[austinjp]

The archetype of this argument is of course the (in)famous "P doesn't Q people, people Q people" *

While this is "true", the sense in which it is true is so limited as to be entirely unhelpful. If you manufacture P, and you know Q may be an outcome, why are you manufacturing P, and how are you preventing Q?

* Where, as we all know, Q is usually "kill" or "harm", and P might be "guns" or "autonomous vehicles" or "military robots" or "facial recognition" etc.

[austinjp]

I see this has attracted some downvotes, which is of course fine. However, it would really help improve the quality of this conversation if people could reply here, and perhaps explain objections to the archetype I've described.

Perhaps it was just my overly convoluted writing style? :) If though it was about the content...

The statement "P doesn't Q people, people Q people" is absolutely devoid of any useful information or novel insight, and doesn't take the conversation in a new direction that is useful. In fact, it can kick the conversation into an anti-productive quagmire.

Let's see... "Stable Diffusion doesn't produce racist memes, people produce racist memes." Well duh. A more useful conversation might be about how we protect against possible automated mass-generation of racist messages (or whatever), what roles SD et al have to play, how we deal with possible outcomes, etc etc.

For what it's worth, I do not think Stable Diffusion should be kept under wraps. Paradigm-shifting technology should be discussed in the open. Developers/engineers should be prepared to walk away from anything with a significant downside if that downside hasn't been exposed to thorough debate. And we should be prepared to shoulder responsibility when shiny new toys are used to do terrible things.

[iszomer]

> The statement "P doesn't Q people, people Q people" is absolutely devoid of any useful information or novel insight, and doesn't take the conversation in a new direction that is useful. In fact, it can kick the conversation into an anti-productive quagmire.

Are you presuming everyone reading and responding to this thread are on your level of interpretation or analytical superiority? This is the first time reading about "P doesn't Q people, people Q people" on HN and I imagine won't be the last. There is no "In fact," here and it already rubbed off as a completely pretentious statement, which given the circumstances is not unusual in a place like this.

(I didn't downvote you but am expecting a downvote)

[austinjp]

Well, the parent post I replied to said this:

> Is the knife a murderer or the person who wields it?

I attempted to abstract that, to make my response impersonal. The archetype is based on a phrase well known in some countries, but certainly not all (my apologies for making assumptions): "guns don't kill people, people kill people".

Another reason I avoided that specific sentence was to avoid the strong emotions it invokes.

About what I wrote starting "In fact...", the sentences following that were my attempt to expand the point about quagmires.

Oh well. Thanks for the response anyway! :)