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Notes -
Regarding the Substack Essay AI Posting Controversy:
(And, honestly? — What are we all doing here?)
It is in general a bad idea to use an LLM with no stylistic tweaks when there is plenty of online evidence of your writing style pre-AI for anyone to compare to, which makes the difference even more obvious.
More generally, the problem is that in a hobbyist community the objective is not maximizing productivity. It’s actually having a nice time with like-minded people. It is reasonable for a chess player to want to play another chess player who is not using a chess computer, even if that chess player promises to tune the computer so that its capability matches the player’s own skill level. Some part of the game is made more fun by knowing that one is playing another human. If that is sentimental then it is because humans are sentimental.
There is a joy in trying to convince another mind, another person, with a full life, with stories of their own. There is meaning in the experiences they have had - some universal, sure, but many not - that come through in the occasional anecdote, throwaway story, weird bit of inside knowledge. I like those things, they’re what make this place special. That said, they’re not the only things that made and make this place special.
We do have to think about what happens to this community now. There has been a real change. Ten years ago if you wanted to discuss what was happening in the world with other intelligent people in a polite way that accommodated heterodox views, didn’t like random slurs or insults, and had good moderation, this was one of maybe five places you could do that. In many ways, it still is. But even I recognize that I can now have intelligent, thoughtful and challenging political conversations with frontier (consumer) LLMs, and while they push back on some culture war stuff we must presume Grok or some Chinese open source model will get there eventually, probably very soon.
When that happens, the humanity will be the point. So I think it is probably useful to crack down, via friendly and mutual agreement, on LLMposting. A lot of weird shit is about to happen, and I’d like to discuss it with you, not (just) with Claude.
“The humanity is the point” is a great way to summarize my position on it.
One of my favorite subreddits is slowly getting taken over by people who unashamedly post AI responses in the comments of posts or are using AI to draft a mere 300 words for a submission, and no matter how much I protest I get a parade of humans and AIs telling me to chill and judge the tsunami of LLM output on the merits of its semantic content.
My fear is opposition to this creep is a gut-level intuition that is harder to articulate than water usage fears or job replacement, or the dignity of artists or whatever. And so it goes unarticulated, even in the minds of those who might agree with me. Maybe there’s an even punchier and eloquent way to say “humanity is the whole point” but until then it’s going to be a lonely fight, until I’m the only human on the internet.
It's really the fundamental tension of post-scarcity, isn't it? Some people enjoy what they do, some do it for the paycheck, and others are a mix of both. I'm not opposed to automation (AI these days) replacing drudge work nobody wants to do, but I really would rather I get the benefit of post-scarcity before my paycheck disappears. In practice, we've mostly been fine so far because things mostly change slower than you'd think from the headlines.
On the gripping hand, I'm not even sure society is ready for post-scarcity: it's not at all clear to me that everyone would be better off if we could all stop going to work tomorrow and still get paid. Some people would do well and find new friends and hobbies, I'm sure, but I suspect quite a few would end up worse than today in some metrics due to the usual vices (drugs, alcohol, World of Warcraft). As much as I like the idea of The Culture/The Federation, I'm not wholly convinced it isn't a bit dystopian in its own way. I hear a couple of Banks' books consider that, but I haven't gotten to those.
My apartment complex gate stops working constantly. My car's undercarriage keeps dragging on the ground and I have to keep it up with rope. My basic Android phone can't set reminders accurately. Speech to text is randomly capitalizing stuff I then have to correct. A delivery driver the other day couldn't find an apartment in my complex and I was unable to help him. He kept wandering around...
I just see normie problems persisting and I'm supposed to be fearful or at least anxious about post-scarcity and a lack of meaning? The UMC creative and knowledge worker is surrounded by seamless efficiency and can actually ponder some potential problem of life being much too comfortable and bereft of purpose. The rest of us are gleeful AI dilettantes who still have to left with our legs, not our backs.
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You already tried this experiment. You got 3 months of peace... after which a massive wave of burning, looting, murder began.
UBIs simply aren't compatible with people spending it all on politics, because the people who still do have to work won't be paid enough to keep them un-enslaved.
You already see this now in Western countries where scarcity is itself a scarce resource- where politics isn't yet sufficiently lucrative for sane people to pursue it- so you end up being ruled by a combination of people who have nothing but time for politics (Karens, dogwalkers, old people) and those whose positions inherently pay out in political power (bureaucracies/HR/academics).
UBI, but only for the deeply involved in church or subcultural scenes. UBI, for those who forswear politics and vow to embrace lowest common denominator slop. UBI, for those who pledge to do too many drugs to seek societal change
In other words, you must sell your ability to do politics to receive the UBI.
At a personal level, we call that "slavery"; at a State level, we call that "The Republic of South Africa". (Complicated by the fact that South Africa wasn't post-scarcity at that time, so if you had genes that were [at that specific time] a reasonably-effective proxy for "unproductive with respect to the people with actual financial power" [inconveniently visibly marked on your body from birth], you had to sell your ability to do politics to have the privilege of working for a living.)
This is why communist nations are all authoritarian: the populace itself has forged this exact bargain and collectively sold itself into slavery.
Or in other words:
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A world of vice-ridden indolents would be utopian compared to the pessimistic scenario of "the psychopathic Haves simply stop sharing land and resources with the Have Nots once they no longer need our labor or the consent of the governed".
And then get lynched? The gods of copybook heading will return, one way or another.
The whole point is that you needn't worry that you get lynched if you are protected by a tireless AI-controlled array of drones and Boston Dynamics dogs. To expect that the rabble will find a way around it is to believe, against all odds, that humans will remain superior in some way after all.
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