This is also the kind of thing that scares me. I think people need to seriously consider that we’re bringing up the next wave of professionals who will be in all these critical roles. These are the stakes we’re gambling with.

I get where he’s coming from… I do… but it also sounds a lot like letting the dark side of the force win. The world is just better with more talent in open source. If only there was some recourse against letting LLM barons strip mine open source for all it’s worth and only leave behind ruin.

Some open source contributors are basically saints. Not everyone can be, but it still makes things look more bleak when the those fighting for the decent and good of the digital world abandon it and pick up the red sabre.

They need to stick the landing. America will threaten and bully. I’ve also heard some are afraid of the cost and complexity of doing something like this. Hopefully they do realize the necessity of it and stay the course despite all of that.

I share this concern.

One of Big Tech’s pitches about AI is the “great equalizer” idea. It reminds me of their pitch about social media being the “great democratizer”. Now we’ve got algorithms, disinformation, deepfakes, and people telling machines to think for them and potentially also their kids.

I see these as problems too. If you (as a teacher) put an answer machine in the hands of a student, it essentially tells that student that they’re supposed to use it. You can go out of your way to emphasize that they are expected to use it the “right way” (since there aren’t consistent standards on how it should be used, that’s a strange thing to try to sell students on), but we’ve already seen that students (and adults) often choose to choose the quickest route to the goal, which tends to result in them letting the AI do the heavy lifting.

Thank you. The American sources I referenced here seemed the best suited to the topic, largely because of how informative they were. But if anyone has good info from other countries (or America) to add to the discussion I’m more than happy to hear it.

Great to get the perspective of someone who was in education.

Still, those students who WANT to learn will not be held back by AI.

I think that’s a valid point, but I’m afraid that the desire to learn might have a harder time winning that battle if what you’re fighting against is actually the norm, and if the way you’re being taught in the classroom looks more like what everyone else is doing. I feel like making it harder to choose to learn the “old hard way” still sounds likely to result in fewer students deciding to make that choice.

Thank you for kicking this hornet’s nest. There is a lot of great info and enthusiasm here, all of which is sorely needed.

We have massive and widespread attention paid to every cause under the sun by social and traditional media, with movements and protests (deservedly) filling the streets. Yet this issue which is as central and crucial to our freedoms as any rights currently being fought for (it intersects with each of them directly), continues to be sidelined and given the foil hat treatment.

We can’t even adequately talk about things like disinformation, political extremism, and even mental health without addressing the role our technologies play, which has been hijacked by these bad actors, robber barons selling us ease and convenience and promises of bright, shiny, and Utopian futures while conning us out of our liberty.

With the widespread, rapidly declining state of society, and the dramatic rise and spread of technologies like AI, there has never been a more urgent need to act collectively against these invasive practices claiming every corner of our lives.

We need those of you recognize this crisis for what it is, we need your voices in the discussions surrounding the many problems and challenges we face at this critical moment. We need public awareness to have hope of changing this situation for the better.

As many of you have pointed out, the most immediate step we need to take is disengagement with the products and services that are surveiling, exploiting, and manipulating us. Look to alternatives, ask around, don’t be afraid to try something new. Deprive them of both your engagement and your data.

Keep going, keep resisting, do the small things you can do. As the saying goes, small things add up over time. Keep going.

[Edited slightly for clarity]

Hilarious. I bite my tongue so often around these kinds of situations it has permanent tooth imprints in it. But you’re right, someone needs to figure out how to get them to stop tolerating this horrific nonsense.

I do think you’re absolutely right. I know people doing exactly that — checking out — and it does seem like a common response. It is understandable, a lot of people just can’t deal with all that garbage being firehosed into their faces, and the level of crazy ratcheting up through the ceiling. And that reaction of checking out is one of the intended effects of the strategy of “flooding the zone”. Glad you pointed that out.

No secret, ML is Marxist-Leninist. They tend to have a similar focus and way of framing things as what I’m picking up from you.

Odd statement to cut and flip around out of all of that text. Reminds me a lot of ML.

I wouldn’t put much past the current American administration. I haven’t been able to shake this impression that we might really be looking a the telegraphing of an invasion. From what we know and have seen, the administration is very much itching to apply the fullest extent of its powers. It’s defined by unprecedented and extraordinary use of extralegal action and complete disregard for how it might be seen by the world at large.

They said for years that Russia wouldn’t move on Ukraine, and then green men marched in and took over Crimea. It’s no secret how much America is becoming increasingly like Russia in every way. US already has significant military presence in Greenland — a green men play would be really easy. And Greenland also has a surprising number of politicians who openly say that they prefer the security offered by Trump’s America over Denmark, even as they declare that they want independence (experts argue that independence might make them even more vulnerable to takeover right now). It’s easy to assume that at least some Greenland doors would open up to an American green man advance.

Also, as far as consequences for taking over Greenland, we seem to be primarily looking at a breakup of NATO — something that is also on this US administration’s longstanding wish list. Experts don’t seem to think it’s ultimately likely to result in an actual war so much as make it crystal clear that the old rules no longer apply, and that the US isn’t a friend (the Article 5 debate is shaky, especially against the prospect of actually going to war against America, and especially while NATO is also dealing with the Russian war in Ukraine). On paper it kind of reads like a win-win-win situation for the current brazen, imperialist, and isolationist American kleptocracy.

I’d say we at least need to take this stuff seriously.