[prngl]

It's funny how the false choice of American politics (Red vs Blue) also makes it into its consumerist corporatist life. That Anthropic's threadbare "limits" on government usage are seen as a heroic stand is a testament to just how far the goalposts on "ethical" deployment of AI have moved to the (fascist) right. As ever, politics precedes technology. We have Reagan's internet, we will have Trump's AI. God help us.

[esseph]

> We have Reagan's internet

I've been on the internet since 93 or 94 and I've never once heard it called that. If anything, "Al Gore".

[gedy]

From prior thread is there even "limits"? I thought the Anthropic statements were pointed out to be mostly toothless PR, e.g. "we don't agree", etc.

[overvale]

Not just PR. I mean... they got fired over those limits.

[parineum]

I'm not sure what the message this comment is trying to convey beyond throwing in the "corporatist" "consumerist" signalling buzzwords followed by calling the right fascists.

I've literally never heard anybody call the Internet "Reagan's internet", the best I can do is the Al Gore quote and who's calling anything Trump's AI?

What ideas are you trying to express here?

[prngl]

These are the points I'm making, which I think are fairly one-to-one with my original comment:

- American politics presents a false choice between Democrats and Republicans

- America is both a consumerist and corporatist society

- Anthropic asked for minimal limits on AI usage

- People view Anthropic's stand as heroic, while viewing OpenAI as villainous

- The false choice between Anthropic and OpenAI mirrors the false choice in American politics.

- People at OpenAI, Anthropic, and elsewhere used to view ethical deployment of AI as paramount, but those goalposts have shifted as financial and political incentives changed.

- Specifically, the ethics of AI have become conveniently synonymous with the current financial and political moment.

- The current political moment is fascist.

- Technology is broadly neutral and it is politics that primarily dictates how technology is actually used and deployed, and therefore its broad impacts.

- The internet was developed in the neoliberal era, which began with the election of Ronald Reagan and extended through the Obama presidency.

- The structure and dynamics of the internet over the last 30 years is more reflective of neoliberal politics than it is of anything inherent in the technology. Extreme privitization and the refusal to use public institutions to provision or regulate public goods.

- AI is being developed in a new political era, begun with the first Trump presidency, and taking more full shape under the second Trump presidency.

- We are likely to find that AI's trajectory is similarly dictated largely by politics rather than anything inherent to the technology.

- With this political era being fascist and explicitly neo-imperial/neo-colonial, I fear for the technology's impact on humanity.

- God help us.