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by chungusamongus 61 days ago
That's exactly it. This person does not understand the coercive competition of the market. If you don't use new tech, you are going to be undercut by people who do. And every HR dept is going to expect to to have experience with AI even if the department that’s hiring doesn't really use it. If the author's supposed solution to the problem has negative personal consequences, why would you do it? To be nice?
3 comments

No. I'm doing it because I care more whether I can live with myself than whether I impress people with the name of who I work for. Hence much of my recent comment history here, for example. I don't want any of these people getting the idea they should want me to work with them, either. I do want my name on every industry blacklist I can possibly get it on. Those will eventually be revealed - remember Franklin's dictum, fellas! That shit always comes out in the end - and I look forward to that day with pleased and eager anticipation.

At the moment I'm more looking at menial work for one of the local universities. Money is money, and my needs are small; the work is honest, I still should have a decade or so of physical labor left in me, and it carries the perk of free tuition for the degree I never had time for. I would have the time and energy to write, perhaps, even! And, however badly the people in charge are running things lately, the world will always need someone good at cleaning a toilet. (And I am already pretty good at cleaning a toilet!)

That's nice for you but other people have kids to feed and don't particularly care about your little crusade, which will fail.
Theres no reason to assume that. Its equally likely trying to replace jobs with AI is the "little crusade" thst no one cares about and will fail.
I wouldn't say no one cares about it, and I am not at all sure it will fail - nor that it should; there are better futures available from here, also.

Honestly, if I'd cottoned on quicker to the guy's real problem, I would've treated him more gently sooner. It's not quite true that an addict can't help himself, and in the place where that's false is the hope of recovery. But to blame people for getting hooked on the shit Silicon Valley is pushing, would be like blaming people for getting an opioid habit when the hardest imaginable versions of that drug were handed out like candy for decades.

Exactly like, in fact. Some people on this forum have BOP numbers waiting for them. You know who you are. In time, so will everyone.

Go look in a mirror, not at me. That's where the argument is waiting that you're feeling urged toward.
What you just said was an elaborate tu quoque fallacy. You aren't comprehending my basic point, which is that individual ethical decisions are not going to make a difference when all of the broader incentives are causing people to act otherwise.
The idea behind principles is that you're supposed to stick to them anyways.
Lets put aside the fact that none of you have coherently outlined what supposed principles are relevent here. The thing worth noting is, the argument presented in the article seems to be consequentialist, and I'm saying it will fail to produce the consequences the author supposedly wants.
Really weird that you're basically advocating people to not have principles if they don't align with "broader incentives". Also lol at you pulling the "some people have kids to feed" bullshit in a thread where we're all making way more money than most people.
I think some of you do not have a grasp on systems thinking at all, and its embarassing for people who supposedly frequent communities like these. I'm not advocating anything. I'm making a descriptive statement. I do worry that basic lack of understanding between descriptive and normative claims is contributing to the confusion here.
I know lots of families who feed their kids just fine on something less than a quarter million US a year. Just about all the families I know with kids, these days.
If you keep telling yourself that, do you think it will eventually help you sleep at night?
What makes you think none of us have families?
If you have a family and you are doing what this guy is suggesting, that is extremely concerning to me. Seeking a low wage, menial job at a time when costs are rising due to the oil spike? Dumbest move you could make.
I said "menial." I did not say "low wage." And given the utter footlessness of your own situation as you yourself continue to show it, you are bold indeed in presuming to advise anyone else on their finances.

But you continue to astonish me with your assumptions! Is it a gambling debt? Get a little too happy on Robinhood or Polymarket, maybe? Were you really really counting on a crypto tax holiday? To keep from having to tell the wife, maybe?

On a side note, the mods here aren't great fans of either my opinions or my stubborn insistence on their accurate expression (1) but apparently that distaste extends not quite so far that they see fit to ban me. (Or not at the time of this writing, anyway.) No blame, of course; even if the place is looking sort of shabby and down at the mouth these days, at least when not seen through eyes of nostalgia for the high times of the 2010s, this is still their house.

Don't worry, though! Once the rate limiter is satisfied, I'll be right back here and we can talk about how you keep deceitfully attributing to me a statement you yourself made up. But I hope instead to find by then (assuming you are in the US as your usage leads me to do) that you have called the National Gambling Addiction Hotline, which is open 24/7 at (844) 779-2637, or failing that the SAMHSA helpline at 988. Help is available, but you do have to take the first step.

(1) I appreciate this is my own view of the matter, and that others will reasonably describe the thing in different terms. Nevertheless.

"Money is money, and my needs are small."

That's what you said. Sorry but anyone supporting a family should not be thinking like this. Supporting a family is very expensive.

Because I don't like the feeling my conscience gives me by doing something I think is evil and bad. Some people have moral lines that they won't cross when finding jobs.

If my competitors are filling their flour with sawdust, guess I got to just do the same?

No, we won't do the same, but enough people will that it doesn't matter. Such is the way it goes.
Your moral compass is skewed. Customers don't care what tools we use, they just want products that work. Is a wheat farmer who ploughs a field with horses more moral than one who uses a tractor? The resulting flour tastes the same either way.
Its not the same. Its clearly shit to replace flour with sawdust.

Having different opinions on AI/LLMs doesn't make the use of it the same as replacing flour with sawdust.

The AI 'image' slop for example, i don't think its bad. But i also don't think it takes anything from a real artist. It takes jobs from people with drawing skills but it doesn't change anything for an artist.

This is only true if the new technology is actually significantly useful. Which so far AI has not proven to be. Theres no reason to assume people using AI will, on the long term, outcompete those who don't.