"Critical computing expert Dan McQuillan argues that, on top of the clear social and environmental harms, Labour's vapid fixation on AI-led growth in lieu of real change will further enable the far right. Instead, he proposes a strategy of 'decomputing'. " www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Labo... - ThreadSky

danmcquillan.bsky.social • 153 days ago

"Critical computing expert Dan McQuillan argues that, on top of the clear social and environmental harms, Labour's vapid fixation on AI-led growth in lieu of real change will further enable the far right. Instead, he proposes a strategy of 'decomputing'. " https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Labours-AI-Action-Plan-a-gift-to-the-far-right

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gustibus24.bsky.social•153 days ago

Interesting article. Given the majority of LLMs are based on a similar architecture and model improvement is based on refinement, expanding datasets and increased parameter sizes, where is the leap to AGI coming from? There's no real semantic understanding in this transformer based architecture.

inequalitynews.bsky.social•152 days ago

We know for a fact that City firms in London are implementing AI because .... wait for it .... "other City firms are implementing AI". They don't understand it - certainly not the risks - but they just can't bear to think they're being left behind. It's the Strategy of Lemmings.

hollybrigstocke.bsky.social•153 days ago

Good article. Thanks.

danmcquillan.bsky.social•153 days ago

Hi Holly, thanks for the positive feedback!

hollybrigstocke.bsky.social•153 days ago

No probs. You wrote up what I would have liked to say only 1000% times better. It's really appreciated you spoke up.

lucydownes.bsky.social•153 days ago

What a fascinating (and troubling) article.
Thank you for writing it.

danmcquillan.bsky.social•153 days ago

Hi Lucy, thanks for the feedback! I hope the ultimate message is that, despite all the AI, our future is still in our hands if we choose to act on it.

lucydownes.bsky.social•153 days ago

Agreed. But I fear the daily grind combined with a lack of critical thought will negate any drive to act.

The working class seem enraptured with the billionaire tech-bros who they naively believe to be their saviours.

I worry that when reality hits, democracy will be mostly dismantled.

jankyjeffrey.bsky.social•153 days ago

Reading this, I began to feel that living in the UK has become like living in an African folk tale- with the character who becomes hungrier the more it eats. It’s terrifying how much purchase the belief that “AI” is transformative for medicine is gaining on Blue Sky, amongst people otherwise opposed

jankyjeffrey.bsky.social•153 days ago

I watched a video on YouTube, filmed a few months ago, where “Sir” Stephen Fry was boasting to Brian Eno about how he’d persuaded a mother to talk her daughter out of becoming a radiologist because the job wouldn’t exist by the time she graduated 🤦.

jankyjeffrey.bsky.social•153 days ago

I often think of how, when black artist were birthing a new art form using sampling, copyright was used to crush what they were doing. Now when some white dudes want to birth a slop machine with zero artistic merit, copyright is crushed to enable their “vision”.

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