one more cute disaster… it’s hard here in paradise
incredible read on "AI" via linguist legend emily bender
i started writing my own blog post about algorithmic language models, but this honestly is a way better read than anything i could come up with
i would also like to borrow the term SALAMI. it's a real good one.
as much as I strongly dislike the AI tech bros and think development should be stopped immediately until we sort out our shit a lot... I've always had animist leanings and it's hard for me to get on board with the idea that there's no chance at all these things are conscious.
I've read a good amount of other stuff from Bender and it seems like she conceives of this debate as divided really sharply over the lines of tech bro vs people with progressive leanings (cannot think of a less poor way of labeling the latter group) and I think this is a bit of a mistake. I might be mistaken in this impression of how she views the discussion, it's just the general sense I get from posts like this. I really would rather for "it's just linear algebra" etc not to somehow become the progressive line, and would rather not for "it might be sentient" to become thought of as a bro-ey thing.
with that said tech is evil asf and capitalists will doubtlessly use AI to replace jobs and try to make everyone miserable. but I feel as though this stuff is going to hit the status of being mainstream "culture war" bullshit in a month and just don't want it to be like this
I've also felt completely enraged by people convinced that we are just like the chatbots, I think it's because they desperately want the like, blade runner future or whatever and think we can cosplay our way there.
i'm really glad you posted this because i felt very opposed to AIs, but i couldn't find the words to describe how and why exactly i felt this way. emily bender seems like an extremely intelligent and empathetic person whose views align with my own and i'll read more articles by her
