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  • Smashing Framesblog@tante.cc
    Feb 20, 2026, 11:04 AM

    Acting ethically in an imperfect world

    Life is complicated. Regardless of what your beliefs or politics or ethics are, the way that we set up our society and economy will often force you to act against them: You might not want to fly somewhere but your employer will not accept another mode of transportation, you want to eat vegan but are at some point in a situation where the best you can do is a vegetarian option. Sometimes it's not even our hand being forced but us not having the mental strength or priorities to do something: I […]

    tante.cc/2026/02/20/acting-eth

    A book with the question "is evil something you are?"
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Replies

  • Meclusveatute_reyes@c.im
    Feb 21, 2026, 10:47 PM

    Me tomo la libertad de contestar en español a tu interesantísimo post, @blog . Dudo mucho que la gente se esté negando a usar la IA porque sea una tecnología creada por gente despreciable. La gente decide no usar IA desde una postura ética y filosófica que considera a dicha tecnología en sí misma, con independencia de lo que sean sus creadores. Nada de hipocresía, nada de puritanismo, solo una decisión consciente. Doctorow se está equivocando en esto. ¡Muchas gracias por compartir!

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  • skuaskua@mastodon.social
    Feb 22, 2026, 8:24 AM

    @blog

    Suppose Doctorow, like the rest of us, has the occasional brain fart.
    It is so easy to be carried away on rhetoric when writing it.

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  • Michael Hartlemhartle@mastodon.online
    Feb 22, 2026, 8:34 AM

    @blog Regarding usage of the same technology for different purposes (web scraping used for feeding a search engine vs. generative AI):

    For me, clarifying the difference in purpose is that generative AI is sold for competing in the business domain of those whose content it scrapes, infringing on the copyright for commercial gain while claiming "fair use"; a pure search engine rarely does.

    I hope that something like that can be used for regulating this abuse of "fair use".

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  • Simon Brookesimon_brooke@mastodon.scot
    Feb 22, 2026, 9:27 AM

    @blog h'mmm... Complicated. I left school at 18 with no qualifications at all because I couldn't write at a sufficient speed to complete an exam paper in the allowed time.

    When I was 26, word processors — which relieved me of the mechanical task of forming glyphs on paper — with spell checkers — which relieved me of the cognitive task of assembling those glyphs into the right sequence to form legible words — became available to ordinary mortals, and I was able to pass exams.

    /Continued

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  • Simon Brookesimon_brooke@mastodon.scot
    Feb 22, 2026, 9:36 AM

    @blog so I was at last able to go to university and get my first and go on to become a research fellow in artificial intelligence. Could I have done that without a spell checker? No, any more than a paraplegic could have done it without a wheelchair.

    Would the world have been a poorer place if I hadn't had a spell checker? Probably not, I have achieved astonishingly little in my life.

    But I should have been poorer.

    /Continued

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  • Simon Brookesimon_brooke@mastodon.scot
    Feb 22, 2026, 9:45 AM

    @blog Using an #LLM to check spelling seems, in terms of efficiency, like using a thermonuclear device to crush a wine glass, and in terms of reliability, like using the entrails of sparrows to direct economic policy (hey, it couldn't be worse).

    Back in 1982, a 32KB ROM on an 8 bit 6502 processor did the job perfectly well at adequate speed — with far lower energy consumption. If there is an algorithmic solution to do a job, it will always be faster and more reliable than a neural net.

    /Cont'd

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  • Simon Brookesimon_brooke@mastodon.scot
    Feb 22, 2026, 9:52 AM

    @blog however, #Dyslexia is one of those invisible challenges that hold people back from achievements which would otherwise be valuable. If @pluralistic needs a spill-chucker (as I still do), don't shame him. We all appreciate his activism and his advocacy.

    (I think I met @pluralistic at an Internet Society conference about the turn of the millennium, but I could be mistaken. In any case, hi, Cory!)

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