This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Seems like LLMs can induce all kinds of failure modes in humans. Turns out that telling people what they want to hear will trap some of them.
Personally, I would prefer it very much if the shoggoth stayed on its fucking side of the uncanny valley, thankyouverymuch. Duct-taping a cute anime girl on the giant inscrutable matrix does exactly the opposite.
I think that we will be fine, eventually, PRNS. Life finds a way. The bubonic plague killed 70-80% in some places, and yet we survived.
People have long predicted doom for every tech and medium of expression which rears its head. Role playing games? Satanism. First person shooters? Will turn kids into violent psychopaths. Industrialization? Will turn wars into horrors beyond our ancestors wildest nightmares. TV? Will turn people into idiots. Social media? Will make us more isolated in real life.
(Okay, one or two of these warnings might have been correct, in retrospect.)
In a way, it is leveling the playing field. (Whole bag of not-too-carefully examined assumptions incoming in 3, 2, 1.) Women seem to be more into smut (i.e. narratives, situations, characters), while men are more into visual porn (i.e. tits). So far, LLMs have thus probably generally had more success with romancing women (also because from my understanding, "I want my partner to offer unconditional emotional support whenever I need it" is more of a feminine thing, and something which LLMs can obviously do great). If Musk now gives tits to the LLMs, more men will fall for them. He would not even need to spend a fortune on video generation, because most male fantasies are likely to involve the same elements. Few men will want to watch the anime girl painting a fence white while wearing a orchid blouse and then complain that the blouse shown was clearly heliotrope instead.
I am not entirely unsympathetic to the idea of regulating AI partners a bit, though, just like we regulate other addictive stuff, inconsistent as we often are.
Also, this reinforces my impression that rather than being on the forefront of the AI race, xAI is basically picking up the applications which are too icky for the big AI firms.
If you allow me a metaphor, xAI might not be the first company to develop surgical steel, but they clearly try to be the first company to use surgical steel to craft oversized butt-plugs.
Yeeeup.
Well, there's also the real possibility that allowing pornographic uses can help you win an otherwise closely contested tech race.
Not making a claim on that, but I think there's a solid argument that whatever version of a given tech lets men see tits is going to have an edge, even if it is inferior in other ways.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link