It all boils down to whether the product (code , documentation, whatever) is polished, easy to understand and works as advertised. Beyond that, I don't give a rats ass about whether the intelligence that created it was human or artificial
They get upset when others try to exert control over them for making their own informed choices.
It’s plainly un-American to have speech governed by a committee. Thankfully, the IAU has no authority over me. Why won’t people leave me alone over my decision to not tether my own positions about how I use my own native language to the whims of the IAU? It’s as if we have thoughtcrimes now, with vigilante irritators at the ready.
I don't necessarily agree with the parent comment, but I think the angle might be one of utilitarianism, i.e: when caught, both should be put on trial and punished if found guilty, but the current focus of society to put more energy into catching one type over another is misguided as far as what will be best for society in general.
Again, not saying I agree with that philosophy, but the logic is valid.
Agreed. Unfortunately some religious inclinations can be just as tedious as pure mechanistic rational inclinations, even if they are consistent. Fortunately, these are not the only two options available. The future that the article points to is not necessarily only bad news - it might be the uncomfortable truth required to transcend our limiting beliefs.
It’s been well thought out and edited but it’s clearly written by AI, and it was obvious long before “load-bearing”. Still - it makes an important point well and is worth reading.
If every use of AI was like this, I perhaps wouldn't have this slight allergic reaction to it, but as it stands, this voice and rhythm has become associated with bad lazy grifting writing.
Reader here. Thanks for creating this. Totally resonates with my own thoughts, so if I'm wrong at least I have company :-)
I do have a suggestion for those who object to this line of reasoning: Follow the 5 why's to try and get to the source of your own reasoning and see whether it still makes more sense - in the sense of whether you end up adding to the common good
Call me naive but I think dark patterns are a short term strategy for winning and I'm optimistic that in the long run they will be replaced with those that are more respectful and oriented to the greater good (granted, the long run might take more time than one hopes for).
Given that the pendulum can sometime swing back fast enough to be able leverage it, it might be a good time to focus on models that are both open weights and economically viable to run to build the next great thing.
> [...] dark patterns are a short term strategy for winning and I'm optimistic that in the long run they will be replaced with those that are more respectful and oriented to the greater good
This is definitely not the way most software has been going in the past decades. It's rather the opposite: Companies play friendly to obtain a user base, then start applying more and more dark patters to further increase their profit. Facebook, Evernote, Instagram, Komoot... The list goes on and on.
I don't think that's the economical definition of monopoly. It's not about 1 single actor owning the market but rather about unilateral change. Obviously a single actor owning 99.99% will be able to shape the market ... but also one owning a lot less, e.g. 30% if even if they don't collude with another actor owning e.g. 21%.
what you are describing sounds like an oligopoly not a monopoly. A company cannot realize monopolistic benefits without > 50% control of a market. That's not to say there aren't benefits to a large market share, but they are different and we have different terms for them.
US law sets the breakpoint for when a company is considered a monopoly at 30% of a market. It's never actually enforced, of course, but may be worth noting.
Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages. In addition, that leading position must be sustainable over time: if competitive forces or the entry of new firms could discipline the conduct of the leading firm, courts are unlikely to find that the firm has lasting market power.
>A company cannot realize monopolistic benefits without > 50% control of a market.
I don't think that's true at all. Why 50% specifically? This is not about political votes or anything like that. It's about being the largest player by a margin, usually.
Huge difference while both are competing. But it’s a huge risk in a market with such high cost of entering. If either divests then it rapidly degrades.
I can’t think of any example in which it has gone like this, but some in which it has: The most prominent in my mind would be software transitioning from “of course you get the code so you can extend it yourself” to what we have today (please correct me if I’m wrong about this, I’ve only read about it).
Users at large (individuals and companies alike) don’t care much about a freedom taken away when a product is a few % better than another, so the biggest player sees if they can get away with it. And once they do it, everyone else does too.
Agreed. I bought it at the airport for a transatlantic flight the year it came out and started reading before lift off. Completed it before landing. Best flight ever.
If you are implying that this is the case because this is also how leaders are selected in a democracy, then of course the sarcasm is noted - but here's my real unpopular opinion: Democracy only has value when the majority of voters are not morons. Unfortunately, I can't come up with a better solution - maybe create a model for which there is a wide agreement on and let it rule?
I simply meant that users ought to be free to choose between a product that offers a free ad-supported tier and one that is paid and ad-free. And I do believe that letting morons choose for themselves is the lesser evil.
It doesn't really matter what the system of government is, power-hungry psychopaths will always attempt to game the system in their favour. The history of governance is just a long arms race of inventing new systems to thwart them while they do everything they can to corrupt those systems and concentrate power in themselves. It's like fending off griefers in an online game, there's an endless supply of them, they don't care about the rules or the game, they just want to dominate other players for their own perverse enjoyment. The only lasting solution would either be some form of genetic modification to remove that trait from humanity entirely or some perfect way to identify them but you'd have to be extremely careful that they didn't gain access to and corrupt those things before they were completely eliminated.
I prefer "Democracy only has value when the majority of voters are informed". This covers your case, but it also redresses the balance to shift blame away from everyday people and onto society as a whole.
Isn't society made up of everyday people? While I agree that the public being informed is a mutual responsibility, placing that responsibility on the government (which in many cases has plenty of incentive to keeping people ignorant) will not work either.
> placing that responsibility on the government will not work either.
I agree, but a) the responsibility is on us all: citizens, government, and the media b) we can definitely introduce regulations that force government to be more open, etc.
That's not a unique attribute of democracy nor is it guaranteed. Any system of government that hasn't succumbed to corruption and factionalism will have clear rules of succession. Even an absolute monarchy can go on for many generations without bloodshed.
The terminator you talk about is a movie character. It might be built one day, it might not. It is also totally irrelevant considering there is a real terminator which can be described with the same adjectives and built in to every personal life that ever existed or will exist. Knowing how to deal with that seems more important than worrying about some specific scenario.
I feel your comment is deeply ironic... Just shy of self-awareness. Have you considered that the conceit of the fictional character is representing that reality?
I have no doubt it plays on the same fears - whether it was deliberately done so, I don't claim to know. My assumption was that in a discussion on AI, the comment about the terminator was not alluding to a literary metaphor but to a fear from the actual thing. There was no intent in downplaying the fear of AI - just adding a new perspective. I'm am curious to know what you think self-awareness has to do with any of this.
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