Notices by HeavenlyPossum (heavenlypossum@kolektiva.social), page 3

The more complexity, the more information we have, the more resources we must expend to locate, access, and process the information we actually need. We have to spend additional resources—time, attention, money—to confirm that the product we’re ordering online really is the thing we want and not fake junk that could unexpectedly hurt us. This is nothing new, of courses; people have been dealing with misinformation and information overload for as long as there have been people. But we’ve reached the point where we can automate the mass production of bullshit that can easily fool almost everyone.

Will LLMs bring us to the point where life-saving medical information is buried in masses of bullshit, requiring additional resources to parse the information first?

I was inspired down this line of thought by the op-ed below, on the threat posed by LLMs to the study of history. LLMs can generate plausible bullshit versions of old photographs and historical documents. Will we start losing access to the past as a result?

I am, by academic training, an historian. I also rely heavily on historical and archeological information for my understanding of hidden mechanisms of coercion, the space of possible human social forms, and methods of resistance and liberation. If the historical record is flood with plausible bullshit, we’ll lose so much more than just some sense of the past.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/opinion/ai-history-deepfake-watermark.html

5/10

And then someone had the great idea of creating LLMs, which some gullible fools have taken to calling “AI,” which are vast and expensive engines designed to produce plausible-sounding and convincing bullshit at inhumanly fast rates. The result is the flooding of our already crowded information space with enormous quantities of junk, at a rate that we can’t possibly keep up with.

Lawyers have started inserting references to fictitious cases in their filings, generated by LLMs. A couple of them have been caught. How many more have gone undetected? What about other fields that rely on trustworthy information?

I once needed a fairly uncommon vaccine in response to a pretty rare infection. It was rare enough that the doctors at the one nearby hospital that stocked the vaccine had to consult references to determine proper dosage and procedures—they had to look it up. For now, they could reference authoritative and reliable documents. But how much longer will that last, before trustworthy and reliable information is lost in an avalanche of plausible bullshit?

https://www.verdict.co.uk/ai-under-fire-in-legal-sector-after-chatgpt-used-to-cite-fictitious-case/?cf-view

4/10

In 1988, anthropologist Joseph Tainter published a book called “The Collapse of Complex Societies.” In it, Tainter argues that societies collapse—experience a sudden, unplanned loss of complexity—not because of what we colloquially assume would be the causes: invasion, famine, plague, climate catastrophe, etc. Rather, Tainter argues that collapse happens when returns on complexity plateau and start to decline, and simplification becomes a cheaper option than yet more complexity.

Tainter posits the following:

1 . human societies are problem-solving organizations;

2. sociopolitical systems require energy for their maintenance;

3. increased complexity carries with it increased costs per capita; and

4. investment in sociopolitical complexity as a problem-solving response often reaches a point of declining marginal returns.

In other words, it’s not the threat itself that causes collapse. All societies constantly face challenges and threats. Instead, collapse happens when societies get so complex that they have to invest more than they can afford just in maintaining their current level of complexity, much less additional complexity.

6/10

https://archive.org/details/TheCollapseOfComplexSocieties/mode/1up

@thomasjwebb

I would be content to lose my tolerance, and go back to the days of getting pleasantly buzzed off a drink or two.

@hakan_geijer

We’ll see! I have no trouble *not* drinking; I’m not having cravings or anything like that. Just not the healthiest relationship with it and decided I wanted a full reset (or to see if that’s possible).

I’ve taken the year off from drinking. I was drinking too much, too often, and having a hard time stopping when I started. Too reliant on alcohol to manage stress.

So, at the end of the year, I’ll reassess: do I still want to drink? If so, can I do it without going overboard, or has that ship sailed?

We’ll see.

@passenger @RD4Anarchy @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite

Of course everyone is naturally selfish. Everyone is also naturally prosocial. Neither of these facts contradicts each other or predetermines a particular social outcome.

@shadowsonawall

If people were only prosocially egalitarian among their own families, humans would have gone extinct 300,000 years ago. We are obligate social animals, and humans have built countless societies in which members are—for quite self-serving reasons—cooperative and egalitarian.

@passenger @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite

@shadowsonawall

Odds are that you already perform communism in your daily life with total strangers.

@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite
@passenger

@shadowsonawall

> “I won't be in what is a critical need from a stranger.”

We are constantly in critical need from strangers.

> “I have to live with my own selfishness, distasteful as it may be, as I try to make decisions that will most benefit me and my own.”

Why would communism be incompatible with your selfishness?

> “" the poor will always be among us" is a reality we must all navigate.

Poverty is a social relationship, not material deprivation, and is in no sense universal or permanent.

@RD4Anarchy @passenger @graphite @happycoyote12 @Radical_EgoCom

@shadowsonawall

> “Because I am a vile creature and am willing to let others suffer when doing so increases the likelihood that myself and those I care about, in an intimate personal sense, will not.”

Why is this incompatible with communism?

@passenger
@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @happycoyote12 @graphite

@RD4Anarchy @nicholas_saunders@mastodon.social @thetechtutor@me.dm @aral

The alternative to genocide is and always will be not doing genocide.

@peterrelph2

Super excited for the arrest and prosecution of the police officers who illegally arrested her haha just kidding that will not happen

@neonsnake

lol

@neonsnake

Such a titanic self-own by a handful of super racist geezers

@neonsnake

The horror. Coming from the US, where racism is so inextricably caught up with skin color, the sort of ie anti-Polish racism I encounter in the UK feels quaintly out of place.

@SallyStrange @pleaseclap @simon_brooke @violetmadder @mwt

In 1991, Nordhaus estimated that some 87% of the US economy is negligibly affected by climate change because activity in those sectors occurs indoors, in artificially heated or cooled buildings.

Nordhaus’ conclusions bear so little relationship to reality that it’s hard not to conclude that he was attempting to deliberately mislead.

@MakBerberovic

Other than yelling at people, have you considered taking any material steps, such as donating to get-out-the-vote efforts?

I have a hard time taking seriously people who warn me that the next US presidential election will decide between democracy and fascism and then spend most of their time yelling at anonymous strangers online about not voting.

Why are you not desperately trying to get out the vote in swing states? Or stockpiling ammo and batteries for your insurrectionary cell?

@juergen_hubert @malwaretech @GossiTheDog @freemo

You seem perfectly happy wasting everyone’s time so I’m not sure why it would only bother you when you’re asked to actually defend your tiresome assertion.