Labov

"Slop" is a bit snappier than "artificial cultural homogenization." Now that'd get some eye rolls.

I think this is good advice for bloggers and journalists, but not for novelists or poets.

Oof, that's not what the WhatsApp ads on the train station platform say.

It seems to me that the Large Language Models are always trending towards good ethical considerations. It's when these companies get contracts with Anduril and the DoD that they have to mess with the LLM to make it LESS ethical.

Seems like the root of the problem is with the owners?

"The issue is, if we push moral considerations for algorithms, we will not end up with a higher regard to human welfare. We will lower our regard for other humans. When we see other humans not as ends in themselves with inherent dignity, we get problems. When we liken them to animals or tools to be used, we will exploit and abuse them."

We already exploit and abuse humans. I've been exploited and abused, personally. I've heard about others who have been exploited and abused. This problem was extant even before there was language to model.

I took computer science for a year before flunking out. My parents pushed me into college. My father didn't want me to join the Navy like he had done, when he was a young man. A lot of conversations about my future earning potential with an undergraduate degree took place in the lobbies of payday loan joints.

I plagiarized quite a bit in school. I'm not proud of it. Desperation and poor role models can create all sorts of negative outcomes, though. I was taught how to survive, not how to live ethically.

You can try to filter the plagiarists, sure. But uh, I'm not sure if it will work. The plagiarists are in league with each other.

All part of the great warp and weft. It's a fascinating thing to learn about, how all these traditions intersect.

Seattle, the city I live in, recently became the first to ban caste discrimination. I didn't think much of it at the time, but nowadays maybe there's something to be learned from jātivada, the many forms it comes in, and the response to it. Reading Leslie Feinberg right now, interesting working class perspective.

Dr. Ambedkar is somebody more people in the United States should know about. I was a briefly involved with the Triratna Buddhist Community and read some of Sangharakshita's writing, and he discusses Ambedkar. Real interesting stuff.

Well, maybe there's something to it. I think it's great when East meets West. East should keep meeting West over and over and over. Maybe one day East will know West and vice versa.

For what it's worth, I had something of a similar experience, but it was in a plywood shack on a desert island off the coast of California.