Perhaps one of the reasons I'm not into LLMs is because I am not really convinced that what we need in the world is more stuff done faster.
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@matt Some things do need to be done faster (or, you know, be done at all...), sure.
I'm guessing you know I wasn't thinking of that use case when I wrote the previous post. You might respond, "That's the problem" which, you know, would be fair.
But my point was really about the corporate use of LLMs with this fuzzy idea that the real key is shipping more stuff faster. The real problem, typically, is bad leadership, bad product decisions, saturated markets, and not having a product that meets the customer holy trinity (solves an urgent problem that the customer is willing to pay money to solve).
I've said before: since LLMs exist and they're *right there* I don't at all "blame" blind people or other folks with similar needs for using them to solve accessibility problems. Not one tiny bit.
But... I'm not going to stop criticizing the overall harms I'm seeing from them, either. If we can somehow address the problems and keep the benefits for the a11y use case, I'd be delighted.
And to make this an even longer response (sorry), I had problems with the corporate treadmill of going ever faster even before LLMs entered the picture. They just happen to be a reaction to and accelerant of the problem.
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@matt Some things do need to be done faster (or, you know, be done at all...), sure.
I'm guessing you know I wasn't thinking of that use case when I wrote the previous post. You might respond, "That's the problem" which, you know, would be fair.
But my point was really about the corporate use of LLMs with this fuzzy idea that the real key is shipping more stuff faster. The real problem, typically, is bad leadership, bad product decisions, saturated markets, and not having a product that meets the customer holy trinity (solves an urgent problem that the customer is willing to pay money to solve).
I've said before: since LLMs exist and they're *right there* I don't at all "blame" blind people or other folks with similar needs for using them to solve accessibility problems. Not one tiny bit.
But... I'm not going to stop criticizing the overall harms I'm seeing from them, either. If we can somehow address the problems and keep the benefits for the a11y use case, I'd be delighted.
And to make this an even longer response (sorry), I had problems with the corporate treadmill of going ever faster even before LLMs entered the picture. They just happen to be a reaction to and accelerant of the problem.
> I'm guessing you know I wasn't thinking of that use case when I wrote the previous post.
That's a fair criticism of my response. I'm sorry.
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> I'm guessing you know I wasn't thinking of that use case when I wrote the previous post.
That's a fair criticism of my response. I'm sorry.
@matt No apologies needed, truly. Part of the overall problem is that people aren't thinking about a11y.
You were entirely polite about it, I appreciate the response. I hope I didn't come across as annoyed or whatever because I really was not / am not.
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Would you rather
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@matt No apologies needed, truly. Part of the overall problem is that people aren't thinking about a11y.
You were entirely polite about it, I appreciate the response. I hope I didn't come across as annoyed or whatever because I really was not / am not.
@jzb Still, I did know that you didn't specifically have accessibility or anything like that in mind in your original post. So maybe I should have just let you have your rant, knowing how it was intended, instead of escalating with a rant of my own.
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@jzb Still, I did know that you didn't specifically have accessibility or anything like that in mind in your original post. So maybe I should have just let you have your rant, knowing how it was intended, instead of escalating with a rant of my own.
@jzb Maybe I'm just tired of broad pronouncements and reactions that ignore disabled people, especially in the AI backlash. It's not primarily your own post that I was frustrated with. It's also teachers going back to requiring handwritten assignments and exams, requiring a highly visible exception for disabled students. And just this general feeling that the technology we have now is good enough, or maybe we should even go back to some point in the past. I'm sorry I took that out on you.
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@jzb Maybe I'm just tired of broad pronouncements and reactions that ignore disabled people, especially in the AI backlash. It's not primarily your own post that I was frustrated with. It's also teachers going back to requiring handwritten assignments and exams, requiring a highly visible exception for disabled students. And just this general feeling that the technology we have now is good enough, or maybe we should even go back to some point in the past. I'm sorry I took that out on you.
@matt I have the general feeling that the technology we have now is enough in the broad sense, but very much not in some specific cases.
It's like the saying about "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed".
Like, I'd be perfectly happy if the only thing that changed about the Linux desktop for the next few years was getting a11y and some other things dealt with. That stuff needs to change. But, like... do I need even more GPU-intensive game engines or 20 new browser features for stacking tabs? Nah.
Anyway, it's all good. I can understand where your frustration is coming from, it's totally justified.
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@matt I have the general feeling that the technology we have now is enough in the broad sense, but very much not in some specific cases.
It's like the saying about "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed".
Like, I'd be perfectly happy if the only thing that changed about the Linux desktop for the next few years was getting a11y and some other things dealt with. That stuff needs to change. But, like... do I need even more GPU-intensive game engines or 20 new browser features for stacking tabs? Nah.
Anyway, it's all good. I can understand where your frustration is coming from, it's totally justified.
@jzb@hachyderm.io @matt@toot.cafe I get you both so much. It’s extremely frustrating that patterns of marginalization persist.
There’s the widely spread myth that time acts as equalizer (see: trickle-down economics which… didn’t do what they say on the tin and instead massively increased inequality). This is so embedded in our culture (“time heals all”, assumption that longer punishment leads to more reflection) that even directly pointing at counterexamples (the entire category of downward spirals, e.g. impoverished communities) lets entities only look at the future instead of taking into account evidence about the past.
MLK also mentions that in his letter from Birmingham jail:
I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.”
All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either [destructively] or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill-will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people, but for the appaling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.
(MLK on 1963-04-16, page 11, in the PDF page 23: https://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf)I’ve come to think that the near-only effective approach against this is constant rhetoric. Find reachable opportunities, focus on a few well-placed messages to conserve energy, use them to expose hypocrisy and repeat.
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Perhaps one of the reasons I'm not into LLMs is because I am not really convinced that what we need in the world is more stuff done faster.
I'd like to see a "slow the fuck down" movement and a "does this really need to be done?" movement.
Do corporations *really* need to be moving ever faster, generating more stuff, growing endlessly like cancers?
Maybe I'm just old and tired, but I'd like to have just... less of everything.
Except cat pictures, of course. Keep 'em coming.
@jzb Absolutely! If something needs to be done how about a cure for cancer and how about progress in regrowing body parts. We've been promised that teeth will be regrown soon.
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