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  • Your weary 'net denizencstanhope@social.coop
    Nov 6, 2026, 12:56 PM

    "I no longer believe that our technology will have a net positive impact on society. I think there's a fantasy world where AI can help decarbonise grids, cut waste, protect ecosystems, and benefit humanity. But it's not this world, and it's not this type of general-purpose AI we are racing to develop. Racing to deploy agentic AI in society as it is now and in this historical moment is a terrible idea, and will definitely be a net evil.

    Technology is NOT a neutral tool. This assessment assumes we can separate technology from the context it's deployed into, but we should not: we have a responsibility to assess the tool in the context in which it's going to be used. It also assumes we can separate the technology from who owns it, builds it, controls it, and benefits from it."

    The full letter:

    stay-human.sofialiguori.com/

    Some additional context and reporting:

    opendemocracy.net/nice-face-of

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  • Andy DeardenAndyDearden@mastodon.green
    Nov 6, 2026, 3:34 PM

    @cstanhope I am not clear about why this important content is hidden. Depressing and scary, I guess, but important all the same.

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  • TheEvilSkeleton 🇮🇳 🏳️‍⚧️TheEvilSkeleton@treehouse.systems
    Nov 6, 2026, 4:57 PM

    @cstanhope

    "One of the most powerful of these reassurances is compartmentalisation. Many of us don't work on projects directly related to warfare, myself included. And even people working on Gemini can take comfort in the broad range of its applications, or detach their work from how it is concretely used by focusing on the research or technical side. It's easy to push any ethical consideration to the side.

    But we can't accept ‘My project is not related to that’, ‘It can also be used for good’, ‘I just make it run fast’, ‘If not us, someone else, it makes no difference’.

    Compartmentalisation in this context is just wrong. It's easy and natural given the high pace of our jobs and all the difficulties of our personal lives. But it's wrong, and accepting it is a destructive process for ourselves.

    [...]

    We cannot preserve our integrity while compartmentalising this deeply. Integrity means wholeness. Compartmentalisation, past a certain point, is fragmentation, and as such, it opposes integrity. Some separation of contexts is healthy, but when it becomes a way to avoid seeing contradictions, it starts to resemble Orwell's doublethink[14]. The scope within which our values, our empathy, and even our rational thought (which we can apply so masterfully to scientific questions) are allowed to operate begins to narrow. We stop criticising; we are no longer indignant at plain lies and incoherence. The best part of us has less and less room to exist."

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