That’s true, but culture has also been a business for a long time. What you see and hear is the result of this, because there are media that reinforce your awareness of your senses. If you think that you would remain unaffected by this, you don’t understand my point.
Is dictated make-believe still culture? I don’t think so, but that’s what it boils down to.
Honestly, I can’t understand how you can’t see that, because it’s been the case all over the world for a very long time. Take a look at the so-called social media applications. Do you seriously believe that what people see there has anything to do with who they really are? With their every day lives? What they understand as culture based on their experience there?
Yes, of course, the real world still exists, but do you really think it’s independent of what people see online?
The question is what the future will look like when culture is created by machines. This is already very evident today with all the social media bots and the logic that directs the attention of the remaining human users. The result is already quite dystopian, don’t you think?
Then I can turn it into a business. With LLMs, that’s hardly a problem anymore. Don’t worry: I’ll do it alongside my job - just a hobby that brings in some nice extra income.
I am neither a musician nor a particularly good writer, but I am somewhat good with LLMs. Thank you very much for your encouragement. That removes all my ethical doubts about closing this chapter. If it has always been this way, then I don’t need to worry about it anymore.
What makes you so sure, when there’s not even the prospect of making a living from it anymore? Do you think most artists do it as a hobby?
There are many people who make a living from it. Where else do you see them earning a living?
You don’t seem to understand what I mean at all. I mean people who try to make a living from their creative work. Do you think that’s still possible?
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
Figures and/or examples would be very interesting for:
The statement that LLMs will continue to develop rapidly and/or that their output will still improve significantly in quality. I currently assume that development will slow down considerably—for example, with regard to hallucinations, where it was assumed for some time that the problem could be solved by more extensive training data, but this has proven to be a dead end.
The statement that the value of the companies involved can be justified in any way with real-world assets. Or, at any rate, reliable statements about how existing or planned data centers built for this purpose can be operated economically despite their considerable running costs.
How you justify your statement that it would be realistic to replace human workers on a large scale. Examples where this is the case would be interesting (by this I don’t mean figures on where workers have been laid off, but examples of companies where human work has been (successfully) made obsolete by LLMs – I am not aware of any such examples where this has happened in a significant way and attributable to the use of LLMs).
I am aware that the technology is being used in warfare. I am not aware of its significance or the tactical advantages it is supposed to offer. Please provide examples of what you mean.
Considering what LLMs are useful for, I wouldn’t say so. But in terms of how it’s all being marketed, how it’s being pushed on consumers for no apparent reason, I definitely agree.
Do you have any sources that cite figures that would suggest this? To be honest, I have my doubts—except for the statement that money is being shifted back and forth; however, I don’t understand why massive investments in data centers would make sense in this context if it’s not just making a profit for Nvidia and such.
As I said, I don’t consider LLMs and image generation to be technologies without use cases. I’m simply saying that the impact of these technologies is being significantly and very deliberately overestimated. Take so-called AI agents, for example: they’re a practical thing, but miles away from how they’re being sold.
Furthermore, even Open AI is very far from being in the black, and I consider it highly doubtful that this will ever be possible given the considerable costs involved. In my opinion, the only option would be to focus on marketing opportunities, which is the business model of the classic Google search engine—but this would have a very negative impact on user value.
Thank you for this comment. I completely agree with you: I think all it takes is people who act according to their conscience—that results in a community worth living in. That’s all it takes.
How can the fascists be prevented from presenting their inhumane, xenophobic ideology as patriotism? How and why would anyone stop people from using a word? How is that supposed to work?
Language is a cultural matter that changes in its use. In this context, (social) media are pretty influential these days. However, the problem is that because a few very influential people can influence what billions of people see, they also have a disproportionately greater influence on the discourse from which the usage and meaning of terms derives. Therefore, it seems to me that the only people who could prevent others from presenting fascist ideology as patriotism are, unfortunately, the same people who ensure that fascist propaganda is presented as patriotic.
An example: Ten years ago, it was unthinkable in Germany to use Nazi slogans in public. People who did so were socially isolated because they were Nazis. Today, however, politicians can stand in front of the camera and quote Goebbels. The reason, in my opinion, is that all this Nazi crap has been pushed so hard by influential media billionaires that it now gives the impression of being a socially acceptable attitude. My point: It can also be an effect created by the media, especially social media: It seems as if you can say these things without running the risk of being socially isolated for your inhuman views – and unfortunately, this has now spilled over into the real world.
What I mean by this is that in order to influence discourse and thus also the usage and meaning of words to some extent, you need to influence the media that people use - and these media platforms are controlled by people like Musk.
But stopping things like flag pledges that I mentioned would make the word less powerful for misuse.
Well, I can see that you disagree and I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye on this.
My opinion is that patriotism and nationalism cause far more harm than good. Of course, one can disagree, but I haven’t read a single comment in this entire thread that addresses why patriotism is so important or what positive effects it has.
Only references to the fact that nationalism and patriotism are not the same thing, which is clear to me — still: interestingly, no one has addressed where the difference lies. And no one has addressed the actual statement, namely that both concepts are abused as instruments of power.
That’s a shame.
If people didn’t invoke patriotism so excessively, as they do, for example, in the US with flag pledges in schools, Stars and Stripes air shows at sporting events after the national anthem, that gets played nearly every time, flags everywhere from houses to tv shows, and much much more constant declarations of love for this proud nation, if all that would not happen every day, don’t you think it would be way harder to spread propaganda on this basis?
No, but give them as few opportunities as possible to justify their misdeeds. Patriotism is traditionally the favorite argument of unscrupulous oportunists: they invoke it because it appeals to people and offers them a way out, a way to legitimize morally reprehensible acts—in the sense that you can do whatever you want because it is in the service of the fatherland.
How this works can currently be seen in Israel, for example: here, soldiers commit terrible atrocities and claim that human rights do not apply to enemies of Israel, enemies of their holy fatherland. So they act as ruthlessly as possible because it is supposedly patriotic.
It is important to make it clear that people remain people, even if they have a different nationality. Emphasizing national pride and all that makes this more difficult, because if you always emphasize how proud you are of your country, you inherently emphasize at the same time that people of other nationalities do not belong. For reasonably rational people, it is of course perfectly obvious that this does not imply any judgment of people of other nationalities—on the contrary, many are rightly proud that their country is just and guarantees human rights. The problem, however, is that many people are anything but rational—and some of them are only looking for (spurious) arguments to use against others: patriotism is ideal for this purpose because it is an abstract concept - there is no universal definition of what it means.
That’s why I believe we should emphasize patriotism as little as possible and instead stick to concrete issues—such as emphasizing a fair legal system and so on. This makes it less abstract and offers less potential for abuse.
Decent people.
All I want to say is this: if you insist on portraying patriotism as something good and lose sight of reality in the face of idealism, however desirable, this leads to situations like those in Nazi Germany—and history is currently repeating itself in the US. The reason will always be the same: unfortunately, people are not inherently good, and the bad ones know how to exploit this.
With regard to the US, my point is simple: patriotism is an abstract idea that is currently being massively abused by fascists to create an unjust state very similar to Nazi Germany, which fortunately came to an end. They are using exactly the same propaganda techniques that the Nazis used in Germany to establish their reign of terror.
If you agree with me that patriotism has been misused for the most horrific atrocities ever committed by humankind, where do you see the value of this concept? Even if one starts from a purely utilitarian ethic, what could ever outweigh that?
Agreed