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Comment by vouaobrasil | Hacker News Reader

FTA:

> OpenAI says they see this technology being useful for reading assistance, language translation and helping those who suffer from sudden or degenerative speech conditions.

Of course they would. They are manipulating others by appealing to accessibility. Who can argue with that? Accessibility has become the "but think of the children" appeal of the AI world. Yes, it can help those who suffer from degenetative speech conditions, but it can also deceive and push propaganda to whole new heights.

This sort of manipulation is characteristic of antisocial personality disorder. In fact, if you look up the symptoms of that disorder, technology companies like OpenAI exhibit quite a lot of them...

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As a wise man once said: "drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not"

Sounds like a fool. We have the ability to weight costs and benefits. We have advanced linear models and computers. We have the math to split the fucking atom, but when it comes to even thinking about the social costs of technology, suddenly everyone is impotent. What a joke.

I agree with you entirely. I could not have said it better myself. However, for context, the comment you are responding to is a quote of a very sarcastic poaster known as "dril."

> They are manipulating others by appealing to accessibility.

I'd argue voice cloning isn't really crucial to accessibility. I mean, this is just cosmetics. I'd like to hear opinions of people who actually can benefit from this and if it is really such a "game changer" for them.

Indeed, I agree. And before I hear from them, I would like to make sure that it wasn't some tech company that provided all the funding and technology in return for a PR piece as is quite common in the tech world.

So Apple already did this, for that reason though.

https://www.aarp.org/home-family/personal-technology/info-20...

Yes they did. That is typical of tech companies: it's amazing that people actually believe it. But that's our societies attitude: new tech is an improvement. It's a faith stronger than most people have in their god(s).

Unfortunately we can't put the cat back in the box, so even if you don't have that attitude, what are you to do? join the Amish? new tech isn't always an improvement, but we can't uninvent things, just like we can't unsee things.

Slavoj Žižek made a great point about this. He said that we have been conditioned to believe that anything is possible with technology and science (cure for cancer, limitless energy, flying cars, teleportation), and we have ALSO been conditioned to believe that nothing can change sociologically. ("The world will always be the same.")

But that conditioning is not actually true and perhaps you are exhibiting it: we actually can change things. I can already think of some things we could do:

(1) Form an economic coalition that bans the use of AI, and squeezes out AI. Actually, the general public attitude towards AI is already ambivalent enough so that this might work.

(2) Form a revolution against modern tech-controlled society. This would obviously involve a lot of things, but it could involve mass public activity against AI companies.

"We have had the approval from the BBC to use the AI generated voice so we won’t need Sara anymore.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ai-...!

Don’t a lot of companies exhibit symptoms of ASPD?

That is true, but there are two replies:

(1) First, most large companies are essentially tech companies in some way, at least in that they exist to advance technology. Therefore, your observation is good reason to abolish large companies.

(2) (Direct) tech companies often exhibit one symptom that other companies don't, at least in not such a strong way. Tech companies lie more often directly to the public: car companies, drink companies, etc. don't lie about making the world a better place, they just try to appeal to basal desires. Tech companies actually are deluded enough to think they are making the world a better place, and use manipulation to convince us that this is true.

The fact that so many of them believe in that effective altruism nonsense shows why none of these people should ever be in control of such vast amounts of power and resources. They think they should have all the money and power because they're tech CEOs and have a maniacally unhinged confidence in their understanding of complex global societal issues / are straight-up lying because they're greedy, and the rest of us peons should just bow to their will.

Tech comapanies and CEOs are experts in the fine art of exploiting the prisoner's dilemma to quickly amass wealth at great societal expense, all within the system. I'm afraid the only way to solve this problem is a combination of educating society by making them more aware and taking tech companies down by mass public opposition / mob rule.

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