Good post by David Golumbia on ChatGPT and how miserable it all is :rat-salute-2:
My take remains the same, the current way in which capitalists will use AI is bad. But there doesn’t seem to be a solution that doesn’t just end up on a slippery slope and it still doesn’t address the elephant in the room which is how do you actually enforce this.
Society would have to around and see AI art as reprehensible as child porn, so that not only you can get a broad international legislative consensus against it, but also be able to mark sure capitalists enforce this legislation.
So will we get the same consensus with AI tools? Its a rhetorical question isn’t it? We can’t get people organized to do any meaningful climate change praxis and that is an existential threat.
We only have one recent example of something becoming socially taboo in a short amount of time and it was NFTs. If you can convince the entire art community to organize and oppose AI art then maybe AI art could end up just like NFTs. Actual professionals and people involved in the community are the ones that should be convinced to be against it. Wasting time arguing with with the average person wont change anything if half the art community is split on the issue.
I think I’ll take a break from this one, after some parting thoughts.
I don’t believe in a “soul” or any particularly special cosmic importance assigned to human beings or any particular divine presence that assigns such importance to human beings. That said, crude reductionism plays into the hands of the ruling class and is far more often used to degrade and denigrate “the other” than it ever actually meaningfully challenges the arrogance and the abuses of the ruling class. Look at how many of them (and their enabling minions) see the rest of us as “NPCs” or even “husks” to borrow a term from the “Effective Altruist” eugenicists discussed here a few days ago.
If we’re all supposed to call our individual consciousness “an illusion” on some deterministic grounds and then stretch that stance further to state that we can (and by implication, should) be easily replaced with chat programs and the like, why fight the ruling class at all? Why not just let the superficially more efficient computers do their thing, let the the owners of such computers, simply “stochastic parrots” like the rest of us even if they clearly get a lot more power and privilege with their own “parroting,” rake in those profits at all our expense? Why don’t we just let them do as they please and instead lay down and die because we have no more right to exist than the machines that the ruling class owns for purposes of replacing us, one purpose at a time? It all doesn’t matter how we suffer because our lived experiences are all just an illusion, right? :galaxy-brain:
If and when society is improved somewhat and suffering is reduced, I’ll be more open to discussions of how we’re all “meat computers” in “meatspace” and what meaningful consequences (if any, really) that such reductionism entails for how we should think about ourselves and each other. Until then, it’s just another kind of alienation and insulation, a privileged position to see others suffering and adhere to crude and nihilistic yet ironically lofty perspectives on the human condition that usually further demoralize the proletariat instead of motivating them to fight back and, materialistically, do fucking nothing to improve their material conditions.
That’s why so many right-wing techbros like to talk about “meatspace” and “meat computers,” I argue. The perspective does not threaten their power and in their interpretation actually strengthens their grip.
Parting thoughts over.
:manhattan:
Marxists: Capitalist technological creation and fixed capital accumulation and automation will lead to mounting contradictions and be the eventual base of a fully automated socialist society
Also Marxists: No, don’t create automation don’t accumulate fixed capital or advance technology. Let’s remain stagnant in 20th century technology forever
And yet if you call someone anti-materialist over this, it breaks their mind for weeks.
Not wanting your quality of life to significantly degrade because tech bros are stealing to commons again is anti-materialist got it.
It is if you don’t have any realistic plan whatsoever to actually eliminate the problem, and instead choose to endlessly complain about it.
The coming climate apocalypse is bad.
You moron. You swine. You sniveling worm. Can’t you see that pointing out that something is bad when you can’t fix it is anti-materialist!?
That analogy doesn’t work because you can solve climate change by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You can’t “solve” the existence of deep learning tech except by somehow deleting every trace of its existence and somehow preventing people from creating it again.
In abstract using math problems to do creative work it tacky, banal, and evidence of a lack of imagination and seriousness. But that’s not a problem. There have been crass philistines that shouldn’t be invited to parties since the dawn of time. Humanity will survive.
In this specific case math problems are being used to immiserate working class artists and reduce everyone’s quality of life by replacing creative work with shitty madlibs copypasta. The solution, surprise surprise, is to abolish the economic form that incentivizes the private accumulation of capital! Ie, abolish capitalism.
Because this is literally just another example of capital seizing the commons in order to profit from it.
Oooh oh shit he’s got a materialist analysis of the problem noooo mah reductive retreat in to scientism to avoid discussing icky feels! What will I do now?!
Very anti-Marxist worldview
pointing out bad things is anti-Marxist
I would argue that pointing out bad things is an essential first step in Marxism.
You are basically just being a Bernstein complaining about monopolies and trying to pass anti-trust legislation to protect small businesses.
As Lenin pointed out, monopolization is inevitable under capitalism and its logical end point. It’s also necessary, as only monopolized industry can be easily seized. Capitalism creates the conditions of its own defeat and builds the base of the next system to come that will replace it.
Just like this, automation is inevitable under capitalism and its logical end point. It’s also necessary, as only a post-scarcity and automated based can enable socialism. Capitalists build the base and develop productive forces, and then once it becomes mired in its own crisis it can then be seized for the replacement.
This is the Marxist conception of capitalist development into socialism. You are simply a reactionary or an idealist if all you can do is whine about the inevitable direction of capitalism and attempt to hold it in stasis instead of using the contradictions of capitalism against it.
Trust busting is Liberal policy and anti-Marxist as it preserves capitalism for longer. Policies meant to hinder or prevent automation, or regress to an earlier period of technology, are Liberal policies and anti-Marxist as it preserves capitalism for longer and prevents the necessary development
I don’t really what problem this solves other than the ability to sell you more slop and create the advertisements more slop. From what I have seen, there is no guarantee for correctness on technical matters. It’s doesn’t feed or clothes people. So I kind of always feel odd when people say it’s un Marxist to be against AI Art or Chat GPT.
Chat GPT can write code. It can debug code. It can design websites. It can translate language better than any automated language translation services. I fail to see how this doesn’t automate socially necessary work and solve problems
Let’s be honest. ChatGPT is copying code snippets from StackOverflow with varying levels of correctness. I guess that is what people were doing anyways though.
No it isn’t connected to the internet any longer and it creates novel code for requests in plain English that are extremely specific and niche
The legacy code creator. Debugging from scratch every time. Everyone’s favorite activity.
AI has improved exponentially in just the last year. You are completely blind if you do not see the potential this has to basically eliminate nearly all white collar work as it becomes even more sophisticated
What does “being against it” do, though? What specific actions would you take in opposition to deep learning tech?
I’m strict on calling it un-Marxist because carrying out an anti-AI programme would rely on either an unsustainable unending struggle against everyone trying to recreate it, or going full :a-guy: and bringing us so far back into the Stone Age that we can never reindustrialize again.
Most of the problems that people describe with deep learning tech, including what you’re describing, are problems with the system that it exists within, not problems with the tech itself. The abolition of capitalism is the only sustainable and permanent solution to the problem, and would be one that allows humanity to fully realize its benefits with few adverse consequences.
As of right now, I do not think any opposition to AI will actually benefit workers in any way – the most likely outcome would be that huge media companies end up being the only people able to effectively use the technology, which will result in most of the job eliminations we would hope to prevent happening anyways. It’s a fight between media companies wanting stronger copyright (look up the Mickey Mouse curve – we’re due for another expansion of copyright) and tech companies wanting to sell ridiculously overpriced cloud services, and regular artists don’t get a seat at this table under our current system.
