Generative AI is a Faustian bargain.
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Generative AI is a Faustian bargain. Every use of it weakens you. Maybe you occasionally save a few minutes, but you are diminished for it. With each use you are further from your human potential.
@benlockwood We've been doing faustian bargain with stuff that weaken us since the wheel was invented and probably way longer before that. AI is just the latest in a very, very long list.
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Generative AI is a Faustian bargain. Every use of it weakens you. Maybe you occasionally save a few minutes, but you are diminished for it. With each use you are further from your human potential.
But you don't save a few minutes, and the output is notably and dispositively worse than if you'd just done it yourself.
"Faustian" implies that there's a benefit that eventually leads to ruin. LLMs have no benefit; they are all ruin: ecological, social, cognitive, and economic.
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@benlockwood electrically powered tools are a faustian bargain. Every use of them weakens you...
Electric drill diminishes your use of muscles that could've been used for hammering nails manually
If you're using an electric drill to hammer nails in, you're going to break your drill. Use a hammer.
[Or were you making a point about using approriate tools for the task? It's not clear.]
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@rasterweb @corigan01 @benlockwood Yeah but a more modern form of transportation will get you much further
all fun aside, these analogies are a good reminder that there are no really new problems here and we'll defeat them all the same!
@wraptile @rasterweb @corigan01 @benlockwood
"Yeah but a more modern form of transportation will get you much further
"Or we can design our cities more human-scale, where everything we need is within a 1-hour bike ride.
Less pollution, better health, saves lots of money so you have more money for other things (or work fewer hours because you're not spending half your pay on a car, parking, insurance, registration, maintenance, car washes, tires, fuel, a garage to park it in that always ends up full of crap, etc).
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@tylnesh @benlockwood I understand its a metaphor, however, I am saying it misses the point of the argument being made.
I don't agree the contacts list on my phone and an AI are the same magnitude of thing.
@corigan01 @tylnesh @benlockwood
Also, all these other examples are deterministic systems which can be understood and utilised with agency. LLM output is fundamentally randomised, using it is just rolling some dice and hoping that the result will be useful; you actually do hand off all agency over your own life when doing so. -
@Minos @benlockwood your brain is absolute a computer _but_ also more than a computer.
And I didn't say "ship more code" but _create more_ to the very end where it's more than just exploration of an idea but a full product. Finishing stuff matters. Diversity of experience matters.
AI tools absolutely great for this unless you don't know how to use them or too weak willed/unfortunate enough to get caught by sub-optimal paths which is absolutely a valid and real issue for some.
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@wraptile @corigan01 @benlockwood Alternately you can ride a bike to many places.
@rasterweb @wraptile @corigan01 @benlockwood Bikes weaken our ability to run distances. We should ditch them.
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@benlockwood That's a heck of a claim when some of us are using AI as a prosthesis for things like poor executive function or ADHD.
I have an AI assistant I've set up to have context about all my projects & their status.
If I have a bad brain day where I'm foggy/can't focus, I can ask the AI to help me figure out what I should be working on.
That makes me MORE myself, not less.
And anyway, I'll take a handshake with Lucifer over Yahweh any day. The Devil has integrity.
@jack @benlockwood I read the OP as using it for actual creative/engineering tasks rather than an assistant.
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@benlockwood I don't think that's necessarily true.
Sure if you don't ride the bike every day you're worse bike rider but finishing races also makes you a better bike rider.
I'm a senior dev and consider myself a good'ish coder and while LLMs do make me worse at memorizing APIs I ship so much more which on it's own a very useful skill to train.
At the end of the day it's just another computer. If you use the one that's in your skull as well then you'll be just perfectly fine.
@wraptile @benlockwood Block block blockety block!
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That's overstating it a bit.
Is it great? No.
Do some folks use it? Yes.
Do some folks have good use cases for it? Yes.
Is their *humanity* diminished?C'mon, now.
