DjangoFett

Hilariously yes. The fact that primarily Nazis feed it and warp its data and output continuously to suit their needs is what makes it a political tool rather than being innately political.

I will absolutely die on this hill.

What possible beneficial use can it have? Teaching rational humans like you and me how to recognize dog whistle bullshit and how to deal with it properly - up to and including RUD and permanent disposal.

Again, you’re the only one saying those things. I literally just finished saying I’d burn it down if I could and you’re telling me I’m defending it.

Learn to read better, please.

you’d use that as an argument later on to defend AI,

Meanwhile I actually said:

I genuinely believe humanity would be better off without AI

Your reading comprehension needs work.

My literal only point in all of this has become that tools exist independent of politics. I also think guns are abhorrent, but they exist and we have to deal with them. So it is with AI. The gun and AI are neither independently political items. It is their use which turns them into political topics well worth discussing.

If I were able to Thanos snap both guns and AI off the face of the earth along with all capability to ever produce their like again I would do it without a second thought or care for any of the consequences for it as I believe both are indeed net negatives for humanity.

As i lack that capability, I am going to have to learn how to live my life in a world where these things do exist. I also don’t blame the items themselves for existing, but rather the evil people who build them in the name of ever greater profits.

But you keep putting words and beliefs in other people’s mouths if it makes you feel better, I guess.

Because Apple is a political entity and have their own agenda.

Any tracking tool of any description can be used for personal safety or nefarious means.

Rocks aren’t political, but they can still be used to split somebody’s skull open as easily as they can be used to drive a nail. They’re tools, and the hands that use them determine their politics. That still doesn’t make the tool inherently political.

DRM is a tool to protect IP and can (though often does not) protect the individual who created the IP.

Flock cameras are really just cameras that are utilizing other tools to track people. The company using them in that way are the political ones. The tool being used as it is just happens to be the point of contention.

Data centers weren’t really a (Big) problem til they started being used for AI. So again, it is the use case rather than the tool itself.

I want to be abundantly clear that I am not actually arguing for any of these things as i think Flock et al should be slow-roasted one inch at a time just as a starter and our warm-up round for what happens to Meta and Google and Palantir and so on.

The semantic/pedantic part of me just kicks against blanket statements that, when analyzed, tend to be on shakier ground than it first appeared.

Not trying to kink shame, but furry is the opposite of a turn on for me.

You do you, though.

I think we are ultimately in agreement with a subtly different perspective on things.

Nothing is inherently political, but everything is ultimately within the realm of politics. Land itself isn’t political until people draw lines on it and start making claims.

Inert, lifeless things are not themselves inherently political. Their uses and the people who decide such make them so.

Is there anyone who

You can remember

Ever changed their mind from

The paint on a sign

Belief is a beautiful armor

It makes for the heaviest sword

Like punching underwater

You never can hit who you’re trying for

Some need the exhibition

Some have to know they tried

Its the chemical weapon

For the war that’s raging on inside

I never suggested it isn’t problematic, but it is here and apparently here to stay. We can stamp our feet and cry about it or we can learn to live with it and maybe even take advantage of it in what ways it can benefit the intelligent person.

Again, I personally believe AI is a net negative for humanity. But it isn’t up to me any more than its up to you, the existence of this crap.

My bad, I’ll go punch a libertarian to make up for it now.

Oh shit, I think that was a Lemmy user who went so far left they Pac-Man’d their way to the lib right!

Sure thing, spanky…

I wouldn’t dare do the disservice of judging the article (in full) purely on title, but “technology” includes the hammer, the wheel, and all the way around to sticks and fire.

Again, I am willing to debate the ethics of use of any given technology all day as that is absolutely a conversation worth having, especially with some technologies like spy satellites and permanently-connected IOT devices alongside LLMs.

But technology itself isn’t inherently political.

Now I’m clicking the link.

Edit: Upon reading, I fully take their point, but my own lens of it is more that everything is within the realm of politics rather than innately political itself. Tractors aren’t inherently political, but John Deere managed to make them so. Actors using, to my earlier point, any technology as a lever for politics doesn’t inherently make that technology political.

I appreciate that viewpoint immensely however, even though I don’t fully align with it myself.

I am familiar with their actual history, but the colloquialism has taken on its own life just as the term “nimrod” no longer describes the famous hunter of that name but rather a bumbling buffoon.

As regards the politics of it, we can split these hairs all day. Where do we draw the line between a tool and a weapon? Which tools are acceptable to use and in what ways?

That AI is being used as a political bludgeon is not the fault of AI any more than gunshot wounds are the direct fault of the gun; they are tools being used for particular aims. I consider both equally dangerous in the right (wrong) hands, but by that same token a gun can be used to feed a family when used for hunting just as AI has provided monetary benefits to regular working people.

A tool cannot in and of itself be political. Its use and application absolutely can.

ETA: Upon re-reading I see that my “nimrod” comparison can read as an insult. I meant it more in how Bugs Bunny altered the colloquial meaning. I was not trying to be disparaging in any way and apologize if I offended.

