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Comment by Gatsky | Hacker News Reader

> However, as I spell out in my book, the concept of AGI is inseparable from the kind of hierarchy of intelligence that has underpinned ideas of innate supremacy since the days of empire and colonialism.

I think this line discredits the entire article, which was already a few obvious points blown at gale force into the reader’s ear.

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I disliked the article, but this particular quote is a relatively strong one. Colonialism, racism, and aristocratic structures were often justified by the idea that certain classes of people are more intelligent, enlightened, or were selected by dieties. Here the author is arguing that a similar process is happening with AI, where atrocious policies by people in power are justified by claiming the AI (which was trained to encode the powerful groups values) is more intelligent.

Ah I see thank you for explaining that.

I think this is fascinating. The way that you stated this idea is more interesting and subtle than the original author's quote (to me).

But that's just a shiny new layer of paint on the decades-old "well, the computer says..." (and the computer was programmed by those in power).

Another extract,

> Saying, as the OpenAI CEO does[1], that we are all 'stochastic parrots' like large language models, statistical generators of learned patterns that express nothing deeper, is a form of nihilism. Of course, the elites don't apply that to themselves, just to the rest of us. The structural injustices and supremacist perspectives layered into AI put it firmly on the path of eugenicist solutions to social problems.

[1] Sam Altman: i am a stochastic parrot, and so r u

That this isn't even sentence-to-sentence consistent is somehow one of the less egregious aspects of it.

Likewise that author seems to be disappointed that models have found a connection between Islam and violence.

The author may find this discovery distasteful, but that is irrelevant: Islam is an idea, many ideas are associated with violence. Islam was famously “spread through the sword” and to this day violent retribution is often visited upon ex-Muslims by their families in the name of Islam. This isn’t hate speech: Islam is an idea that people adopt and leave, and not an innate quality. To treat any idea like an innate quality denies people the right to not accept the ideas of those around them.

Indeed

It seems that, like ChatGPT, the author is also a bullshit generator, and therefore, by his own definition, unintelligent.

As an aside, I wrote my previous comment in “stochastic parrot” mode.

That is, I scattered commas where it felt natural to breathe.

Then, I edited it. Maybe, there was a non-essential clause in there. Also, possibly, there was an Oxford comma. Or maybe not! I’m not really clear about English grammar rules. But what this stochastic parrot says is usually intelligible to other English speakers.

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