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by const_cast 290 days ago
Yes this thing is just like this other thing because they can both be bad, therefore we should do nothing.

Its the classic low-brow reasoning technique. It almost makes sense, if you squint and don't think about it much.

No, there's levels of bad and we have no problem making some bad stuff off limits. I can't build nuclear weapons, after all.

1 comments

Sharp stick is a better analogy than a nuke for having access to an AI chatbot. A crazy person could use it to hurt themselves or maybe a couple other people.

You really think having access to ChatGPT is as dangerous as giving everyone a nuclear weapon?

Of course I don't, I'm directly refuting the "everything is everything else" style of reasoning.

But AI, as a piece of software available to everyone, is certainly more dangerous than a sharp stick.

If I went out and produced, say, 200,000 sharp sticks and started hanging them out like candy, guess what - id get the authorities attention.

Everything is a function of scale. If we ignore scale than stubbing your toe is genocide, stealing a penny is grand theft auto, and running a mile is time travel.