“The present IP system can be abused by actors powerful enough to abuse all of our legal systems, therefore we need a much more restrictive IP system” really isn’t clicking for me.
I continue to feel that:
1. The “AI” companies’ PR is based in creating sense of inevitability, and people who don’t like what they’re doing feel bulldozed.
2. This bulldozed feeling is a goal of the PR strategy, because it manifests as anti-“AI” people pitching mostly poorly thought-out and easily dismissed arguments in desperation.
I say some version of this every six weeks and every six weeks I get three polite faves and that’s it, so discount as you see fit.
@darius That’s flattering; I think of you as someone many steps ahead of me in thinking about such things.
@vruba I feel like I see this conjured inevitability a lot, driven by a similar engineering mindset.
“What if [doorknobs] + [playing music when you get home]?”
[laundry] + [automatically order soap]
[charging devices] + [no unsightly wires]
[driving] + [even the word “infotainment”, with freed attention to watch it]
Yadda yadda “they didn’t stop to think if they should” but so much of it targets shallow problems in the pursuit of presenting some sort of shiny awe about “the future” again.
@incanus I certainly think we can blame the idea of “the future” for a whole lot of problems.
@vruba Yeah I get this feeling in my art communities. Artists are going through an existential crisis, because the PR is saying they need not exist.
Bulldozed is right
Remember how the biggest FTX commercials were all about attempting to create a sense of inevitability, combined with calling people who wouldn't buy them idiots?
Bubbles work on the same parts of the emotional system every time.
@vruba It sure just seems like men saying they won't need to pay for customer service jobs anymore to me, but I dunno.
I just tell people that if they like pushing numbers on their phone to get through the customer service choices, they are going to LOVE AI.
@vruba Recalling previous incarnations of that "bulldozed" feeling, I remember NFTs/cryptoscams, "the metaverse", and self-driving cars "so safe and interconnected that human drivers would soon be banned from certain roads" so I guess that feeling's track record is somewhat comforting?
@vruba No, I think about your “What’s being proposed may not be great, but this assemblage of dogshit argument against it also isn’t doing anyone any good; we should think more carefully about it” position often.
@urschrei I would go further than “may not be great” but I’m glad.
@vruba oh I know – I don’t think I’ll ever shake the reflexive tendency to understate that they baked into me over there. You pay a high price for taking the queen’s shilling.
@urschrei I, on the other hand, am a non-academic American, which is fucking mindblowingly awesome!!!
@vruba The 'sense of inevitability' has implications that run counter to the companies who are being excitable.
If computers will, soonish, be able to do most people's jobs, for less, that implies we need to be EITHER setting up a really robust welfare state powered by taxing the AI companies OR we need to start making woodchippers for the homeless. And if it's the latter, who is going to be left to buy the product? The whole species will be down to one tech founder and a lot of LLM datacenters.
@vruba it reminds me a whole lot of the way the crypto idiots would act.
"Have fun staying ~poor~ unenlightened" :(
@vruba I continue to consult your thinking on this whole ecosystem about, oh, once a week