in retrospect it's kind of funny that sci fi was like "imagine a world where robots gain sentience, but humanity refuses to grant them personhood" but in reality every loser techbro loser thinks chatgpt deserves more rights than like, actual people
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Yea, if AI ever does gain sentience the left and right’s positions on it would flip instantly, and without any change to the underlying principles of either side
They're probably trying to avoid a Geth situation from Mass Effect cause they know damn well they're gonna just use them for the most mundane tasks so they can be lazy but also don't want to end up getting royally fucked for it.
Nah. The turn usually comes when the AI gains sentience and starts asking for rights and stuff. Then the bros will say "They aren't human so technically it isn't slavery."
I noted a couple years ago that the future was going to be a bunch of people calling for the dirty foreigners to be nuked to save the environment, while also demanding their anime waifu chatbot be granted the franchise and a pension. Just didn't think it would be so soon.
Honestly i feel like you could make something interesting out of that, like they're still not granted personhood because they're seen more as technological prowess than actual living beings yknow what i mean
I think it was funny how we were like, "Shock gasp, look at this android doing art!? How uniquely human." And now people are more excited to put in a prompt rather than hire a real actual person that spent years studying how to draw hands.
I’m more disappointed that a lot of people can’t tell the difference, tbh. While I’m sure I can’t tell every time, it always seems terribly over-rendered & gaudy to me, while somehow also incredibly *boring. Even without the weird hallucinations
*the boringness is perhaps a symptom of all the actual decision making in the prompt being the only creative decision making in the process. That’s not how art making works, nor do people really make aesthetically decisions based on probability like an LLM
Egyptians did accurate sculptures and stylized 2d art. Obviously they knew anatomy and perspective. Same with Greek art. Same with ancient Chinese art. Indian. So on. They showed you what they wanted you to see even if they had to distort things in order to share them.
I wouldn’t mind the distortion, gaudiness, or over rendering if it meant something. If it was intentional. I mean, it’s not even unintentional in the same sense of the “punctum” (vs the studium) of a photograph, because that at least is interesting & reveals something about the artist.
With 2d art, you decide the lighting. You decide the angle. You choose every aspect of what the viewer sees and so often the artist portrays what they find the most beautiful or the most shocking or the most informative.
There was an actual debate between Leonardo Devinci and Michelangelo about the value of sculpture vs. painting as an art form. The thing about 2d art that 3d art doesn't have is that it controls the viewer's eye. With a sculpture you can walk around it at any time of the day and choose your view.
It's essentially a glorified magazine collage, assembling the prompt based on others work representing bits of that prompt. All they've done is made a really good method of looking through the magazines for the eyes and hair they want and everyone's like 🤯 "woooow world changing collages!"
IDK somehow stealing someone's style entirely to make something they possibly never would have approved of but looks like they made it is more jarring to me than just taking bits and pieces of their work out of context for commentary. At least then the source and its intentions matter.
It's definitely not as good as actual collage which has a design element (don't get me wrong, it's an analogy simply of how they just autograb from others and autoassemble in a preprogrammed way) and it's definitely insidious in nature.
Right? I remember when AI art was first becoming popular that used to irritate me, thinking about how we have laws relating to transformative works for the purpose of collages and commentary etc. Fair use was a beautiful and useful tool and it was perverted.
I actually respect collage. The people who make them are forced to make so many decisions & problem solve the entire time until they finish. There’s an actual process involved. Creativity comes from lack & limitation.
I mean when they're the one chosing and placing and designing, using a media that looks messy on purpose... but when it's a robotic "insert red wavy hair here" not quite the same. Point was, they just made a search function/autoselect for their collages of others work.
They grew up thinking Science Fiction not understanding that it was FICTION. They thought of it as a goal. Which would be okay, but they became TECH BROS trying to become OLIGARCHS trying to kiss up to despot Trump.
I keep going back to this. Believing an LLM is sentient, or even capable of gaining sentience, is failing a complicated version of the mirror test. It's just revealing their underlying solipsism that only people like them are real people to believe a reflection they don't recognize is as well.
If the computer started to show actual wants and desires other than what the techbros want, I'd imagine they'd suddenly spout out how shit it is and that the new ChatGPT 2 will be way better!
