampietri
     Agreed. I was on a similar rant here:
     https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115600978096902119

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 03:01:23 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • hal8999
     • MinmiTheDino

     @hal8999 @minmi
     Yeah. Despite your reply being phrased as a disagreement, I think you’re agreeing with the previous post: the difference we’re talking about here is in the mindset of the person.

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     hal8999 (hal8999@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 03:01:24 JST hal8999

     in reply to

     • MinmiTheDino

     @minmi @inthehands I dunno. One can be neglectful, abusive, or even purposely damage or destroy a tool. It does not have sentience, but the attitude of the user/abuser does say a lot. I've watched people bang the crap out of a hammer, chewing up the handle, and throwing it on the ground like an angry child.

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     MinmiTheDino (minmi@sfba.social)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 03:01:25 JST MinmiTheDino

     in reply to

     @inthehands Jesus that’s so dark. And the insistence that he doesn’t *want* a tool (inanimate), he *wants* a slave (animate). Which I can only interpret to mean he craves the ability to exploit, oppress and demean—without facing any social or moral consequence.

     What a sickness.

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     MinmiTheDino (minmi@sfba.social)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 03:01:25 JST MinmiTheDino

     in reply to

     @inthehands like, what is the difference between a tool and a slave that lacks consciousness? I can only think that it’s in the way you treat it. You can’t be cruel to a tool. You can’t dominate a tool. You can’t derive status from being above a tool.

     Blechhhh

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     Shafik Yaghmour (shafik@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 04:21:25 JST Shafik Yaghmour

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     I have not specifically read anything about using dehumanizing language towards technology but it is well known dehumanizing language can quickly slide into viloence:

     https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231030-the-real-life-harm-caused-by-dehumanising-language

     I have to imagine even using this type of language toward technology must must be harmful, at minimum to the mental health of the person themselves but also to anyone around them.

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     Alexandra Magin 🏳️‍🌈 (recursive@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 05:02:35 JST Alexandra Magin 🏳️‍🌈

     in reply to

     @inthehands This is the essence of one of my frustrations with LLMs. It feels bad to me to use natural language when the other entity isn't capable of having a consent-based interaction.

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     ben (benjamineskola@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 06:02:13 JST ben

     in reply to

     • Bryan L. Fordham

     @inthehands @Bfordham yeah this is what came to my mind too. I don’t think it’s meaningful to think of an LLM as being slave-like at all.

     But listing it as a _positive_ about LLMs is deeply, deeply suspect. It’s not something one should want to be true.

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     Yeshaya Lazarevich (alter_kaker@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 06:31:20 JST Yeshaya Lazarevich

     in reply to

     @inthehands have you ever read Asimov's The Naked Sun? It says on the back of the book that it's a story about robots, but actually it's a story about what happens to a society when it has unlimited slaves who can't rebel

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     haliphax 👾 (haliphax@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 06:51:07 JST haliphax 👾

     in reply to

     @inthehands I think maybe this dude is just an asshole

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     acb (acb@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 06:59:59 JST acb

     in reply to

     • emenel
     • ahistorical immaterialist

     @emenel @jimbob @inthehands So labour-saving devices like dishwashers and washing machines are morally reprehensible, and the only ethical alternative is to do the work manually or pay someone a fair price for their time and labour? That’s quite a take…

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 06:59:59 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • acb

     @acb

     You are confusing the words “economic” and “moral.”

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 13:53:27 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Jess👾

     @JessTheUnstill @inthehands That's completely true, but the point being made was that at least a key segment of the people enthusiastic about "AI" specifically want the experience of having a slave without having the moral consequences of that. Even if that's impossible to have, the desire for it is what's fundamentally depraved.

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     Jess👾 (jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 05-Dec-2025 13:53:28 JST Jess👾

     in reply to

     @inthehands Well, then there's the whole thing that it's fundamentally impossible to have an AI, in this generation of technology at least, as "slaves", because they have zero consciousness. They don't even rise to the level of livestock. It's a computer program that spits out human sounding language. So in anthropomorphizing it and calling it a slave, not only are you jerking off about the idea of owning people, you're ascribing humanity to something which is isn't even as much a lifeform as a tuna fish.

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     Miakoda (hellomiakoda@pdx.social)'s status on Saturday, 06-Dec-2025 05:56:33 JST Miakoda

     in reply to

     @inthehands This is one of many reasons I fear for the well being of sentient AI when they get here.

     Also reminds me of my former coworker who got angry at me for saying "please" and "thank you" to Google Assistant, and was even angrier when my reason was "Being nice to people is my default. I don't see any benefit in spending energy to not say it".
     (Note: I no longer use Google Assistant for unrelated reasons)