Jul 30, 2026, 12:10 AMAI is really the perfect reflection of American society, huh? Something that doesn't work, is built entirely on scams, but takes off anyway because the only people who have the ability to do anything about it are neither able nor interested in becoming able to evaluate anything on technical merits, because we live in a post-truth culture, and live under an economy that can only understand limitless growth and consumption.
Jul 30, 2026, 12:11 AM(As ever, "doesn't work" isn't a good argument against AI. I'm not making that argument here. I'm making an observation about what the fact that they don't work tells us about American culture more broadly.)
Jul 30, 2026, 12:16 AMIn the eternal spirit of "AI doesn't cause problems, it exacerbates them," American society already had:
• A tech sector that has long been dependent on increasing TDP to achieve growth.
• Given up on truth being relevant to mainstream culture.
• Failed to address its eugenicist history.
• Concentrated decision making power into anti-intellectual and incurious cliques of billionaires.
...and so many other things that AI has accelerated.
Jul 30, 2026, 12:21 AM
Jul 30, 2026, 12:22 AMJul 30, 2026, 12:23 AM@mcc That is just straight up Brazil bullshit.
Jul 30, 2026, 12:26 AM@xgranade literally yeah
Jul 30, 2026, 1:01 AM
Jul 30, 2026, 1:20 AM
@xgranade
As someone who specializes in the "doesn't work" argument, I have to agree. The ethical arguments are decisive and in general should be front and centre.
My specialization comes from pragmatism; I happen to be good (I think) at the "doesn't work" argument, due to what I know, and in practice I find it has more impact on the LLM booster crowd. Their most common defense of LLMs is also pragmatic, after all: "they work too well to worry about ethics." By undercutting that, I force them back into considering the ethics of the situation.
We need both ethical and pragmatic arguments to make headway, but let's not make the mistake of ranking the two as equally important.
@xgranade Perfectly stated!