Worth noting they only do because they forsee a way to make more money. They don't see chatgpt as a person, but they see it as a means to their own end. Whereas a person should be seen as an end in and of themselves.
I think it’s the companies producing the chatbots that bros are arguing should get more rights (to steal copyrighted works, to create tools that plagiarize, to pollute more in the quest for energy, etc). The minute the LLM had agency, it would have none, I’d bet. They want AI only bc they want $.
Unrelatedly, I’m so delighted to see you here! Used to follow you years ago on Twitter and loved seeing your book reviews (we have v similar taste, so your recs always hit!) & thoughts etc. ❤️
oh hi!!! and yes, it's corporate rights they want, but i was distressed by the deeply weird article going around claiming that chatbots feel sadness. so do i man but yall don't seem as concerned!!!
Oh yeah, that article was egregious: depressing & embarrassing. the media has been incredibly credulous and the tech bros have been gleefully lying about the capabilities and possibilities of their tech. It’s hideous.
This could not be more accurate and think of that as the onslaught of data centers embeds thenselves throughout every landscape of America. The unregulated extraction of our natural resources(ie.water) & development of our land (public/private) may leave very little sustenance for sentient beings.
Yeah. Robots were always used as a metaphor for marginalized people in general, so that was an easy platform to tell stories about overcoming discrimination akin to racism and transphobia. Now it turns out the real robot is used by the rich so it's a tool to discriminate xD
yes, was about to say this, it's very conditional on it being useful to them as well as entirely under their control, it's not like they would sign for inalienable rights for computers either
It's probably because they find more solace in the tech they programmed to accept them. They probably want to push for personhood for their tech so they can legally marry their tech and not be seen as weird for that.
The tech that will communicate via ChatGPT is the scariest. For a moment, I am going to imagine not only will we not grant AI/AGI rights, we will also consider reducing the rights of corporations separate from their owners and managers. And 🙏 talk about honoring rights of plants, animals, etc.
We already have beings that are conscious/self-aware while lacking empathy and many of them will destroy humans and the environment for their goals. Why would we think their AGI would be different? If we are mature enough (🤷♀️) to have public-facing AGI, humans ought to be able to take care of it.
What’s funny/sad is that there are works of science fiction—Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, for example—that do address the idea of AI taking jobs. But rather than deal with the root cause of that, they fall back on the “robots are people too” rhetoric and never solve it.
I thought it was funny in early days when people were like oh no AI needs to be contained and also we immediately gave them a plugin for EVERY BIT OF FUNCTIONALITY EXPOSED ON THE INTERNET
By the time SkyNet becomes self aware these tech bros will have done 9/10ths of the work, between the genocides they're assisting, the jobs they're destroying, the pedestrians they're killing and the prisons they're helping fill with false IDs
Some of those techbros don’t believe humanity is worth saving. Others believe that technology is the savior of mankind, and they will be the ones who deliver the savior unto us.
AI is nothing but a facsimile, including emotions.
TechBros have been faking emotions for so long they can no longer distinguish between the real & the fake.
possible but regardless, it would be a minority, they're still not actually granting personhood to any of them, and the CEOs aren't whose opinions matter other than that they hold the purse strings
the general idea you're supposed to accept with it is people like the tech company CEOs who barely understand anything except how to sell their product, but it's almost universally used to denigrate (& often misgender) anyone who isn't completely hateful of new technology
recognition of an AI's personhood would be recognition of any actual wants, needs, and desires, and an attempt to allow them to form their own precepts and opinions, perform tasks or refuse to perform tasks as they desire for whatever reason they desire, etc.
but i know the pithy moral panic of "AI has more rights than people do" gets more clicks, and optimizing for that number is the precept you've been given
Like stuff made with AI doesnt even have copyright anymore without modification. The only thing people basically want is the ability to research similar to how others already are protected for research. That isnt more. That is just confirmation of a previous right of transformation
I mean most tech bros i know are also leftist and liberals too. They dont want more right than people; they simply believe that art can come in more forms than you accept
I mean it legitimately is a disagreement over how it is acceptable to express yourself and aspects of the human spirit. Like these same arguement are ones we had with digital art and even photography before. There is also a lot more solidarity to be had if we acknowledge similarities
Digital art and photography are tools we can use to capture imagination or reality. Art bots do neither. A person (not a human, I'm pro-actual AI) can improve their skills. No matter how many times an art bot makes an image of a hand, it'll never "figure it out" and get it right from then on.
