To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

Posted by mooreds 2 hours ago

To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks(musings.martyn.berlin)

90 points | 147 commentspage 2

helterskelter 1 hour ago|

This is becoming a mainstream position for a number of reasons but I think the unifying concern across many demographics is the concern about the effects on power it will have. Nobody wants an omnipresent big brother in anybody's hands, and people are waking up to the fact that the infrastructure is already there without any real safeguards, all that's really needed is cheap intelligence to handle all the data.

skeledrew 1 hour ago|

I'd say this is a huge reason to actually push for more AI, especially open models. I agree that there are serious environmental, etc concerns BUT there will be an even larger problem in the future when this tech becomes incorporated into pretty much everything if there are only a couple providers with a -poly on the really good models. This thing is here to stay and will only get qualitatively better, and the way to prevent/offset the "omnipresent big brother" is to ensure that everyone has reasonable access to models with decent capability and know how to properly evaluate and use them.

helterskelter 1 hour ago||

I don't know if more models will offer a meaningful counter to those in power, who will have not only more resources, but also the military, law enforcement and effectively the law itself.

Probably the most we can hope to do at this point is to dismantle the surveillance architecture. "Starve the beast" so to speak.

kenforthewin 1 hour ago||

The weepiness and persecution complex is overwhelming.

ashgf 1 hour ago|

Found the tech Chad. Stoic, laconic, faux masculine while always bending over to tech bosses.

And of course, ... making the OP an outcast for his opinions. Just like he said.

fasterik 1 hour ago||

There's nothing wrong with having a moral stance on something. It only becomes a problem when the stance is disproportionate and detached from empirical reality.

bawolff 1 hour ago|

Its always detached at some level. Morality always comes down to a choice of what you think is wrong vs right. You can't reason from the way the world is to the way the world ought to be, without picking some values.

fasterik 1 hour ago||

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lyoncy 1 hour ago||

What most AI companies won't tell you is that creating a massive amount of new code will result in an overwhelming amount of technical debt for companies worldwide, sooner or later. Many organisations now believe that they can develop their own apps form scratch using AI, but if they don't pay for tokens capable of handling their ever-growing infrastructure code, their infrastructure will rot. The tendency to reinvent the wheel has always been a problem in the software industry, and AI will only accelerate this trend.

Nevertheless, I'm optimistic that an LLM will be developed sooner or later that is fully aware of the open-source ecosystem and can create software in the correct way: This would involve using pre-existing code and reviewed modules that are plugged together and optimised to create as little new code as possible while reusing as much open-source code as possible.

throwawaytwice 1 hour ago||

Why should I feel bad for using AI when the people telling me not to use it all use phones and computers which are the result of exploitation somewhere in Africa to mine for the resources needed to make them.

ctrl-alt-zen 1 hour ago||

Congratulations, you just discovered moral relativism why even bother if __bad thing__ exists? Why shouldn’t I sell opiates when doctors can prescribe oxycontin and fentanyl? Throwawaytwice won’t care about hurting me and mine with their choices, why not preemptively strike throwawaytwice? Where’s the bottom?

morislz 1 hour ago|||

Probably should feel as bad about it as you do for owning and using your phone. The world is unfair and will stay that way, but now with AI it'll probably just get worse. And if you only look out for yourself - fine, that might work, but all of it has consequences. If you use AI for coding you will most certainly have noticed already that your actual skills might have declined - at least that's the observation I made personally and from talking to fellow engineers.

wiseowise 1 hour ago||

You shouldn't. You should feel bad when they'll kick you out on the street, because Claude "does better job than lower value human capital".

samat 1 hour ago||

It started well, and then he is suddenly sick because fellow member of the drama group made a poster using AI without consulting him (her?)

