I don’t recommend people treat my contact form as a cute askbox because you will not get good responses from me that way. This isn’t Tumblr, and I’m not a fourteen-year-old swiftie with splat hair and vaguely-racist Harry Potter fanfic to defend, so to speak. That said, any actual questions are welcome, provided they 1) are in good faith, 2) make actual sense, and 3) are not hateful or harassment, obviously.
I had received, up until today, one message via this site’s contact form, copious votes on the polls (possibly bots!) and little other contact from visitors here. That’s okay, because this site has barely launched yet, in my opinion. I’ve shared it nowhere of caliber, and I’ve not even begun my vtuber quest in earnest. That first message was something from another SillyTavern writer, thanking me for linking to their site.
Today’s message was a bit more blunt, but no less welcome or fascinating, and frankly I’ll write more about it. That’s why you’re reading this. Anyways…
Is this site pro or anti ai? Just making it clear, your site is very confusing…
I’ll leave out all contact info, obviously. This query actually makes sense, so don’t knock it.
Just decode it a bit. Realize that a good portion of the internet has exactly that kind of monochromatic perspective on artificial intelligence, despite embracing nuance elsewhere. It’s strange and awkward, and hard to deal with, but it’s there and we have to deal with it. Worse still, it’s become a common talking point for younger people who fancy themselves liberals (or even leftists) and want to virtue signal.
This is likely because it’s quite easy comparatively to never pick up artificial intelligence. Why concern yourself with stopping genocide or the several protracted wars going on, when you can just never touch ChatGPT and send death threats to those who did? That’s activism of some sort, right? I’m sure plenty will say “b-but we care about that other stuff too!” despite their constant, simplistic focus on artificial intelligence. If they do? Good, but it really reads like a bunch of teenagers who use the (manufactured) artificial intelligence discourse as a way of showing how tightly wound they are with the zeitgeist or whatever.
I’ve seen this primarily on Reddit. Not many other places. In fact that’s been my main exposure to it because I don’t go hunting these things down. In many other places these two camps seem to mingle seamlessly or not at all. I guess I should reserve some judgment because Reddit is actually a fairly small sample size.
Anyways, I use Reddit for the tech support, to (supremely ironically) hunt down human artists to commission lately, and for community building in other areas, though. It’s no surprise I’d bump into this. So, when asked if this site is “pro” or “anti ai,” the real question, of course is whether I am “pro” or “anti ai,” right? My alignment, after all, rests behind my site in all ways, so…
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia we all know and love...
When asked whether I’m for or against either generative artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence (as it currently stands), I tend to just reply, “I’m only a transhumanist. I don’t have it all figured out yet.” That’s the truth, after all. It cannot be easily compiled into Reddit terminology, it seems like. Perhaps if either side were allowing of some nuance, I’d be willing to align myself with it, but I’m not seeing that.
I do, however, use generative artificial intelligence. Perhaps this makes me de facto amongst those who support artificial intelligence. Yep, in some people’s minds, that alone is enough to side me with the “pro” crowd. A sizable percentage of those people, though, are those who oppose all artificial intelligence and attack on sight when they see talk of it. I block those people, because I won’t argue with someone who follows up with death threats anyways.
I wish those critical of artificial intelligence were less monochrome in their perspectives, leveled less silly threats, and generally behaved better online, though. If they were, I might be inclined to spend more time talking to them and sharing my own concerns. In other words, it troubles me a bit because I do have very valid concerns about current artificial intelligence development and deployment. The data centers could certainly be managed, powered, etc, much more efficiently. The large models could have certain ethical guardrails, to prevent things like that awful Grok situation.
As a good example, I will never touch Grok for that reason. I won’t touch X either. And for heaven’s sake, I can’t forgive Musk for what he’s done here. I do think that, had people possessing moral fiber been at the center of this “AI” movement, by happenstance instead, people would feel much differently about it today. Truly, all billionaires are going to be morally bankrupt to a degree, but if someone other than Musk and Altman, someone with the emotional intelligence of a worm rather than a flea, had driven into all this, we’d be embracing it faster. Since the technology isn’t going away, we’ve somehow got to fix that in order to move forward.
I’m deeply familiar with gun culture in the United States, though it’s far afield. I know about the controversies surrounding it, and who is allowed to have a rifle, etc. The terrifying specter of mass shootings looms over everything. And yet guns are important. Now? Tentatively, it feels as if these creatures are a bit like guns themselves. Literally guns. And have you ever heard the expression “if you go far enough left, you get your guns back?” Same vibe. Do you really think a technology in and of itself can be evil, bad, or even capable of banning entirely? It’s not likely from my perspective! I don’t really know, though. My opinion has rapidly changed in six months, and may change again.
Does that ring as “pro” or “anti?” Can’t seem to care, because I’m not the sort to slog too deep into the sludge of these very Reddit little wars, which remind me of the worst I saw in the gaming communities of the mid-2010s much more so than any sensible discussion. That said, the issue remains, and it’s kind of a big deal. Is it possible to express this kind of concern, while also using artificial intelligence? Is my position possible at all? We’ll see, won’t we?