I can, uh, go read some Marx if you need? Would that make it better?

Copying my comment from another post that cherry-picked a specific quote of his, but ultimately I believe still applies.

My last use of AI is in my post history and was fairly down voted because I was being foolishly ironic.

This said, I don’t really disagree with his take here despite keeping away from AI as much as I am reasonably able. I do my own critical thinking and hate that I have to jump through hoops on the internet to have a simple question answered without some layman’s AI summary that may or may not be even remotely correct or actionable. Even still, when I asked it to check on local real estate laws and provide summaries of possible actions based on a very strict set of parameters, it gave me information that my wife and I were able to bring to a human agent and have things work out better than we had actually expected.

I think a better way of putting it - and I’m still gonna ruffle feathers - is that AI is becoming the new electricity.

Put down your pitchfork and lemme explain.

When electricity came out, people rather reasonably pointed out that simply coming into contact with an electrical device could result in death if one wasn’t careful. On top of that, the infrastructure required for it was expensive, unsightly, and at the time incredibly disruptive to daily life. It was going to ruin and disrupt entire industries that had existed for centuries because it could do things a human could not do unaided.

All of this is to one degree or another entirely true even through to modern times, but electricity has become a ubiquitous resource that humanity would now deeply struggle to live without. I won’t dare compare AI that far as i genuinely believe humans would be significantly better off without it, but the initial Luddite response to electricity has a historical echo here.

I think Linus’ point is more that it can undoubtedly be a useful tool when used in a measured, controlled, intelligent manner, and that it is a genie that is very clearly unwilling to be put back in its bottle. Like it or not it exists, and while we can absolutely be unhappy about it, being blind to its actual real world beneficial uses because the companies that make it are actual festering waste is a bit silly - especially when in the hands of the right chaotic neutral parties these companies are about to have a massive lesson in just how messy their tools have made things.

Turns out my organic LLM occasionally vomits out sensible things, too.

My last use of AI is in my post history and was fairly down voted because I was being foolishly ironic.

This said, I don’t really disagree with his take here despite keeping away from AI as much as I am reasonably able. I do my own critical thinking and hate that I have to jump through hoops on the internet to have a simple question answered without some layman’s AI summary that may or may not be even remotely correct or actionable. Even still, when I asked it to check on local real estate laws and provide summaries of possible actions based on a very strict set of parameters, it gave me information that my wife and I were able to bring to a human agent and have things work out better than we had actually expected.

I think a better way of putting it - and I’m still gonna ruffle feathers - is that AI is becoming the new electricity.

Put down your pitchfork and lemme explain.

When electricity came out, people rather reasonably pointed out that simply coming into contact with an electrical device could result in death if one wasn’t careful. On top of that, the infrastructure required for it was expensive, unsightly, and at the time incredibly disruptive to daily life. It was going to ruin and disrupt entire industries that had existed for centuries because it could do things a human could not do unaided.

All of this is to one degree or another entirely true even through to modern times, but electricity has become a ubiquitous resource that humanity would now deeply struggle to live without. I won’t dare compare AI that far as i genuinely believe humans would be significantly better off without it, but the initial Luddite response to electricity has a historical echo here.

I think Linus’ point is more that it can undoubtedly be a useful tool when used in a measured, controlled, intelligent manner, and that it is a genie that is very clearly unwilling to be put back in its bottle. Like it or not it exists, and while we can absolutely be unhappy about it, being blind to its actual real world beneficial uses because the companies that make it are actual festering waste is a bit silly - especially when in the hands of the right chaotic neutral parties these companies are about to have a massive lesson in just how messy their tools have made things.

It heavily depends on your needs, wants, and expectations.

In simplest terms, Ubuntu is Mac-like and Mint is Windows-like. At least, on the surface. Basically everything else is feature parity, just requires slightly different arrangements depending on which flavor you’re running.

I didn’t much like Ubuntu as it feels too close to MacOS to me. Primarily because I don’t really like that aesthetic. Ubuntu and Mint were my first forays into Linux as well, but this was also years ago when Mint was relatively new to the scene. While I personally liked the style of Mint, at the time it just didn’t have nearly enough features for what I was into.

These days I settled on CachyOS which is a fork of Arch. Cachy is aimed at gaming, but comes with a very straightforward installer with a huge amount of customization options to really make the OS your own. That’s ultimately what keeps me on Arch is the genuine ease of customization at this point. Rolling releases don’t bother me as i used to do CyanogenMod nightlies and this is like the big boy version of that, but I also can fully appreciate wanting shit to just work.

That said, Ubuntu is arguably the most popular distro because of its similarities to Mac and the “It just works” vibes it tends to give off these days.

The best part of Linux is how easy it is to check out a new flavor and see how you like it. And once you do find the flavor that suits you, the mega nerds in that particular community have probably already figured out how to do that thing you want. And if those folks didn’t for any reason, the folks at AUR* probably did.

*AUR = Arch User Repository and is an unregulated repository of whatever anyone clever enough to develop for Arch has come up with. Peruse and download at your own risk, but there’s some genuinely awesome and useful tools out there.