Ok, so there’s a clear pattern emerging here, which is that you think we should do much more to manage our use of technology. An interesting example of that is the Amish. While they take it to what can seem like an extreme, they’re doing exactly what you’re getting at, just perhaps to a different degree.
The problem with such approaches is that it involves some people imposing their opinions on others, “for their own good”. That kind of thing often doesn’t turn out well. The Amish address that by letting their children leave to experience the outside world, so that their return is (arguably) voluntary - they have an opportunity to consent to the Amish social contract.
But what you seem to be doing is making a determination of what’s good for society as a whole, and then because you have no way to effect that, you argue against the tools that we might abuse rather than the tendencies people have to abuse them. It seems misplaced to me. I’m not saying there are no societal dangers from LLMs, or problems with the technocrats and capitalists running it all, but we’re not going to successfully address those issues by attacking the tools, or people who are using them effectively.
> In the past, empires bet their entire kingdom's on the words of astronomers and magicians who said they could predict the future.
You’re trying to predict the future as well, quite pessimistically at that.
I don’t pretend to be able to predict the future, but I do have a certain amount of trust in the ability of people to adapt to change.
> that's all an llm is, a plagiarism laundering machine
That’s a possible application, but it’s certainly not all they are. If you genuinely believe that’s all they are, then I don’t think you have a good understanding of them, and it could explain some of our difference in perspective.
One of the important features of LLMs is transfer learning: their ability to apply their training to problems that were not directly in their training set. Writing code is a good example of this: you can use LLMs to successfully write novel programs. There’s no plagiarism involved.
Hmm so I read this today. By happen chance someone sent it to me, it applies aptly to our conversation. It made me think a little differently about your argument and the luddite pursuasion all together. And why we shouldnt call people luddites (in a negative connotation)!!
The problem with such approaches is that it involves some people imposing their opinions on others, “for their own good”. That kind of thing often doesn’t turn out well. The Amish address that by letting their children leave to experience the outside world, so that their return is (arguably) voluntary - they have an opportunity to consent to the Amish social contract.
But what you seem to be doing is making a determination of what’s good for society as a whole, and then because you have no way to effect that, you argue against the tools that we might abuse rather than the tendencies people have to abuse them. It seems misplaced to me. I’m not saying there are no societal dangers from LLMs, or problems with the technocrats and capitalists running it all, but we’re not going to successfully address those issues by attacking the tools, or people who are using them effectively.
> In the past, empires bet their entire kingdom's on the words of astronomers and magicians who said they could predict the future.
You’re trying to predict the future as well, quite pessimistically at that.
I don’t pretend to be able to predict the future, but I do have a certain amount of trust in the ability of people to adapt to change.
> that's all an llm is, a plagiarism laundering machine
That’s a possible application, but it’s certainly not all they are. If you genuinely believe that’s all they are, then I don’t think you have a good understanding of them, and it could explain some of our difference in perspective.
One of the important features of LLMs is transfer learning: their ability to apply their training to problems that were not directly in their training set. Writing code is a good example of this: you can use LLMs to successfully write novel programs. There’s no plagiarism involved.