• slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    I’ve been getting from interacting with LLMs…with doing more and more and more and more…is not healthy for me or good for the world. It is careless, and has disconnected me from where people are on this.

    I think this is very honest and we shouldn’t give someone shit for speaking up.

    • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      This. AI and more generally algorithm dependence is an addiction and watching him struggle with it the past few years has been heartbreaking. Watching him try to bargain and rationalize an objectively misanthropic technology that grew out of a sphere that he was a major role in and did begin as an objectively beautiful attempt at building community and healthy dialogue is very disappointing. I don’t hate or judge him. He tried to do something beautiful. He just didn’t understand the Faustian bargain he made in the process. The systemic forces turning his work into poison.

      I don’t judge him for wrestling with it. I’m sad for him. I’m sad for a lot of us. We’re all working in a system that’s slowly killing us to some degree or another. There is no ethically clean life in a system predicated on greed, gluttony and lies. His optimism may have slipped into delusional, but it beats the crushing cynicism that comes with naked realism.

      I don’t think that we should lose hope, but the future can’t look like this. His Icarus moment shouldn’t be the end of his journey. I hope he finds himself and begins planting new seeds even if none of us ever live to see the shade of the trees that grow from them.

        • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          Yes. He doesn’t want to admit, he’s gone as far down this path as he responsibly can. He doesn’t want to transition to the “producer” role, where he becomes a resource for a new generation that’s seeking a future away from the old platforms.

          It’s a bit like the oil man who knows his work enabled so much good, unable to also admit his product has a dark side, and it’s time for us all to move on from it. That times changed and a new world is struggling to be born.

          I disagree about “edutainment” in a qualified way. We still need communicators and domain experts sharing their knowledge, and there’s still a great deal of knowledge to share, but I don’t think it’s on YouTube (or TikTok). People talking out of turn on matters so far outside their expertise and experience they’re effectively neophytes, and just as vulnerable to Dunning-Kruger impulses certainly doesn’t help. I don’t think that AI or better algorithms are going to save them either, that’s a good way to end up lost in a psychotic hallucination. I don’t know what it will look like yet but it isn’t going to come from the tech giants. Unless Wikipedia wants to take a crack at it, they might be the only ones that could pull it off.

      • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        But this is the first time there’s been this significant of an impact on one’s mental health(?) I’m unsure. It’s so easy to get caught up in that dopamine hit where you feel like you did something. Its even more frustrating when you’re forced to use it in work regularly, whether directly or indirectly (if you’re coworkers are using it there is an indirect force to use it if you need to stay competitive and keep your job and feed yourself and your loved ones especially if your workspace is not healthy)

        Thought experiment: is it better to treat the AI as a contractor (fivver etc) who is doing the task you’re asking rather than thinking of it as something you’re doing? From a mental health perspective A contractor because you are only to talk a out the task and nothing else really. That way it’s work could be more distant and you’re less likely to associate it to your work and boost in productivity?

        • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          No. This is a line we cannot cross and if it destroys us, so be it. I’m not against AI, or automation. But not these tools. Not these companies. Not these models. The question is death or death. So we learn to live without, or we die. There is no synthesis possible with this paradigm.

          • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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            8 hours ago

            The cats out of the bag, so what are we gonna do now. Like replace that but not this with any other tech you should stop using, say social media, good luck. So what are we going to do now?

            • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca
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              5 hours ago

              What do we do? We’re doing it. We’re asking questions, we’re building communities IRL and in digital paces outside the bounds of the major corps. We use poison pills to make corpos that embrace these systems pay dearly. We give grace to those who sincerely pull back and we move on.

              Cocaine exists and it can be a major boost to productivity. But we don’t have to use it. We don’t have to live with its downsides slowly killing us and robbing us of our humanity.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Hank Green has earned the right, with me anyway, to have his point of view heard. And frankly he has more credibility with me than the garden variety pitchfork-wielding anti-AI mob. I think Hank is a person who finds AI interesting and sees upsides as well as downsides. But the aforementioned mob is not interested in anything other than the emotional catharsis of railing against something they hate.

      Now ask me if the mob is in the room with us, because it probably is.

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        His AI use caused him so many problems in his private life that his family had to intervene. His point of view is “This technology has had a negative impact on my life and the lives of the people I care about”.

        Your pro-AI spiel is a bit tone deaf here

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I said nothing pro-AI. But by accusing me of that, you reveal where your own bias (and defensiveness) lies. So thanks for that.

          You’re also exaggerating the facts. They didn’t stage an intervention. He turned to his wife and brother and said “do you think my AI use is unhealthy?”

          • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            You’ve said plenty pro-AI lol. You don’t have to get so defensive about it, just own your position.

            I’ve exaggerated nothing. Hank himself said he’s spoken to both his wife and brother about his AI use and said they “didn’t pull any punches”, which implies there was a blunt conversation about it, if not two.

      • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        That’s fair. It’s a new technology, we need trusted people to explore it and tell us what their experience was. I don’t think we have very many trusted people left

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I don’t even know what that second one is, and I wouldn’t touch Xitter with a ten foot turd.

        • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          Ok, I guess you were too busy fondling Gr0ks and gipeettys balls to type out a constructive response. Are these how you’d like them to participate in your silicon fetish?

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yeah, part of what I appreciate about him is that he does consistently acknowledge when he fucks up and tries to change.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      For me it’s just another disconnected millionaire Youtuber. But he‘s kind of blaming AI or rather his relationship with LLMs for this dilemma instead of actually reflecting on himself. If he thinks simply abstaining from using LLMs will establish a connection to the people he‘s dead wrong and will likely fall back on AI in no time.