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A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

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  • The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    I feel like we actually did briefly see this early on when basically the first actual real-world use-case was students automating bullshit papers.

    (Certainly, they reached for plagiarism, the correct word, but leveled at the students and not at all at the service provider.)

    @jzb

    @matt That's true, though I'm not sure I'd call using LLMs to do homework pro-worker, either. It's kind of a different tangent.

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb I've just asked ChatGPT to summarize your post.

    It said: "If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them."

    🙂

  • @jzb I've just asked ChatGPT to summarize your post.

    It said: "If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them."

    🙂

    @MartinEscardo well played. I should’ve expected that, but in my defense… I was really tired. 😂

  • @MartinEscardo well played. I should’ve expected that, but in my defense… I was really tired. 😂

    Because this is social media and not an in-person interaction, I should say that, of course, I didn't ask ChatGPT, just in case.

    Of course @jzb already knew that.

  • @jzb that’s a whole lot of text to say the problem is capitalism

    @Seclusion5500 @jzb
    You need a whole lot of text to tell some people the problem is capitalism, because if you just say that without context, they roll their eyes and never give it another thought. If you say how the problem functions and let them realise its name for themselves, it sticks.

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb You think what you say is not going to happen? Local LLMs will take over and what you envision will happen.

  • @matt That's true, though I'm not sure I'd call using LLMs to do homework pro-worker, either. It's kind of a different tangent.

    @jzb Oh definitely not pro-worker—mostly just the “media creates moral panic when people who normally have little power do something pretty easy to completely upset an already-fragile but load-bearing system of values” angle.

    Like, you’re obviously right about workers, because it’s exactly what already happened by default until (I presume) somebody whisper-yelled “ixnay on the plagiarism-ay” and the focus became EDUCATION needs to EVOLVE because AI is INEVITABLE

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb LOL at the idea that getting your work done means you can go home at noon or have a four-day weekend, rather than more work appearing on your desk.

  • @jzb

    “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    This is already happening. So what’s the point? ;)

    Back to business: You are right. Every person who is "just doing the job" is endangered losing exactly this job, as AI will do it better and more efficiently. So the solution is to have a society of individuals who are smart enough to cope with it in an intelligent way. If not, the tech bros might win for a while, before all collapses.

    @_RyekDarkener_ buncha nonsense but hey at least your bio acknowledges you're specializing in science *fiction*

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb What are you saying, that parts of the establishment defend other parts of the establishment? Yes, we know.

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb
    Also, if they were to be any good for workers to use, they'd have to... you know... *actually work*.

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    the AFL-CIO is doing this and they're widely considered to have lost the mandate of heaven long ago.

  • @jzb

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    the AFL-CIO is doing this and they're widely considered to have lost the mandate of heaven long ago.

    @jzb i think many of your examples are in fact very much how people are being sold these products (the phrasing i've heard is "boutique" used to describe "code that someone wrote to solve a problem"). the idea of getting rich quick is commonly employed by capital to defang revolutionary movements that would otherwise band together in groups like unions, understanding there is no shortcut to success

  • @jzb i think many of your examples are in fact very much how people are being sold these products (the phrasing i've heard is "boutique" used to describe "code that someone wrote to solve a problem"). the idea of getting rich quick is commonly employed by capital to defang revolutionary movements that would otherwise band together in groups like unions, understanding there is no shortcut to success

    @jzb "The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output." fox news has stuff like this and that's because its purpose is to inspire fear and distrust of your peers and the idea that you're being left behind if you have any sort of moral principles

  • @jzb "The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output." fox news has stuff like this and that's because its purpose is to inspire fear and distrust of your peers and the idea that you're being left behind if you have any sort of moral principles

    @jzb i don't think people should be trying to cheat their employers. i think employers think that because they're constantly trying to cheat their employees. if your employer isn't going to pay you enough, it's a waste of your time not to leave instead of trying to engage in fraud

  • @jzb i don't think people should be trying to cheat their employers. i think employers think that because they're constantly trying to cheat their employees. if your employer isn't going to pay you enough, it's a waste of your time not to leave instead of trying to engage in fraud

    @jzb Microsoft SlopGuard took 5 seconds to find with a web search because i know for a damn fact they create the problem so they can profit off appearing to have solved it https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/everyday-ai/what-is-an-ai-detector

  • A thought that popped into my head when I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep…

    Imagine that AI/LLM tools were being marketed to workers as a way to do the same work more quickly and work fewer hours without telling their employers.

