I thought you were kidding but I just had to know lol. Like to make a case for Papyrus being racist you’d firstly have to say who it’s being racist towards, and it’s just a bit… vague… for that. Na’vi maybe?

OK I love that fonts stir up such strong feelings in people… but racist? How tf is papyrus racist?

So I can outnumber my enemies

I just don’t think this is a problem in the current stage of technological development. Modern AI is a cute little magic act, but humans (collectively) are very good at piercing the veil and then spreading around the discrepancies they’ve discovered.

In its current stage, no. But it’s come a long way in a short time, and I don’t think we’re so far from having machines that pass the Turing test 100%. But rather than being a proof of consciousness, all this really shows is that you can’t judge consciousness from the outside looking in. We know it’s a big illusion just because its entire development has been focused on building that illusion. When it says it feels something, or cares deeply about something, it’s saying that because that’s the kind of thing a human would say.

Because all the development has been focused on fakery rather than understanding and replicating consciousness, we’re close to the point where we can have a fake consciousness that would fool anyone. It’s a worrying prospect, and not just because I won’t become immortal by having a machine imitate my behaviour. There’s bad actors working to exploit this situation. Elon Musk’s attempts to turn Grok into his own personally controlled overseer of truth and narrative seem to backfire in the most comical ways, but that’s teething troubles, and in time this will turn into a very subtle and pervasive problem for humankind. The intrinsic fakeness of it is a concerning aspect. It’s like we’re getting a puppet show version of what AI could have been.

Well, that’s why we need clones with mind transfer, and to be unconscious during the process. When you wake up you won’t know whether you’re the original or the copy so why worry

People used to talk about the idea of uploading your consciousness to a computer to achieve immortality. But nowadays I don’t think anyone would trust it. You could tell me my consciousness was uploaded and show me a version of me that was indistinguishable from myself in every way, but I still wouldn’t believe it experiences or feels anything as I do, even though it claims to do so. Especially if it’s based on an LLM, since they are superficial imitations by design.

That could have gotten embarrassing if they hadn’t had those two guys ready to smoothly cover the stage with a curtain. Close call!

Before I used Google Maps regularly, I would be more aware of road layout while driving and soon become capable of navigating any town I visited regularly, without a map. It’s weird to drive through a place I last visited twenty years ago, knowing that last time I was there I’d navigate based on memory, but now I’m completely leaning on that device to do it for me. That mental faculty might not be absolutely lost, but I don’t use it and I don’t suppose I would ever have developed it if I were learning to drive today.

Perhaps it’s obsolete, and a modern brain can now use those resources for something more relevant. Over the course of human history we have developed tools to use our finite mental resources more effectively, but never without a price. Socrates feared that the use of writing would weaken our memory and true understanding. I’m sure he was right, at least about the memory, but it was worth the price. Without writing, nobody would know what Socrates thought about anything.

But with AI, we’re not enabling ourselves to do more and develop new faculties, because AI seeks to be our universal crutch. Perhaps under other circumstances it could be better, but the entities pushing AI want us to be compliant consumers hypnotized by a endless stream of advertising slop. Fundamentally, they are not incentivized to help us develop our potential. They want to replace us.

Dropping the kids off at the pool

Definitely wealth. I haven’t tasted him yet

I know I wasn’t mature enough, but if being well informed, politically conscious and sensible were a prerequisite for voting, we’d be living in a very different world. As far as I’m concerned, this is most likely to change things for the better.

I expect we’ll see a spate of Jewish sounding motorists getting trapped in the car with windows disabled and exhaust fumes diverted to the inside of the car (even though it’s electric; technology finds a way)

You’ll also live better. It’s a sad indictment of society that people incapable of forming meaningful relationships, but able to buy some shiny crap they don’t need, are considered successful.

Any man who has to say, ‘I am the king’ is no true king.

That hairstyle! Though to be fair, I also did some stupid shit thinking it was cool when I was 22.

That’s not just a beard. It’s a chin constructed from hair.

What benefits me is not what benefits the people owning the ai models

Yep, that right there is the problem

I agree that it’s on a whole other level, and it poses challenging questions as to how we might live healthily with AI, to get it to do what we don’t benefit from doing, while we continue to do what matters to us. To make matters worse, this is happening in a time of extensive dumbing down and out of control capitalism, where a lot of the forces at play are not interested in serving the best interests of humanity. As individuals it’s up to us to find the best way to live with these pressures, and engage with this technology on our own terms.

I think the author was quite honest about the weak points in his thesis, by drawing comparisons with cars, and even with writing. Cars come at great cost to the environment, to social contact, and to the health of those who rely on them. And maybe writing came at great cost to our mental capabilities though we’ve largely stopped counting the cost by now. But both of these things have enabled human beings to do more, individually and collectively. What we lost was outweighed by what we gained. If AI enables us to achieve more, is it fair to say it’s making us stupid? Or are we just shifting our mental capabilities, neglecting some faculties while building others, to make best use of the new tool? It’s early days for AI, but historically, cognitive offloading has enhanced human potential enormously.

Why so pessimistic? With any luck brainchips will mean the end of annoying adverts once and for all. You’ll just feel an unexpected desire to acquire certain products. And maybe crippling headaches or a nauseating feeling of unease if you ignore these urges