So, imagine that some humans make this choice and then AI autonomously takes over and humans can't stop it anymore. Is that enough to treat AI in such a situation as a magical alien something that can threaten your or my survival?
One thing that the whole AI debate has shown to me is how many people completely lack any sort of imagation.
My point is that wild imaginations about the current state of LLMs is the problem, we wouldn't even consider connecting a random number generator or a statistical model to a weapons system but if we start thinking of it as an intelligence some actually would be tempted to do so.
I'm sorry, but do you realize it's 2026, not 1980s anymore? Whatever you call intelligence, if LLMs don't pass your "intelligence test", there is a lot of people who won't pass it either.
And I'm pretty sure that there is plenty of countries who would make soldiers out of those people and give them weapons.
The definition of intelligence hasn't changed since the 1980's, most would say that true intelligence requires intentionality which is not something LLMs are capable of, defining intelligence can turn into a fairly deep philosophical debate (which I have no interest in having).
I find this very interesting, especially given that there is a paper from 1993 (linked in the artcile) that explains the issue, but it is still happening - and maybe nowadays even more than ever?
And while sociopaths - who benefit the most from corporations - technically are humans, I don't consider them parts of humanity, more like a cancer tissue on top of it.
So whatever benefit humanity gets is more than cancelled by the growing cancer.
So I am to assume you're not using LLMs yourself, or any technology employing those models in the pipeline (which at this point includes many features in smartphones made in the last 3 years)? If that's not the case, then you are a beneficiary too.
The concept of "sociopaths" is more of a cop-out than anything.
It amounts to a (vaguely pseudoscientific) dehumanization of those whose modus operandi transgresses our values most severely.
Imagining a subset of the population as literal cancer cells does not help us understand better the systemic issue which makes those people benefit disproportionately from metahuman entities (such as corporations or political agglomerations).
What are cancer cells, but a subset of cells whose modus operandi transgresses our values? They're not some unique abomination, and I think the analogy is apt.
It does help us a lot, actually, and the treatment should be analogical. It's not a cop-out, it's reality.
Including sociopaths in humanity benefits and protects only them. And it renders the rest of us - their victims - powerless.
If as a society in general we agree that we have a right to keep serious transgressors in prisons, then we should seriously consider keeping there people who are fundamentally incapable of aligning with humanity values - the golden rule of reciprocity in particular.
Tell me you follow a value system invented by sociopaths without... actually reflecting on what value system you follow, and whether you chose it intentionally - or just bought into it by following the path of least resistance and are now inextricably stuck.
As a society in general, do you agree that unjust laws, false positives in enforcement, prison slavery, and endemic rampant abuse of authority, are things that exist?
As a society in general, do you think those are a legitimate price to pay "to keep serious transgressors in prisons"?
As a society in general, do you think serious transgressors more often get locked up for life, or more often get a slap on the wrist and a quiet promotion to more serious transgressors?
As a society in general, how do you know - falsifiably! - that prisons are even effective for their stated purpose?
Just like prisons perpetuate crime, excluding sociopaths and their behavior from what is thinkable as human only permits us to ignore them. And to contrive our own excuses for their sub-criminal abusive behaviors - which is the primary way in which they blend in and remain beyond reproach. You are their enabler. Go figure out how to stop being that.
Well, in this hypothetical scenario you can just as well say that Cuba is defending from the future threat from USA, the same way USA is now defending from future threat from Iran.
Not future threat though what US has put Cuba through the last 70 years any aggressive military from Cuba is probably justified. And no any attack from Cuba on US will still be morally ok if they attack US military and US banks etc.
There were always people creating illusionary worlds to control other people who gladly believed their lies, there still are.
We live in a chaotic and illegible world, but humans crave legibility so much that they will rather believe the fantasies that take their freedoms (wealth, agency) than deal with the chaos themselves.
Religion is one such a narrative, but governments or corporations have their own, just as harmful. Or - as many people seem to think - actually beneficial, because "people cannot handle the truth". Which I don't subscribe to.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you can't kill an idea, because it was never alive.
Humans are just primates hardwired for selection bias and paredolia. We rationalize but we aren't rational beings, we're primarily driven by emotion and ego. We're smart enough to recognize death but also smart enough for mortal fear.
And that's even before we get to the vast political and cultural power of religion which even in this "atheistic" age still manufactures consent or justifies the policies of most governments around the world.
Unfortunately, gods will never die because they will never not be useful and people will never stop anthropomorphizing their environment.
I'm buying ungodly numbers of books and I'd say more than half of what I get from Amazon is PoD, and print quality varies. In my country (Poland) they have one huge advantage: the price. It's quite often somewhere between 30%-50% cheaper than alternatives which is significant given book prices.
One thing that is pretty annoying is when a PoD book that had colors in the original no longer has them, e.g. on charts, but text still refers to them with color names.
I'll likely stop buying from Amazon too because over the years quality of PoD books also seems to be dropping, it wasn't that bad years ago.
I am not gp, but I like to have a nice collection of unread books to browse and pick from, not (to almost quote someone, from my vague memory) "shelves full of books to impress others with what I have already read".
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