44 karma · joined June 1, 2023
Interests: Gaming, Hacking, Education, Climate Tech, UI/UX Design, Web Development, Startups, Programming, Philosophy, Open Source, Science Fiction, AI (not ML), Game Development, Board Games, Platform Fighters, Indie Games
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So, when you state that robo brain is still "you", I have to disagree. While robo-brain can still believe it's "you", it can't possibly be "you", as "you" could potentially still exist in the original biomechanical device, which isn't interpreting the new body's stimuli, and thus not building a sensory profile based on the stimulus. Even if there was a transfer that resulted in the original device's (i.e. your body) death, the new body still couldn't be considered "you" as there isn't anything physically different about the two scenarios for the body.
Of course, if you consider every clone to be an extension of your consciousness, then you could argue all this. But at that point I think we'd have vastly different interpretations on what consciousness and "you" are. You could also argue that there is something physically different about the two scenarios presented in the robo-brain example, but the only way I can imagine a sincere argument for that is if you told me it was due to the transference of some soul-like entity. But, of course, if you were to tell me that, I would simply disagree.
Also yes, if there's a consensus on something, thinking different to said consensus would be unusual because it's not the usual. There are no value judgements in this article, so really interpreting this in any other way other than the literal sense makes you come off as defensive.
More to the article itself, I wonder which comes first, the unusual thoughts, or the loneliness?
I don't think anyone's worried about AI replacing call center employees or support centers. Sure, the service might be lackluster, but the impact of something like that is quite narrow in scope and doesn't affect people's day-to-day lives. OP is (I imagine) talking about pieces or the exchange of information that is normally written by experts or armchair afficianados and is gobbled up by media and the public alike.
An LLM can't learn subject matter. It only learns language convincingly enough to look like it's learned subject matter. So when a person is concerned about a piece of content written by AI, say a political analysis or a scientific paper. The user not only has to question whether or not the content makes sense, but whether or not it's fully intelligible to anyone. If there is no expert with these opinions, then a user that fails to realize that may give weight to an idea that they may not completely grasp but do think smarter people than they do understand.
Think of the numerous times people in the past have ranted on Reddit, Twitter, or whatever platform about issues they feel strongly about. They've put a lot of passion into that. And a lot of the time they may have a decent grasp of the space they're critiquing, people band together behind a comment like that not because they have come to all the same conclusions, but because that person used some of the shared experiences and drew conclusions using those experiences in a thoughtful way that kinda sounds right. If an LLM does that, then you can't even be assured that those conclusions make any sense whatsoever, and people could band behind any old nonsense so long as their issue is supposedly accounted for. One can generate endless streams of fake rally cries to support themes outlined broadly by the person coming up with the initial prompt.
Now, maybe OP didn't mean all that. I'm certainly doing a bit of my own hypothesizing of my own. But clearly this is about a little bit more than just call centers.
First of all, the internet isn't on the verge of imploding, it's just in flux, as per usual. It also isn't stagnating, at least not on such a grand scale. Though it does feel as though it's lost a bit of steam in the last few years. That could be due to the homegeneitiy of the current investment landscape.
The author tries to sell us a doom spiral by comparing the state of services. They attempt to connect different services as if they're representative of a pulse for the internet as a whole. But the differences between Facebook and Tik Tok are vast, between Twitter and MySpace, between forums and Discord. Declining numbers in any of these does not indicate decline in any other service, nor the internet as a whole. Not to mention most of these are controlled by monolithic entities who also don't contribute to the web outside their bloated bubbles, the performance of these services are largely based on the performance of these companies and their investments. If one dies, it's a largely isolated event.
All the most recent, negative changes were made by spurious investments into anything that even seemed remotely profitable by eager investors. These bubbles will burst, and when they do, some people won't even notice the change. Some, of course, will be forced to adapt, or to leave the internet entirely. That'll likely mean the www will lose a lot of its traffic, but that doesn't sound bad for the internet as a whole... in fact it sounds good.
Companies are only making the internet worse because they believe there's money to be made. That, as the author points out, is not really going to be true for much longer, at least not for the current wave of companies. And when that happens, new companies will have to step in and pick up the pieces if they want to profit off the internet. Unfortunately for them, there's just not enough lubrication to keep an aging population of users relearning all their old habits in new environments.
I believe the internet, as it is now, will not survive for the individual. However, every individual must make that journey on their own terms. The author clearly made their journey ages ago, or perhaps was always skeptical. Others, however still have to make that trek. I have a few younger friends still in the beginning of their internet obsession where they (somehow) can still find regular content that interests them on the www. This group is likely to be the last large wave for advertisers. So, when they're done, that's it; The internet won't be worth investing in, and everyone who only ever used it kill time will go along side the companies. Those that made the journey will stay if they have use for a post-corporate internet.
The article, of course, assumes that the internet is just for fapping and killing time, when in reality it's used for a lot more than just that. Fapping and killing time is just what's being subsidized by the numerous companies invested in the internet. The article doesn't consider this, it doesn't consider that there were points before the current one, or that there are even corners of the internet where people share software and ideas. No, it just assumes that once this fad dies, the internet dies. I personally believe the internet has uses outside what companies invest in, and it's not hard to use it for just those purposes. That's enough of a reason to keep coming back.
All that being said, I do agree with the author regarding causes on the internet. One essentially does nothing when they try to devote their time to a cause online. Unless one explicitly uses the internet to organize action with others in meatspace, the internet is essentially worthless as a medium for revolution. Actually, it's worse than worthless, it's detrimental as it encourages non-action. In most cases even supporting forces who would ostracize those that would push for more forceful and aggressive action against the status quo. The corporate internet has largely made revolutionaries into pacifists, a trait which makes them non-threatening to those in power.
Even calmly explaining all this is a bit mastubatory and counter-productive. What I should be doing is running in local elections, organizing meetups, or sabotaging power structures in a variety of ways. I should be speaking in plain language about all of this, and freely expressing myself. Instead I'm here, explaining the obvious flaws of an article, while simultaneously not-so-subtly advertising my views regarding the web like it matters.
Some of these make sense and are obvious, like using only what you need (which is preached for half of the article). But the rest of it confusing, if not outright ridiculous. Why are we even assuming that being able to copy an entire HTML page is a good thing? Frankly I don't care, and it's not like there are literally millions of resources to use to learn HTML even if you can't view a few pages' HTML.
Idk man, kind of a head scratcher