    “Use ChatGPT to write your TPS reports, go home at lunchtime. Spend more time with your kids!” “Use Claude to write your code, turn 60-hour weeks into four-day weekends!” “Collect two paychecks by using AI! You can hold two jobs without the boss knowing the difference!”

    Imagine if AI/LLM tools were not shareholder catnip, but a grassroots movement of tooling that workers were sharing with each other to work less. Same quality of output, but instead of being pushed top-down, being adopted to empower people to work less and “cheat” employers.

    Imagine if unions were arguing for the right of workers to use LLMs as labor saving devices, instead of trying to protect members from their damage.

    CEOs would be screaming bloody murder. There’d be an overnight industry in AI-detection tools and immediate bans on AI in the workplace. Instead of Microsoft CoPilot 365, Satya would be out promoting Microsoft SlopGuard - add ons that detect LLM tools running on Windows and prevent AI scrapers from harvesting your company’s valuable content for training.

    The media would be running horror stories about the terrible trend of workers getting the same pay for working less, and the awful quality of LLM output. Maybe they’d still call them “hallucinations,” but it’d be in the terrified tone of 80s anti-drug PSAs.

    What I’m trying to say in my sleep-deprived state is that you shouldn’t ignore the intent and ill effects of these tools. If they were good for you, shareholders would hate them.

    You should understand that they’re anti-worker and anti-human. TPTB would be fighting them tooth and nail if their benefits were reversed. It doesn’t matter how good they get, or how interesting they are: the ultimate purpose of the industry behind them is to create less demand for labor and aggregate more wealth in fewer hands.

    Unless you happen to be in a very very small club of ultra-wealthy tech bros, they’re not for you, they’re against you.

    @jzb an interesting comparison is a 1970s show about the rise of the microprocessor ue 8080 that then had a discussion. The one person arguing it was good was the unions rep who correctly argued it would automate a load of tedious stuff and enable other work.
    The difference this time is that generative AI doesn't do useful work Neural nets do and boring uses of the tech but not LLMs.

  • @jzb an interesting comparison is a 1970s show about the rise of the microprocessor ue 8080 that then had a discussion. The one person arguing it was good was the unions rep who correctly argued it would automate a load of tedious stuff and enable other work.
    The difference this time is that generative AI doesn't do useful work Neural nets do and boring uses of the tech but not LLMs.

    @etchedpixels @jzb I'm inclined to slightly disagree and think this is denialism (understandably, given how bad their ethics are; it'd be much easier if indeed they had no useful function).

    The problem is that, despite all the scenarios where they're inappropriate and wrong, they do.

    And we're unwilling (as a society) to fully consider their risks and costs, because "there's no glory in prevention".

    That's the challenge we need to overcome.

  • @etchedpixels @jzb I'm inclined to slightly disagree and think this is denialism (understandably, given how bad their ethics are; it'd be much easier if indeed they had no useful function).

    The problem is that, despite all the scenarios where they're inappropriate and wrong, they do.

    And we're unwilling (as a society) to fully consider their risks and costs, because "there's no glory in prevention".

    That's the challenge we need to overcome.

    @larsmb @jzb Agreed. I used the word "generally" for a reason. There are plenty of cases where both are appropriate parts of treatment.

  • @etchedpixels @jzb I'm inclined to slightly disagree and think this is denialism (understandably, given how bad their ethics are; it'd be much easier if indeed they had no useful function).

    The problem is that, despite all the scenarios where they're inappropriate and wrong, they do.

    And we're unwilling (as a society) to fully consider their risks and costs, because "there's no glory in prevention".

    That's the challenge we need to overcome.

    @larsmb @etchedpixels @jzb in a $work context I've found llms quite good at automating what would otherwise be "find the plausible stack overflow answer and copy-paste it, changing the names" or "write a shit load of boilerplate" or "explain the awful mess that this module is and work out what it was supposed to be for" or even "do a refactor in less time than it would take me to figure out the LSP support in this language and do it myself".

    All things that should not be useful if we'd collectively made better choices, but given where we are now have value in context


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