@DeliaChristina @benlockwood "Is their humanity diminished"?
Yes. Because AI is environmentally unsustainable, is contributing substantially to our warming planet, and is trained on stolen material. Even the best use cases fail to account for the harms. The fact that a Dalmatian puppy fur coat might keep one person from freezing to death is not justification for killing and skinning Dalmatian puppies.
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@rasterweb @wraptile @corigan01 @benlockwood Bikes weaken our ability to run distances. We should ditch them.
@jeantranscene @wraptile @corigan01 @benlockwood Run? On two legs!? We should be crawling on all fours.
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@benlockwood electrically powered tools are a faustian bargain. Every use of them weakens you...
Electric drill diminishes your use of muscles that could've been used for hammering nails manually
@tylnesh @benlockwood
Oof. I appreciate your intention about AI and agree with that intention.
But this was a poor choice for the simile. I work with crew almost every day. In most cases, power tools are a way of avoiding repetitive stress injuries and have nothing to do with sparing muscle fatigue. They are a safety measure.
I apologize for the interruption. -
@corigan01 @tylnesh @benlockwood
Also, all these other examples are deterministic systems which can be understood and utilised with agency. LLM output is fundamentally randomised, using it is just rolling some dice and hoping that the result will be useful; you actually do hand off all agency over your own life when doing so.@painting_squirrel @corigan01 @benlockwood I don’t hope, I read, reread, reason about it and verify the output. Also saying that LLMs are non deterministic is a gross simplification. Set the model temperature to 0, greedy decoding and fixed seed and barring floating point inaccuracies and similar influences you get close to deterministic output. If you want to go as close as possible, run inference on a cpu.
Do you use compilers or do you write assembly?
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Generative AI is a Faustian bargain. Every use of it weakens you. Maybe you occasionally save a few minutes, but you are diminished for it. With each use you are further from your human potential.
I always say that AI is like the One Ring. You think it's serving you, but it really only serves its master.
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@tylnesh @benlockwood
Oof. I appreciate your intention about AI and agree with that intention.
But this was a poor choice for the simile. I work with crew almost every day. In most cases, power tools are a way of avoiding repetitive stress injuries and have nothing to do with sparing muscle fatigue. They are a safety measure.
I apologize for the interruption.@ohmu @benlockwood power tools often cause RSI, albeit different from manual equivalents.
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@tylnesh @corigan01 @benlockwood Confusing memorization with actual learning is part of what has gotten us in the mess we are in now.
@rasterweb @corigan01 @benlockwood if you want to be nitpicky, let me change my metaphor to “Learn to navigate by stars, instead of using a compass” yea, it’s very cool and useful (at night), but refusing new ways of doing things because you lack understanding and there are assholes abusing it is giving away power to those assholes.
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@rasterweb @corigan01 @benlockwood if you want to be nitpicky, let me change my metaphor to “Learn to navigate by stars, instead of using a compass” yea, it’s very cool and useful (at night), but refusing new ways of doing things because you lack understanding and there are assholes abusing it is giving away power to those assholes.
@tylnesh @corigan01 @benlockwood Can you use your own tools and not use the tools the assholes provide and control?
If you are paying the assholes to use their services you need to determine where you fit into the asshole equation.
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@undead @benlockwood yeah, my solar powered second hand gpu is burning forests down.
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@benlockwood this comment section has given me so many valuable lessons in blocking before arguing with unaware people. Thank you.
@MamaLake@beige.party @benlockwood@ecoevo.social blocking anti-AI or pro-AI people? Or regardless of their stance, blocking people that used bad arguments and/or know little of what they were defending?
I have an idea but, I'm genuinely curious about your answer. -
Generative AI is a Faustian bargain. Every use of it weakens you. Maybe you occasionally save a few minutes, but you are diminished for it. With each use you are further from your human potential.
@benlockwood @lisamelton This would make a great modern-day fairy tale.
