[creep]

This is obviously going to be an unpopular sentiment, but I am somewhat excited to observe the results, and I'm glad this is happening during my time on Earth.

Yes, it is a horrible thought, but in many ways inevitable: if the tech exists, it will be used for both good and evil. Better that other societies can see the outcome sooner rather than later.

[jobigoud]

I felt the same. If it was not for the many lives it will ruin it would be a very interesting experiment to watch. And ponder about the myriad of unintended consequences that will arise. Like the reported false positive of the model on a bus advert being repeatedly charged for jaywalking.

[Juliate]

Fools.

We already know.

This is just modern technology applied to things already experimented in history, two of them being: East Germany, until 1989. And USSR before its downfall.

[PavlovsCat]

> We will arrive at a moment of sufficent self-alienation where we can contemplate our own destruction [as a species] as in a static spectacle.

-- Walter Benjamin

So we're repeating the Nazis now, gladly, because that's easier than learning from those who made all that effort, saw and went through so much atrocities and suffering, to to learn from that, and to relay that to us, to impress the importance of it on us? I'm so not onboard with that.

> We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in the sense as we know it.

-- Hannah Arendt

You (like many) are kinda saying yes, it's unpopular and horrible, but "it would happen anyway". Notice how this is exactly the logic of totalitarianism, an abdication of personal responsibility. Saying "I won't fight it because it will happen anyway" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> [The method of infallible prediction] is foolproof only after the movements have seized power. Then all debate about the truth or falsity of a totalitarian dictator’s prediction is as weird as arguing with a potential murderer about whether his future victim is dead or alive – since by killing the person in question the murderer can promptly provide proof of the correctness of his statement. The only valid argument under such conditions is promptly to rescue the person whose death is predicted. Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. The assertion that the Moscow subway is the only one in the world is a lie only so long as the Bolsheviks have not the power to destroy all the others. In other words, the method of infallible prediction, more than any other totalitarian propaganda device, betrays its ultimate goal of world conquest, since only in a world completely under his control could the totalitarian ruler possibly realize all his lies and make true all his prophecies.

-- Hannah Arendt, both quotes from "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

And by the time you find out there's nothing to be glad about because it's just a spiral of control and fear and anti-intellectualism, with abusers and sadists having free pick of the litter, that won't matter anymore. There will be no allies to defeat the Nazis from the outside this time. There might be no "after".

As for societies seeing "outcomes", as you observe "results" (these are people we're talking about here), keep in mind how much of what the Nazis did didn't go to plan. The death camps were supposed to be completely removed from the face of the Earth, just like many villages they razed. If Hitler hadn't started a war, or had limited it, the world still wouldn't know. It's not like we know everything that's going on in China, by a long, long shot. Just like we don't know about the Abu Ghraibs about which we never heard, and so on.

To play with fire to learn about fire, let's leave that in the early 20th century, I beg of you. We have books and other documentation.

[PavlovsCat]

Oh, so just downvoting, just censoring, just like killing people, is the "argument". Every click without a word proves my point without diminishing a word I said. Giving totalitarianism an inch, rationalizing obedience to it for just one minute, has these results. Quod erat demonstrandum.

[oarsinsync]

I upvoted your original post as I think it's well written and adds value to the discussion. I downvoted your response to yourself because it adds nothing of value.

Same can be said for this post, I suppose, depending on perspective shrug