site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2276 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 18, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I read business class as business class.

Like an MBA course.

But I not only agree with you, I am elated by this line of thinking (which I also arrived at independently). AI, well deployed, should remove a lot of the drudgery of modern knowledge work - TPS reports, powerpoints, progress reports and the like. Instead, you'll actually get paid to think well and deeply.

Obviously, this means 80+% of people are scared shitless because thinking is their least favorite thing to do.

Will the compliance layer not just adapt to this and expand, though? Lot of the things that AI does effectively are more structural constraints than absolute requirements.

Can you add some more here, I'm having trouble parsing your meaning.

What do you mean by "compliance layer", for instance?

I expect "compliance layer" refers to that portion of the workforce/job duties which is not devoted to doing the actual thing, but to checking records and requesting reports so that it can be shown that you are "in compliance with (Company Policy X/Regulation Y/Client Moral Standard Z/what-have-you)" as regards doing the thing.

Essentially this, yeah. Box-ticking for the sake of bureaucracy isn't going to just be solved

(including @MachineElfPaladin as well)

Ah, got it!

Yes, this is absolutely a massive potential problem. We will mandate that a human is put in the loop to slow down AI work in the name of safetyism.

I think, however, that this can only go so far and I know it is self-defeating.

Crypto (specifically Bitcoin) showed that even with something as hyperregulated as literal currency, people will find a way around it. You can't outlaw math, which means you can't outlaw encryption and cryptography in the digital world. It was a matter of time before people figured out the precise mechanisms to turn this into permissionless money. Are there still issues with BitCoin? Of course. Is it going to replace the USD? No. But it's already broken contain - MicroStrategy, a publicly traded "old" tech firm - is now effectively a Crypto Hedge fund that uses real USD from public markets as fuel for fake internet money scheming.

I expect that several companies will willingly hire their armies of "AI compliance people" and then will be defeated - fast or slow, doesn't matter - by new companies (DAOs?) that say "fuck that" to compliance and, instead, rely on new technologies to just get shit done.

Will this result in a wild west and semi-to-totally unregulated economy? Yes. Will there be a lot of chaos in the interim? Yes. But I do believe it's not only the only choice, but inevitable. The only alternative is slow death by bureaucracy.

You can't outlaw math, which means you can't outlaw encryption and cryptography in the digital world.

Let me introduce you to the concept of locked bootloaders and secure boot.

That's a choice people make. There's always going to be some sort of radical, free linux distro that the technically capable can load onto third party hardware.

Again, if you're buying fully integrated hardware, firmware, software from a corporation that puts these kind of things in place - that's a choice. There will always be bad faith actors out there. We should do our best not to reward them for that behavior.

Strictly theoretically, yes. Practically, if your bank requires using an app to access the account online, and that app refuses to work on non-"secured" system, you're out of luck. If your government has "digital ID" system, which only works on "secured" platforms, and you have to use it for any interaction with anything government-related, which is everything in a modern welfare state - you're out of luck. Yes, you can choose not using any of it, leave the modern society and live in a hut on an isolated island and survive on moss and mushrooms. Nobody really is going to choose that, so that's not a real choice.

Of course, there will always be the black market. USSR had the black market (a huge one), North Korea has the black market (that's how they haven't starved yet). The Powers That Be are mostly fine with it, as long as it remains black and thus hard to access for somebody who is not already "outside" the system - criminals, spies, etc. I mean, they would fight them case by case, but they are not an existential threat. Controlling the wide population is existential, controlling 0.1% of freaks is merely police routine. And the governments are increasingly moving towards legitimizing and enabling population-level controls. We will soon see delegitimization of non-controllable software and hardware - first as "insecure" and "dangerous", then as a tool of criminals - i.e. finding an unlocked phone on somebody would be universally treated as a sign that person is a criminal. Then it will be officially banned.

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats