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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27477 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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I'm coming late to this fantastic post, and most things worth saying have been said, but one issue no-one's tackled: how will AI affect all this? That might sound tenuous but I think it's potentially significance. We're on the cusp of -

  • Vastly more accessible/effective homeschooling and self-education via AI tutors
  • Massive skill equalisation for low- and mid-level white collar work
  • Likely evisceration of large parts of the Blue Tribe base
  • Easy creation of reasonably smart AI media/propaganda bots
  • Emergence of new more salient axes of disagreement splitting society down the middle (e.g. pro-tech/anti-tech)

Vastly more accessible/effective homeschooling and self-education via AI tutors

I have been experiencing this with ChatGPT recently. Given a textbook and ChatGPT to explain parts that I can't understand using the book alone or to grade my answers to the exercises, it's remarkable how much can be learned. The main thing I was lacking for learning various areas of mathematics and science was someone to check my homework and help me when I was having problems. At times, I'd been considering hiring a tutor. Now, between ChatGPT and Wolfram, I don't have to do that.

Also, while ChatGPT may atrophy some students' essay writing abilities if they use it for plagiarism, it can also be an excellent sounding-board for ideas. I wish I had had such a sounding board when I was an undergraduate, so that I could plan out my ideas. Also, there's something about knowing that you'll get an instant response that makes writing a lot easier - perhaps it's the immediate dopamine hit from someone saying, "Interesting. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that..."

I also welcome a world where conservatives can produce entertainment as easy as liberals. The problems for conservative entertainment has long been supply side rather than demand side: it's easy to find an audience for conservative action movies, historical movies, Christian dramas etc. Christopher Nolan showed how neocon-leaning superhero films can have massive audiences. The problem is finding the talent, since actors and writers tend to be left wing. (How many conservatives have the personality to live a chaotic, family-unfriendly, and rootless lifestyle, even if they have the talent? Some, but relatively few.) But if conservative money can make Hollywood-level films just using AI, then it won't matter that Hollywood talent doesn't want to make Death Wish LXXXI - we can have a film where Charles Bronson teams up with Charlton Heston to cleanse the street of vermin, despite what the Stupid Police Chief and those pencil-necked bureaucrats in Washington think.

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