the reason this matters to me is because reactionary anti-AI chatter is devolving into a kind of “well, the fact that it *could* be true says something about society”, when it’s like, no, man, i don’t think some crank making a YT video about brain prisons floating in space says anything at all
idk, man, if i were an editor at, say, the daily mail or any of the other quasi-reputable outlets that ran this horseshit, i might do a double take and have some questions about the prison of the future floating in fucking space
like, both anti-AI hysteria and insane AI boosterism lead you to the same conclusion, that this technology is existentially dangerous, and any treatment of this kind of completely fictional horseshit as serious helps feed those (baseless) fears
the boosters' ability to really be as ominous and joyless as possible is quite something to behold, because there are genuinely other things you could promote.
at the point that you have actual, real startups raising millions of real dollars to create a device that leverages AI to allow users to manipulate their dreams, not to mention the "we're creating a safe digital god" startups, this really isn't THAT far outside the tech culture mainstream though
I assumed people would realize immediately that this is not a real thing and never will be... but I feel the same way about several AI startups that are getting funding! Though particularly absurd, this "idea" absolutely reflects a level of ignorance of the human experience we see elsewhere in AI.
i mean, if we read about a startup promising teleportation or star trek replicators or wearables that harness the force, we’d rightly just mock the shit out of it, but an awful lot of people see “AI” and immediately jump to THIS WOULD BE SO BAD instead of “this is comical horseshit!”
I don't think "AI is involved" is the part of this that makes people think it would be bad. I guess I can only speak for myself here, but the horror of this spectacle had zero to do with overestimating AI and everything to do with misunderstanding/underappreciating humans and humanity.
The idea that "rehabilitation" is something you can program into someone betrays a horrific mental model for human thought and behavior. The mechanism through which this would happen (implanting false memories, forget the AI part) is equally grotesque. The potential for abuse is another layer.
having watched the tenor and tone of comments on this story over the day, i kind of disagree! like, people are mixing their real concerns about real AI into this farcical horseshit story, the byproduct of which is lending just a little legitmacy to the latter, and over time, that matters a lot
Yeah - I mean *this* thing is horrifying for the specific sci-fi ways that have led it to be a plot point in multiple sci-fi horror episodes.
The AI element just marks it as something of the present moment.
I do believe there's "not a real" as in "not in the realm of feasibility" and also "not feasible but that doesn't stop some scam artist—excuse me, entrepreneur—from claiming they're going to do it"
yeah, so the outrage for me is that anyone anywhere would think this is a good idea, regardless of whether it is possible or not. Normies will likely never have a good read on what is and isn't possible in tech, but they can (and should) think through whether the idea is even a remotely good one.
that’s the point i’m getting at, though — regular normal people need to short circuit this shit at the pass, it’s not even worth considering whether it could be good or bad because it’s so flatly impossible. it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, it’s like arguing about what sports team god follows
like, there was at least a whole page of legit-looking search results reporting this same story about something that is not 10 years in the future or 100 or 1000 but something that *is never capable of happening*
I think this technology is existentially dangerous, but largely the same way the internet is: our information environment is being completely drowned in worthless sludge.
The regular old internet was already doing this and AI only promises to supercharge the process.
the primary reason to argue that this technology poses an existential threat is to make an argument that you are the person who needs to be in control of it, please deposit with me with your investment dollars and legislation and federal contracts favorable to my company
the main thing it says about society is “people are really easily duped by flashy-looking video” but i’m not sure that’s something anyone’s willing to take to heart
The only thing it does is just be one more data point in the "we're in a new golden age of grifters and conmen" data set.
It's a pretty big data set though, because it seems scammy products are the preferred way to get rich now. Everybody's trying to get some VC investment for fairy tales.
It's worrying because there seems to be a "get a little *too* eager to bash LLMS -> Get really skeptical about technology in general -> go full anprim" pipeline people are falling down and, well... we ain't getting any of the good progressive policy goals without a lot of tech.
Like, we laugh at "Anarchist communes would simply holistically produce small-batch insulin in a non-hierarchical way", but that's at least theoretically possible (it'd involve murdering a fuckton of pigs, but possible). Less, say, the World Wide Web or non-subsistence agriculture.
"at long last, someone has made a video about the Torment Nexus, from the famous tweet 'VC invents Torment Nexus from story 'don't invent the Torment Nexus''" sort of situation here
