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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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Senator Josh Hawley:

"If conservatives want to rein in Google Gemini, there’s only one way: repeal Section 230 - and allow Americans to sue these AI companies. If we don’t, they’ll soon control everything: news, information, our data, elections …"

Huh? For reference, section 230 is here. In short, section 230 says that companies aren't liable for information posted on their websites by third parties. This means that Google can't be sued for showing ISIS.com on your search results, because ISIS is a third party, and ISIS.com is their content, not Google's. Section 230 doesn't apply to generative AI because generative AI isn't a third party. If Google Gemini replies to your prompt with, "Thank you for joining ISIS. Recommended pipebomb targets in your area are X, Y, and Z," Google can't use section 230 as a defense if Y sues them for being bombed, because Google generated the information.

If I were to steelman Hawley's point, I guess it would be that Google as a company benefits from section 230, and so repealing it would punish them for creating "woke" AI and cut off a source of funds for AI development, but I don't think Hawley's use of the phrase "these AI companies" is easily read as referring to only "AI companies which are bankrolled by social media products."

If you are familiar with simulacrum levels, you may have had a bit of difficulty grokking level 4. I think an intuitive definition of level 4 is, "politician speak that doesn't fit into levels 1, 2, or 3". Which level is the tweet by Hawley on? It's not 1, because it isn't true. It's not really 2, because it's not trying to convince you of a proposition. It's not 3, replace "conservatives" with "liberals" and "Google Gemini" with "𝕏", and it could be from AOC. That leaves 4. It's just word associations. Woke AI is bad. Tech companies make woke AI. Section 230 something something big tech censorship. Put it in a box, shake it up, let the manatees do their thing, post whatever comes out to Twitter.

Conservative attempts to very indirectly deal with problems is not going to work. To actually deal with extremely racist antiwhite and progressive stack A.I. and this kind of ideology they should put huge fines, deprive of goverment funds, or directly restrict, or all of them to different degrees.

That sounds like an obvious 1A violation. And who’s deciding what counts as wrongthink, again?

When the government can no longer require private employers fire me for being a racist, I'll seriously consider complaints about the First Amendment about government moves against anti-white racism. Until then, it's just "your rules applied fairly".

Belisarius is asking the government to pick and choose what products count as acceptable speech. This is central to the 1A in a way that private employment is not.

But fine, throw out the whole 1A because it’s not protecting your edge case. If regulating AI companies this way were perfectly legal, it’d still be a horrendous idea for all the reasons described elsewhere in this thread as an “own goal.”

Belisarius is asking the government to pick and choose what products count as acceptable speech.

The government is already doing this. If only by choosing what the people making the products are allowed to say.

This is central to the 1A in a way that private employment is not.

I would disagree even if they weren't related.

The government is already doing this. If only by choosing what the people making the products are allowed to say.

Gab is a thing that exists and is technologically capable of keeping up with other big tech companies. Its many problems do not stem from the US government.

Gab is a thing that exists and is technologically capable of keeping up with other big tech companies. Its many problems do not stem from the US government.

Are you sure? Maybe the executives of Visa are just woke.... but maybe the regulators said "This Torba guy, he seems to be a bad dude. Be a shame if there were some sort of investigation involving him. A real shame."

The executives at Visa are in fact woke. So are the executives of apple and google and many other companies that have caused problems for Torba.