I think this article properly identifies the problem is ethics more than technology. AI is a tool that is being misused and will continue to be misused, just like all tools. From the end of the...
I think this article properly identifies the problem is ethics more than technology. AI is a tool that is being misused and will continue to be misused, just like all tools.
From the end of the article:
That is why I keep coming back to the same conclusion. Maybe the most important investment right now isn’t in bigger models or faster chips. Maybe it’s in us. A fraction of those billions going into AI could fund the kind of work that actually prepares humanity for what’s coming – critical thinking, ethics, psychology, the boring, unglamorous stuff that doesn’t make headlines but might be the difference between a future we thrive in and one we merely survive. (Hence my slide about needing another step in human evolution above).
We don’t need another breakthrough in artificial intelligence. We need a breakthrough in human wisdom. Yesterday.
Sure. I don't think we know how to make this happen because global society is structured so that a few sociopaths/psychopaths hoard wealth and power and then wield it against the majority of people who mostly just want to live a modest life. Sometimes it seems that there has been progress made and society gets better, but then you start to realize that there are people in the shadows that have an insatiable greed, and even worse, a large number of people are authoritarian followers who facilitate it. I'm thinking about the decades of battles in the US to create laws that promote worker safety and reduce pollution, and then a huge amount of this progress is gutted in a single year because people were tricked by propaganda and racism to elect a mentally ill criminal to lead them.
I think the answer here is a program of guerilla education. If you don't think you can take over your state education department and you don't think you can mount a successful electoral campaign...
I think the answer here is a program of guerilla education. If you don't think you can take over your state education department and you don't think you can mount a successful electoral campaign to take over your local school board, or if the people who need education aren't in school anyway, then you've got to teach whoever will listen, one class at a time.
A few months ago someone I know received from the boomer racist grapevine (don't ask me to define what this is beyond people just forwarding things to other people that speak to their biases I...
Knowing something is fake does not neutralise its effect on your judgement.
A few months ago someone I know received from the boomer racist grapevine (don't ask me to define what this is beyond people just forwarding things to other people that speak to their biases I guess) a video purporting to depict Indians preparing Danish butter cookies (those in the blue round tin boxes) in extremely unsanitary conditions. They proclaimed that they would never again eat another Danish butter cookie.
The video was full of problematic stuff and obvious fake propaganda, so after about one minute of research, I explained to the person it was fake, that such fakes have been doing the rounds for a while now (you can find them online if you're interested) and here's a real video from a Danish butter cookie factory. It was just a few minutes long.
They watched about five seconds of the video starting from second 20 or so. Then they moved the timeline a couple minutes in and watched another ten seconds. Then they closed the video and said "yeah, I'm still never going to eat those cookies again."
What is anyone supposed to do about that level of dissociation from reality?
We've got to find a better way to bring people back to reality, or make it socially acceptable to admit to being bamboozled, or something to that effect. I don't have an answer. I just know that a...
What is anyone supposed to do about that level of dissociation from reality?
We've got to find a better way to bring people back to reality, or make it socially acceptable to admit to being bamboozled, or something to that effect. I don't have an answer. I just know that a big part of the problem is that people often get angrier at the person who is showing them they've been bamboozled than they get at the person who bamboozled them in the first place.
Bring back mental institutions? There have always been places people who couldn't separate reality and fiction, and we may need them more broadly. Perhaps, with time and education they can once...
Bring back mental institutions? There have always been places people who couldn't separate reality and fiction, and we may need them more broadly. Perhaps, with time and education they can once again live a normal life, but only once they want to change.
I share your frustration and I laughed when I read your reply, but in a way it's heartbreaking, too. A lot of people are like this (or more like this than they ever would have been otherwise)...
I share your frustration and I laughed when I read your reply, but in a way it's heartbreaking, too. A lot of people are like this (or more like this than they ever would have been otherwise) because they are victims of a concerted attack against their very selves, to serve the interests of one or a thousand hostile actors, it doesn't matter. You're right that it's crucial for people to want to change, but in a way they were also changed from the outside.
AI generated videos are already much more insidious and difficult to spot than some goofy racist tiktok propaganda. I fear they're going to slot seamlessly into people's bias confirmation feedback cycles and stay there forever.
Edi: Bit the onion a bit. Parent is referring to how Reagan shat in our Cheerios again. TLDR: Carter Administeation provided a ton more funding for localized mental institutions, as a better way...
TLDR:
Carter Administeation provided a ton more funding for localized mental institutions, as a better way to integrate their members in the community rather than shipping them off to massive prison-like facilities. It was poised to revolutionize care for the ill.
Reagan's administration (and the neoliberals that followed) gutted all the fundingfrom that and then some. You can see how he did in the pre-presidential years in California.
This kind of thing makes me want to actually scream. From the actual paper: Nobody is “proving” AI can’t be safe, trusted, and generally intelligent. They are making up interesting games and then...
