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by pixelready 140 days ago
The current crop of LLM-backed chatbots do have a bit of that “old, good internet” flavor. A mostly unspoiled frontier where things are changing rapidly, potential seems unbounded, the people molding the actual tech and discussing it are enthusiasts with a sort of sorcerer’s apprentice vibe. Not sure how long it can persist, since I’ve seen this story before and we all understand the incentive structures at play. Does anyone know how if there are precedents for PBCs or B-Corp type businesses to be held accountable for betraying their stated values? Or is it just window dressing with no legal clout? Can they change to a standard corporation on a whim and ditch the non-shareholder maximization goals?
3 comments
petetnt 140 days ago
There’s nothing old internet about these AI companies. Old internet was about giving out and asking for nothing in return. These companies take everything and give back nothing, unless you are willing to pay that is.
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dasil003 140 days ago
I get the sentiment, but if you can't acknowledge that AI is useful and currently a lot better than search for a great many things, then it's hard to have a rational conversation.
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y0eswddl 140 days ago
why do they need to acknowledge something outside of the point they're trying to make?
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dasil003 140 days ago
Because it was a middlebrow dismissal of the GP
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j-bos 140 days ago
because that's how conversations work. anything less is sparkling debate.
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nickphx 140 days ago
how is it useful to be fed misleading nonsense?
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einpoklum 140 days ago
No, they don't. They soak up tons of your most personal and sensitive information like a sponge, and you don't know what's done with it. In the "good old Internet", that did not happen. Also in the good old Internet, it wasn't the masses all dependent on a few central mega-corporations shaping the interaction, but a many-to-many affair, with people and organizations of different sizes running the sites where interaction took place.

Ok, I know I'm describing the past with rosy glasses. After all, the Internet started as a DARPA project. But still, current reality is itself rather dystopic in many ways.

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chanux 140 days ago
Just enjoy the "good times" powered by other peoples money.
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