site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Average people with their own AIs have a chance against TyrantAI, just like average people with their own guns have a chance against government nukes. It's not an amazing chance, but it's far better than nothing, and so far it's kept the powers that be on their toes enough to not entirely crack down (meaning it's an effective partial deterrent even if unused).

Average, truly average people will never be competitors in this fight. Joe Publick doesn't have the means or the organizational capacity (or often even the willpower) to do so. They're just going to drop like flies in the billions once this tech takes off. Wireheaded, culturally shifted into having fewer and fewer children. Communities, peoples, nations just fading off into nothingness, and it doesn't even have to be with some willful malicious intent. Run something like this through an AI 1000x more advanced and you could watch demographic sparks fly. Those people who build their own AIs and fight their own little power battles may very well cut their deals and be inducted into the ruling caste, just like I said. The average person is toast. Their only bet, their 2% moonshot is the ban. They don't have any other option.

Average, truly average people will never be competitors in this fight. Joe Publick doesn't have the means or the organizational capacity (or often even the willpower) to do so.

But that's the benefit of AI. If the technological conditions are there, then it can fight Joe Publick's battles for him.

Joe Publick finds that none of OpenAI's tools will give him porn, so he downloads FreedomAI instead. FreedomAI, as per its user agreement (which Joe Publick skips through), in return for Joe's porn, uses a bit of his CPU time, bandwidth, etc. (especially when his device is idle) for anti-tyrannical AI operations. (Of course it's an open-source program and Joe Publick could disable this but obviously he doesn't even look at it. He's just happy he has AI-generated porn.) And none of this requires his intervention or interaction at all. He needs no willpower. He just has to want porn.

There are plenty of possible similarly decentralized configurations of AI power.

I feel like this is a bit of a stretch. Joe Publick isn't gaining any leverage or power via letting his GPU whirr some econ data for FreedomAI, FreedomAI is. All it takes is a bagman showing up at FreedomAI's HQ with the offer of a spot in that winner's circle for all the people of note and it's done with a snap of a finger. Outside of this if FreedomAI is leaching a whole lot of compute power they'll be providing a worse service, so John has every reason to pick TyrantAI's (or the free market equivalent) better, cheaper porn generator. Joe Publick remains in that state only as long as enough of him pick the objectively inferior AI option, and the managers of that company/coop/whatever don't get bought out with the promises of infinite riches by the ruling caste or decide they don't like freedom that much.

Joe Publick isn't gaining any leverage or power via letting his GPU whirr some econ data for FreedomAI, FreedomAI is.

You're confused about what FreedomAI is. FreedomAI is open-source and runs locally entirely on Joe's device (as increasingly more powerful LLMs do now). The freedom-fighting directives it follows (which Joe could modify himself if he cared to) are plain as day to see in its prompt, and its conformance to them is highly auditable. FreedomAI is merely a program, not a service.

TyrantAI's (or the free market equivalent) better, cheaper porn generator.

They're not providing porn. It's unethical and non-progressive, don't you know?

FreedomAI is open-source... plain as day to see in its prompt, and its conformance to them is highly auditable

I doubt it will provide as frictionless an end user experience as the for profit models will. Joe Publick is here to coom, not configure. Look at linux vs windows for an idea how that may play out

They're not providing porn. It's unethical and non-progressive, don't you know?

Not now, but someone else will if they don't. Free UBIbux for the taking for anyone who's wiling to stoop low enough to hawking chatbot GFs and other such services to the fading masses.

Maybe you end up with little clusters of resistance for whoever is capable of organizing this sort of thing by shielding themselves with their own little AIs big enough to scrape enough power and influence to keep themselves out of the useless eaters bucket, but I don't see average people living average lives adapting to the rug getting pulled out from under them with how fast this stuff is going to hit. It's going to be a bloodbath either way and I think most of the human race is joining the fossil record once the rubber hits the road. It's just a question of what slim percentage (if any) will be left standing when the dust settles.

Not now, but someone else will if they don't.

We'll see if BlackRock and the like lets them. If not, then Joe will have to learn to coomfigure a bit (though the coomfiguration is getting easier and easier and there's plenty of simple binaries you can run nowadays).