Panigrahy and Sharan published a proof in September 2025 showing that an AI system cannot be simultaneously safe, trusted, and generally intelligent. You get to pick only two. You can’t have all three.
This kind of thing makes me want to actually scream.
We note that we consider strict mathematical definitions of safety and trust, and it is possible for real-world deployments to instead rely on alternate, practical interpretations of these notions.
Nobody is “proving” AI can’t be safe, trusted, and generally intelligent. They are making up interesting games and then deriving interesting conclusions about those games, but there is precious little evidence that those games are an accurate model of the reality that we all live in.
Yeah, I had a similar "hmm, really?" moment around a similar point in the article. The author explored what the combinations of those terms mean, and makes sweeping, unqualified assumptions in...
Yeah, I had a similar "hmm, really?" moment around a similar point in the article. The author explored what the combinations of those terms mean, and makes sweeping, unqualified assumptions in doing so. To take an example, they state:
If you want it to be safe and trusted, it never lies, and you can verify it never lies – it can’t be very capable. You’ve built a reliable idiot.
Why does the author assume that something that can't lie can't be capable? That seems completely unfounded to me, deception is not a prerequisite for capability or usefulness in my book.
I think this article properly identifies the problem is ethics more than technology. AI is a tool that is being misused and will continue to be misused, just like all tools.
From the end of the article:
Sure. I don't think we know how to make this happen because global society is structured so that a few sociopaths/psychopaths hoard wealth and power and then wield it against the majority of people who mostly just want to live a modest life. Sometimes it seems that there has been progress made and society gets better, but then you start to realize that there are people in the shadows that have an insatiable greed, and even worse, a large number of people are authoritarian followers who facilitate it. I'm thinking about the decades of battles in the US to create laws that promote worker safety and reduce pollution, and then a huge amount of this progress is gutted in a single year because people were tricked by propaganda and racism to elect a mentally ill criminal to lead them.
I think the answer here is a program of guerilla education. If you don't think you can take over your state education department and you don't think you can mount a successful electoral campaign to take over your local school board, or if the people who need education aren't in school anyway, then you've got to teach whoever will listen, one class at a time.
A few months ago someone I know received from the boomer racist grapevine (don't ask me to define what this is beyond people just forwarding things to other people that speak to their biases I guess) a video purporting to depict Indians preparing Danish butter cookies (those in the blue round tin boxes) in extremely unsanitary conditions. They proclaimed that they would never again eat another Danish butter cookie.
The video was full of problematic stuff and obvious fake propaganda, so after about one minute of research, I explained to the person it was fake, that such fakes have been doing the rounds for a while now (you can find them online if you're interested) and here's a real video from a Danish butter cookie factory. It was just a few minutes long.
They watched about five seconds of the video starting from second 20 or so. Then they moved the timeline a couple minutes in and watched another ten seconds. Then they closed the video and said "yeah, I'm still never going to eat those cookies again."
What is anyone supposed to do about that level of dissociation from reality?
We've got to find a better way to bring people back to reality, or make it socially acceptable to admit to being bamboozled, or something to that effect. I don't have an answer. I just know that a big part of the problem is that people often get angrier at the person who is showing them they've been bamboozled than they get at the person who bamboozled them in the first place.
Bring back mental institutions? There have always been places people who couldn't separate reality and fiction, and we may need them more broadly. Perhaps, with time and education they can once again live a normal life, but only once they want to change.
I share your frustration and I laughed when I read your reply, but in a way it's heartbreaking, too. A lot of people are like this (or more like this than they ever would have been otherwise) because they are victims of a concerted attack against their very selves, to serve the interests of one or a thousand hostile actors, it doesn't matter. You're right that it's crucial for people to want to change, but in a way they were also changed from the outside.
AI generated videos are already much more insidious and difficult to spot than some goofy racist tiktok propaganda. I fear they're going to slot seamlessly into people's bias confirmation feedback cycles and stay there forever.
Edi: Bit the onion a bit.
Parent is referring to how Reagan shat in our Cheerios again.
TLDR:
Carter Administeation provided a ton more funding for localized mental institutions, as a better way to integrate their members in the community rather than shipping them off to massive prison-like facilities. It was poised to revolutionize care for the ill.
Reagan's administration (and the neoliberals that followed) gutted all the fundingfrom that and then some. You can see how he did in the pre-presidential years in California.
Crazy people are more likely to vote Rebpulican? =)
This kind of thing makes me want to actually scream.
From the actual paper:
Nobody is “proving” AI can’t be safe, trusted, and generally intelligent. They are making up interesting games and then deriving interesting conclusions about those games, but there is precious little evidence that those games are an accurate model of the reality that we all live in.
Yeah, I had a similar "hmm, really?" moment around a similar point in the article. The author explored what the combinations of those terms mean, and makes sweeping, unqualified assumptions in doing so. To take an example, they state:
Why does the author assume that something that can't lie can't be capable? That seems completely unfounded to me, deception is not a prerequisite for capability or usefulness in my book.
I liked the idea of demanding that politicians maintain public Jira boards