One of the things that is amazing about AI derangement syndrome is that when you call someone out for buying into that shit -- someone you've previously been on quite good terms with for decades -- their response to you saying, "hey, you should stop doing that, there is no ethical use of this tech" is a level of offense as if you have just fucked their cat.
Some of you probably know who I'm talking about. If not, you probably have examples yourselves.
@jwz i can't tell you how many people are precisely this guy
@davidgerard @jwz the term AI has become such a trigger, pushing back on the hype and someone will quickly point to all the AI one isn't concerned about to rationalize their use of the hyperscalers' LLM constantly growing with everyone's use because using their own energy to produce something is so 2010.
I've heard them justify AI music because it's just like hip-hop/sampling was when it came to fore.
Would anyone buy a ticket to see an AI musician perform?
AI art, it's just like the camera and later digital.
Would anyone want to pay money to hang someone's AI art they "created" on their wall?
It's the great democratizer, evening the playing field for all.
At $200/mo + $600 for a Mac mini, really sounds like something everyone can afford. Superusers spending up to $4000 a month to stack their subscriptions to build fleets of agents. FFS
Or, stop using all social media then because it's there too!
Yeah, stop using centralized commercial social media already! You're just feeding their LLMs with more data.
And all this just steals away from the actual good people are doing building algorithms to assist human good.
I can't anymore, my BP is rising every day and...
@davidgerard It's really feeling like a contagion!
@jwz memetic prion disease
@davidgerard @jwz or ergotism, the neurological version.
It's a cult or perhaps a religious.
Anyone questioning the irrational beliefs of the faithful are automatically heathen unbelievers and to be shunned.
@simonzerafa @davidgerard @jwz TESCREAL as a whole is *definitely* a religion—a very familiar looking one to those of us who weren't raised in any variety of Christianity but in another religion, and therefore get to observe Christian behaviour from outside. And I'm telling you the singularitarian/AI bros are just speedrunning the emergence of pre-Nicean Xtianity as a syncretistic evangelical faith (this time without Jesus/God but with the usual salvationist/AI uploading heaven bullshit).
@cstross @simonzerafa @davidgerard@circumstances.run @jwz Which non-Christian religion were you raised in, Charlie?
@negative12dollarbill @simonzerafa @jwz Reform Judaism (British, not American —they're different)
@cstross @simonzerafa @jwz Very interesting, thank you.
@cstross @simonzerafa @davidgerard @jwz Full marks for "syncretism". That's not jargon I'd expect to hear outside Biblical scholarship circles. Very welcome. And exactly the right word for this.
@cstross @simonzerafa @davidgerard @jwz I would argue that it is very familiar looking one to those of us who *were* raised in any variety of Christianity…
@cstross @simonzerafa @davidgerard @jwz yeah, doesn't sound like a scam at all
@cstross @simonzerafa @jwz falling for the chatbot is not the same as TESCREAL (even as there's crossover). what would this one be?
@davidgerard @simonzerafa @jwz Cognitive bias reinforced by Christian doctrine centering around "souls" and mind/body dualism. I want to see a survey of chatbot believers enquiring into whether they believe in soul/afterlife/etc: I suspect there will be a broad tendency towards "yes" (so crediting chatbots as being a soul embodied in a machine).
@cstross @davidgerard @simonzerafa @jwz I was (sneer-)reading that rathbun post earlier and the twit literally has a `SOUL.md` for the prompt seed. as I remarked in the gc “that soul.md reads like shitty reddit advice to someone on the edge of a PUA community join-up”
the link, if you long to have a reason to bleach your eyes: https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/rathbuns-operator.html
@cstross @jwz @davidgerard @simonzerafa The proselytizing Christian behavior is also there. They get ofended if you are not sharing their fate. My respectful, but not enthused reaction to their religious talk is answered with anger. In fact, my recent interaction with devout Christians were more chill
@cstross It's also just the same vibe as crypto was, just grander scale. I must admit that I am missing the crypto or metaverse hypecycle though, as they were a bit more contained than this.
@ainmosni @simonzerafa @davidgerard @jwz I view the crypto hype cycle as a variation on Prosperity Gospel Christianity (which is more about worshipping Mammon than anything recognizably Jesus-adjacent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
@simonzerafa @jwz just had another one coupla days ago
he posted screenshots of how he asked Claude what the roots were of the anti-AI echo chamber
i won't diagnose the bot conversation as AI psychosis, but i will say that's the first thing that sprung to mind looking at it
the crash can't come soon enough
The crash is long overdue. Hopefully within the next six months.
@jwz Interesting, you don't think small open weight models running as part of a local OSS app are ethical?
@jwz OR the translation models used on sites like this to enable seamless communication; not ethical (Opus-MT, funded by the EU)?
Also, machine translation models are *at best* a @xgranade Class IV evasion
