Some tech assholes in Silicon Valley read “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus” as an instruction manual, but they’re not the only ones. Variations: “My Torment Nexus is Open Source and Any Humanities People Complaining Are Just Too Lazy to Learn to Code so They Can Be Smart Like Me and Take Part in This Conversation” “The Only Torment Nexus Here is a San Francisco Hackerspace Without a Code of Conduct” “Sovereign, EU-Funded Torment Nexus” “What You are Referring to as the Linux Racism Machine is Well Actually the GNU/Linux Racism Machine…”
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Because the techies who are vaunting #GenAI and hoping that the malevolent Trump government helps to prop up the sagging fad (that's always been the ultimate daydream of #tech weenies, being propped up by the government, as with the tax-preparation #software grift) are the stupidest geniuses on Earth, they're easily dazzled by extremely unimpressive LLM feats.
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But it's far worse than that: because these techies know NOTHING outside their narrow range of increasingly obsolescent technical expertise, because the elite #programming folks are more than likely to know NOTHING about writing or painting or translation or any of the other things that they're convinced ought to be taken out of the hands of sheeplike humanity and given to their "AGI superintelligence", these high-tech clowns seem unable to realize the degree to which LLMs are very obviously far worse than human beings at basically everything. Needless to say, high-tech #journalism of the @arstechnica sort has also failed to notice just how far short LLMs actually fall. And I'm not just talking about the confabulation, or "hallucination" as the tech weenies incorrectly call it, because they know zero about psychology beyond memorizing a lot of fancy words from medical literature. Ars Technica and @Businessweek et alii faithfully transmit the wide-eyed stupidity of #technology leaders into print, accepting their "optimism" at face value and thereby ripping up journalistic ethics and throwing them in the trash. Probably all the journalists of Ars Technica &c. are on the take, hoping to get rich themselves through #investment in high-tech fads, and thus their reportage is hopelessly corrupt. (etc.)
But here we run up against an unpleasant reality: the tech sector values the #LLM craze chiefly because it's outrageously inefficient and destructive, always needing more and more. The tech grifters get richer the more money and resources are blown on the fad. Subsidiary corporate industries like the #energy sector and the #gas sector (and increasingly the #nuclear sector) are themselves ecstatic at the runaway consumption. As I keep saying: the GenAI fad makes the most sense if you stick to the assumption that it's not really supposed to work. It's supposed to be big and hungry, more than anything else.
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And if a pack of terminally stupid managers and executives think that LLM gibberish is a fine substitute for human activity, so much the better. At some point the penny has to drop: high-tech profit-seekers are the enemies of humanity. There is no honor in tech CEOs or entrepreneurs. They do the world no vital service. They are not builders. They are not the vanguard of science and intellect; they're gluttonous, avaricious, and they're destroyers. ~Chara of Pnictogen
May I point out something that ought to be more obvious to the #tech enthusiasts and grifters who hope that "Generative #AI" will make them fabulously rich without effort and who, as it seems, have a genuinely passionate belief in their own stupidity that they emotionally project outward onto humanity in general? They're all hot to claim that GenAI sludge-machines have already so far surpassed human beings that it's irrational not to cram all business and all commerce and all creativity and everything else into some GenAI installation or other, and they are able to sound perfectly sincere on this issue for an obvious reason.
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Let me put it another way: the elite #programming geeks who cling to GenAI also tend to cling to Charles Murray-esque nonsense about "intelligence" and "IQ", which is a sure hallmark of stupidity. Only stupid people take Charles Murray seriously. Only stupid people think that "intelligence" boils down to one scalar value. Only stupid people NEED computers to do all their thinking for them, so #GenAI is like the triumph of stupidity. The entire tech sector's leadership and management ranks have come to be jam-packed with the least educated, least clever, most intellectually lazy human beings on the planet, and these are the people who are impressed by fakey LLM "AI". The easiest way to believe in miracles is to exclude all intellect from one's life. If you start THINKING about the AI miracle then you start having doubts and doubt, as we know, is a mortal sin in #business (hence "FUD" as a slur.) I emphasize: this is WILLFUL stupidity. This is stupefaction taken to its utmost: the entire business culture has schooled itself over many decades to value stupidity and elevate stupidity to high social status. To be ignorant and dominated by emotions, making decisions entirely because of "gut feelings" and such, is to be reckoned among the geniuses of business and especially #technology. THAT is why "Generative AI" is a fad: because it appeals to the dull-witted, the people who already feel like (a) they need computers to handle even the smallest details of their lives, and (b) the people who know the absolute least about computers, except that they're big and powerful and stuffed with information. (more) (more)