Anyways, people looking for drama will find one

sleepofreason 1 hour ago||

It seems unlikely at this point, given the real or perceived utility of using modern AI models, that people are going to stop using the technology. Also, given the huge amount of capital that's gone into the industry at this point, it would likely have a pretty negative effect on the global economy if they did. If you feel like it's causing a lot of harm and you're more passionately morally opposed to it than most, perhaps the thing to do is to focus on devising methods to lessen the harm. I think that would be very valuable to society.

sealeck 1 hour ago||

I think the issue with these kind of stances is that they are basically status quo bias; why don't you object to the computer itself, and thus refuse to write programs? After all: they were invented by the UK military in the pursuit of military goals (and much of their subsequent development was funded by the US military - see https://types.pl/@graydon/110648447694201698 - and the fact that ARPAnet, GPS, etc were all military creations). Computer systems are mostly used by large corporations and the military to achieve their goals more effectively.

Usually the objection is that "oh well, the computer can be used for many great things", which isn't particularly satisfying because, um, we can use AI for "good" (better?) things as well (e.g. trying to find novel cures, unlocking the mysteries of protein folding, etc etc).

Then the objection becomes something like "well the computer is here and we have to live with it", which is also now true of AI. Do I like the "it's inevitable" argument; no, but it's clearly very true that we do have the transformer, that won't go away - where we DO have control (or should seek to change) is the organisational structures that we as a society decide to create, and how we safeguard the dignity of the individual in changing times.

FloorEgg 1 hour ago|

Being able to discern what is and isn't in our control helps tremendously in doing what is right and constructive.

The fact that some people opt out of engaging with AI, I think is healthy for society as a whole. If that's within their control and they exercise their control to do what they think is right, then I commend them.

That said, I do think there is a greater natural force at play, something involving entropy and increasing complexity and energy profit maximization. It seems to cut through all levels of abstraction from organic chemistry to civilizations and probably beyond. I assume this is outside of humanity's control, and therefore outside of any individuals control.

So what is inside our control? Our own perceptions and actions.

My perception is that the advance of computation and by extension proliferation of probabilistic programs (AI) is inevitable. It's on a continuum that is a force of nature.

What I might have some control over is choosing to harness that potential to increase future prosperity for more people and the greater environment, and to avoid contributing to outcomes that harm people and the environment.

Lots of bad things are happening and will happen that are outside my control.

I do genuinely believe that the capabilities are inherently neutral. Civilization can choose to harness them in a variety of ways, for a variety of purposes.

If the majority of people choose options that are game theory win-win, then the future will be better... If the majority of people choose win-lose, then the future will probably be worse.

The risk isn't AI, it's how we choose to use it.

eggbrain 1 hour ago||

> [...] People do not realise how much of a toll it takes on you if you actually care about the environment, exploited workers, theft from the people who can least afford it, the impact on people's cognitive skills, the centralisation of power, the spread of disinformation, the ruination of the web and/or the destruction of entire career paths (not billionaire of course, that's always a safe one), and not endorsing (either distinctly or tacitly by using) AI.

I believe people do understand the toll caring about something deeply takes -- but caring about all these things at once, many which you personally can't control, feels more like atlas syndrome or compassion fatigue by the author.

I also find the author a bit all-or-nothing in general. Losing friends because they use AI? Why does the dichotomy have to be so black and white? Can people have moral quandaries about AI while still using it, or does the moral stance always have to be absolute?

CM30 1 hour ago|

Eh, I get the author's point, but I also feel like it's very much community dependent. Some places accept AI sure, but there's also a lot of sites that have a zero tolerance attitude towards it as well.

If you talk about using AI on Twitter, Threads, Mastodon or Bluesky, you will often get flamed to a crisp. If you talk about using AI on many subreddits or Discord servers you will get flamed to a crisp. If you talk about using it on many forums (especially software engineering and modding ones), you will start a flame war at best.

Even sites which would logically be more corporate friendly (like say, LinkedIn) have a lot of people who hate AI and all those that use it.

So I'm not sure that disliking AI necessarily makes you an outcast here. Yeah, you're not going to get along with its advocates, and there are quite a few companies and organisations that support it.

But there are also a lot of places that despise it's very existence, and where being a critic of AI is the normal, 'mainstream' view.

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