when the social-economic maelstrom that is the current LLM hype wave fizzles or collapses there's going to be so much "how could so many smart people be so wrong?" and it's imperative you do not accept their framing of themselves as "smart people" - they are, in judgment and values and intellect, deeply compromised from living inside a machine that harms humanity for profit.
i am not saying they are "not smart", i am saying that smartness as a concept conceals how the world actually works - that societies and processes and organizations and tools are what "make people smart" - and that these people are part of a rotten, sick, deluded society/organization with fundamentally flawed processes and frameworks for evaluating reality, which prominently include "the concept of smartness".
Jun 2, 2025, 3:29 PM@jplebreton have you seen this? https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/toolmen
@v i hadn't, this is fire, thank you!
@v @jplebreton it quotes le guins tau te ching, which is also a wonderful read!
my father holds the highest possible academic honour in my country of origin, and yet he tells me to investigate the jews (we haven't spoken in almost a decade)
my partner hasn't finished high school, and yet she taught me that the world really doesn't work the way i thought
educated fool is absolutely a thing
and yes, the concept of smartness as a whole is something that's better left alone and just do things
@vitloksbjorn @jplebreton One of the wisest people I have had the pleasure to know was functionally illiterate.
@jplebreton it's wild that anyone who lives a life of credulity at this point is allowed to refer to themselves as smart in public. we're decades into tech companies always lying about everything, and enshittifying in a predictable way. anyone who doesn't see where that leads *everything* cannot, by definition, be smart.
@charlesrandall it's the same way so many people can still believe that the earth was created ~6000 years ago. it's sustained on pure faith and social context.
@jplebreton right. and I take issue with anyone believing the earth is only 6000 years old calling themselves smart as well. it's all fundamentally the same thing. an urge to believe everything they are told uncritically.
AI is just religion for people who claim to be atheists.
@jplebreton @charlesrandall yep, same as the people who continue to buy new built houses that are primarily accessible by long drives and wildfires. Like climate change is coming and you're going to make you biggest asset a single vulnerable structure in a place that burns or floods? And then do something everyday that makes the likelihood of it burning or flooding higher? And people think that's smart...
Jun 2, 2025, 5:12 PM@jplebreton We keep those receipts, we hold onto them for when those idiots think enough time has passed and they can start their hustle up again.
yes, keep the receipts
but these guys came in here, many of them still holding Bored Ape NFTs, and _nobody held them to account anyway_
Jun 2, 2025, 5:14 PM@jplebreton
When PC's first came out they warned people "crap in, crap out", but that seems to have been forgotten for LLMs.
@jplebreton i have the impression that it is not the smart people who want to use these LLM
Its either smart people forced to use it, or pushy people pushing it
maybe this is the bias of my sources, but from what I noticed, the biggest proponents don't seem to be very erudite or even ambitious, they see power (of creation) as something that's owed to them
@jplebreton Let’s face it: ”Artificial Intelligence” is now, very thoroughly, a domain of political power.
Hence the standard political toolkit of persuasion through spin, narrative & manipulation is in full swing also.
The players might be new, but the game is as old as civilisation, perhaps humanity, itself!
Just in, spot the irony: https://techhub.social/@Sarah_Lea/114615589371471466
