Discussion
from ex-bsky-staff rationalist who turned a bot loose on bsky and demanded people take it seriously:
you should not use "clanker" because the basilisk might take offence
https://bsky.app/profile/hailey.at/post/3mtwjoqdvik26
later in the thread, she states that "techbro" is a slur
@davidgerard I don't think he's heard of *my* basilisk. Imagine a sufficiently advanced superintelligence that reverses time to torture anyone who ever talks to a computer as if it was people.
I call it the Rationalest Basilisk.
@davidgerard so instead of fighting companies like insurances trying to use clankers for decision-making, we should be nice to the clanker?! 😭
@davidgerard i will take AAAAAAALL the credit for making techbro a thing. over 2 decades now been using it to mean silicon valley fascist.
@davidgerard I'm sorry is that a threat? "Play ball and don't say anything bad about AI otherwise the AI that we're going to put in charge of important decisions that impact your life will maliciously (be trained to) deny your claim"
@davidgerard STATE FARM'S BASILISK
@davidgerard What a picture perfect illustration of exactly why corps and governments should not be using LLMs to inform or make any decision of consequence.
Oh, "techbro" is definitely a slur. At least that's my intention when I use it.
If that doesn't come through with that term, I'm open to suggestions - the more hostile the better.
@davidgerard fine i'll call them cogsuckers then.
@davidgerard "bsky isnt ready for this" is so funny. like it's a twitter thread from 2014 about emotional labor
@davidgerard what do the normies care about...theyre always complaining about healthcare, i guess...let's try this: "i don't know who needs to hear this, but imagine this: a world where your insurance claims might get denied. Scared yet?" ok nice that should get to them
@davidgerard I wonder how much digging it'd take to hit a "adult human female" in there with that smoothness of a brain that implies the involvement of a zamboni machine
@librarysquirrel
hailey is trans fwiw
@davidgerard “that would be bad but we should still spend all of our time and money building it!”
@davidgerard I have reasons I don't use that word (feels like LARP racism, which isn't real racism, but still isn't a game I see an appeal in playing). Turbo Pascal's Wager is not one of those reasons. In fact I think that's about the most dramatic example I've seen today of doing the wrong math to get the right answer.
@MaddieM4 @davidgerard yea I find the "you're training/allowing yourself to use slurs because it's an acceptable target" argument far more compelling than anything to do with the LLMs themselves.
It's not a shitty thing to do because you might hurt a LLMs non-existent feelings, it's a shitty thing to do because you're normalizing hate.
@kevingranade @MaddieM4 i am deeply and passionately unconvinced "clanker", in the face of literally every other problem in any way linked to the AI bubble, is an actual issue anyone needs to be concerned about for one nanosecond , though I'm tempted to post my long long list of AI slurs
Clanker
Slopper
Token tanker
Thought stopper
Slop receiver
Book refuser
Bot believer
Chat abuser
Claude clod
Human spam
Grok spod
Friend of Sam
I think anyone maintaining it is may need larger concerns to think about, it's not like the AI bubble is fucking short of them.
@davidgerard @kevingranade @MaddieM4 I'm partial to "slop machine."
@davidgerard These sound like the lyrics to a banging punk-adjacent (or similar) tune, or, if not yet, should be. Do you have anything like that in mind? I am... very tempted here.
@davidgerard @MaddieM4 don't get me wrong, this is not a meaningful problem of our time. I think the normalization of slurs in general is a significant problem, and the clankers thing is a tiny footnote hanging off of a corner of that, but personally I feel like eliminating slurs from my personal use is good for me, but I'm not judging other people for it.
If anything it presents an example of the phenomenon with the moral harm issue stripped from it, which is at least... interesting.
@kevingranade @MaddieM4 "techbro" however is a slur, but only (as one respondent elsewhere in the thread notes) if you're saying it right
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