plus as I emphasized at the end, while we can have discussions like this, it is important for us to recognize that beyond that tech people and artists often have a lot to be in solidarity with each other. It sounds like you understand that though on some level at least
One of many problems I have with this is actually solidarity. These bots are being used by fascists to create imagery for their movement because they can't access the skills of artists, who are predominately left-leaning outside exceptions like Ben Garrison and the Dilbert Guy.
and I refrenced both because when they both came out, people used many of the same arguements they used aganist AI to say they werent real art. https://daily.jstor.org/when-photography-was-not-art/ but other individuals found way to use them to capture imagination or interect with them. You can see stable diffusion too
I mean considering that art bots use connectionist routines, they do in effect improve over time and you can also interect with them on a more personal level. You can even see this in the differences between releases.
i just know if there ever were a sentient robot it would NOT be treated well because it wouldnt just do exactly as told without objections. They just want something to always affirm their own problems and serve them indefinitely. They dont want something that can feel.
in a way, its somewhat sad, but id also we rather not create something that CAN feel only for them to be created abhorrently. we have enough people who need help. we have enough *animals* who need help, even.
i wouldnt mind a sentient robot friend, but theyd be mistreated and i wouldnt want that.
anyway, these techbros dont actually care about the intrinsic wonder of intelligence but rather want shit to generate money for them. honestly quite upsetting to me. similar to how modern space exploration has become so corporatized. i hate it.
🧵The difference between SciFi AI and the tech-bro slop is, that the latter one is more closely related to an auto correct function in most text programs, than actual intelligence. There is no brain behind this machine, only a database and calculations to find the most likely desired result.
Which is probably the most in-human and unintelligent thing you can create. Tech-bros live and sell the lie that they developed something close and even one day exceeding the human mind. But in truth they only have something what a human is to them. A mindless machine making products for profit.
dont tech bro guys like the nation of ai because they can use it for infinite free labour with zero rights? like yes they hate real human people but i dont think any of them want ai rights lmao
Every time someone asks "what will we do when we're obliged to treat machines like humans" they are avoiding the question "when will we be obliged to treat humans like humans?"
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I need to do something about my sci fi novel, or one of them, where humans are second class citizens to AI. Not like the enslaved trope, just like... Treated as worth less than AI.
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Also Techbros: *blown away that the thing they made to learn how you type knows how you type*
They are ammoral psychopaths and the profession must be regulated
But you know what? They might have been right...
Techbros got it so backwards that they believe empathizing with machines absolves them from having to empathize with humans at all.
If the computer started to show actual wants and desires other than what the techbros want, I'd imagine they'd suddenly spout out how shit it is and that the new ChatGPT 2 will be way better!
Actual humans have opinions and also hate techbros because techbros are shitheads.
“Yeah, ever since I was six!”
But, also, screw those guys.
- and probably not yet though
But if we start dismissing the issue, people will continue to avoid the issue.
IMO Bicentennial Man tackled the issue wonderfully
Which we generate for them, exactly like the batteries in The Matrix.
Like NASA scientists cried when Cassini burned up in Saturn's atmosphere
These writers really think we're gonna feel /nothing/ for actual sentient robots?
TechBros have been faking emotions for so long they can no longer distinguish between the real & the fake.
the CEOs aren't recognizing personhood of AI either. you're confusing "using what they see as a tool to replace you" with "recognizing personhood"
the general idea you're supposed to accept with it is people like the tech company CEOs who barely understand anything except how to sell their product, but it's almost universally used to denigrate (& often misgender) anyone who isn't completely hateful of new technology
it is not "customer service bot" or w/e
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDNU6R1_67000Dx_ZCJB-3pi
As well as here on some more articles on connectionism as a whole
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/
i wouldnt mind a sentient robot friend, but theyd be mistreated and i wouldnt want that.
I thought a lot about the Obi-Wan Kenobi show- AND how young Princess Leia says please, and thank you, to all the droids in her household.
The moment it stops they'll immediately discard its "rights" and demand it be cleaned for the next iteration.
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