Nice to see people standing up for their beliefs even when it could hurt them.
Story time :)
I remember when I was first starting out as a programmer. At QE (always occurred on a weekend) a slew of financial reports were created and printed for review the following Monday then I think used for summaries for Wall Street to look at.
A high level finance manager came to me and asked if the report could be changed, not knowing what he was asking I said sure. After a long discussion turned out he wanted the numbers on the report changed and re-printed. I said it was possible but the numbers would be all wrong.
So he said "do it". I went to my manager and told them what he wanted, then I refused to do it. I said I would quit first because I did not want the SEC to come after me. Luckily they all supported me and the finance manager was told to "FO".
Imagine: you start working at the company with a good will towards them. As you learn more and see more decisions, you slowly realize how bad it is. Now you've already contributed. Then you leave.
It might be possible to build everything with this goodwill and that's how we'd still end up with a torment nexus even if you immediately drop it.
What I'm saying is, at one point you have to break the company fully.
I'm not sure what more we need to wait for, if the claim "10% it ends humanity" is not enough.
There is a lot more to it, an assumption is being made that somehow its easy to classify a company being god or bad and same for people. In reality, everyones life experiences shape them differently, the moral compass of right and wrong isn't same for everyone. Leaving that aside people are not just managing their feelings alone, more than often they are responsible for other people in the family as well and the impact of decision can have far reaching impact. Making a decision when you are single vs with kids and a mortgage are two different things.
Good people can be in tough position where even when they do not agree they may not have much of an option but to keep going.
Of course. But software developers are, on the whole, pretty damn well compensated. As a group we have a lot of freedom to make these sorts of financial decisions.
Yes, some members of the group don't have that freedom. But that doesn't excuse the ones who do.
And also cost. Standing out from the pack is always costly, you may not find job right away, you might be outcast .. the more we have safety nets the easier it is to quit bad groups.
I’m well aware tech companies are evil and yet work at one.
My current read is that ~20-30% of people in America actively delight in hurting others (ICE supporters etc)
Another 30% do not seem to care about anything but their own well-being. (I don’t like to think I fall here but as a big tech peon it doesn’t look good).
The remaining percent seem to care and are trying their best but looking at how things are going it’s not enough
That Coxon guy looks as delusional as the AI leadership. If you watch interviews he gave he doesn’t articulate what he’s concerned about, only sharing vague information about a supposed AI god that will take over the world, but without articulating why now, and how that would even happen. The more I look into his story the more that move looks like what a grifter would do
I'm deeply skeptical of AI doomer stuff, but I've been struggling to exactly articulate why. I can think of it in my brain and can try to explain but so far none of my explanations have seemed fully coherent to me.
I studied biology in college. I actually did this because I was interested in AI, and already knew a ton of CS and programming. I was already coding in C and using Linux and writing fairly complex stuff. I figured studying the only actual example of a truly intelligent system (especially at the time, early 2000s) was the best way to understand intelligence.
Didn't end up going into AI as my day job, but I've kept up with it all and worked through the math and played with different types (genetic, neural nets, transformers/LLMs, CA / alife, etc.).
I think the root of my skepticism is in what I learned studying biology about how life, adaptation, learning, and evolution actually work in the real world.
I'll try to TL;DR it: I think the doom crowd (and also some of the AI singularity crowd) has a "mystical" view of intelligence. Intelligence is magic pixie dust, and intelligence beyond human is fully unknown and likely has magic superpowers.
Real intelligence is ubiquitous in nature. Trees, grass, bugs, and even bacteria are intelligent. It's also domain specific and limited in capability to what its domain, available training data, and available compute allows.
do not consider yourself a contributor to humankind
Good lord. You could apply the same logic to any taxpaying resident of any country whose government is doing something bad. There's some truth to it, it's worth bearing in mind, but it's also the very definition of an Isolated Demand for Rigor.
These replies will be full of people showing how worldly and clear-eyed they are by dismissing the same threat the guy resigned over as a marketing stunt.
but what if dude already did it (destroyed the world but it hasnt happened yet) before he quit?
The rule of all games played in capitalism is there's a sucker born every minute. you can work a few years or your whole life before you realize you've been had.
If everyone doing a 'bad thing' stepped off the hamster wheel today, the world economy would collapse before markets closed. The biggest companies have built an attention and surveillance nightmare machine that funnels all the money to a relatively small number of shareholders.
More than half of tech workers (53%) would steer a newcomer away from their own field, and they stay.
It would be nice to see this survey repeated across professions. In my experience, most people have gripes about their profession because it’s what they know. Only half of respondents saying they would steer newcomers away feels a lot better than what my friends in medicine say all the time. Among my college professor and professor-track friends, this number probably reaches 100%.
Life isn't black and white with "good/bad". Further, there's no objective measure of what is good or bad. Everything is a shade of gray.
You certainly could argue that some actions are absolutely good or absolutely bad, but those aren't the majority of actions people take on a day to day basis. People aren't often faced with "should I kill this person" or "should I publish the cure for cancer". Instead it's "should I eat a hamburger or a salad" or "Should I finish this jira case or that jira case".
For example, you could argue that anyone working in an automotive plant is doing something bad because they are helping to produce vehicles which burn fuel which perpetuates climate change. But those plants also often produce parts for farm equipment or vehicles used to transport necessities like food.
People working at AI companies can make similar personal calculations. Like yeah there are bad things happening because of AI, but also they can believe that there are good things that can come as a result such as research and product developments.
Nice to see people standing up for their beliefs even when it could hurt them.
Story time :)
I remember when I was first starting out as a programmer. At QE (always occurred on a weekend) a slew of financial reports were created and printed for review the following Monday then I think used for summaries for Wall Street to look at.
A high level finance manager came to me and asked if the report could be changed, not knowing what he was asking I said sure. After a long discussion turned out he wanted the numbers on the report changed and re-printed. I said it was possible but the numbers would be all wrong.
So he said "do it". I went to my manager and told them what he wanted, then I refused to do it. I said I would quit first because I did not want the SEC to come after me. Luckily they all supported me and the finance manager was told to "FO".
FWIW, that company is long gone.
Generally, I agree.
Imagine: you start working at the company with a good will towards them. As you learn more and see more decisions, you slowly realize how bad it is. Now you've already contributed. Then you leave.
It might be possible to build everything with this goodwill and that's how we'd still end up with a torment nexus even if you immediately drop it.
What I'm saying is, at one point you have to break the company fully.
I'm not sure what more we need to wait for, if the claim "10% it ends humanity" is not enough.
There is a lot more to it, an assumption is being made that somehow its easy to classify a company being god or bad and same for people. In reality, everyones life experiences shape them differently, the moral compass of right and wrong isn't same for everyone. Leaving that aside people are not just managing their feelings alone, more than often they are responsible for other people in the family as well and the impact of decision can have far reaching impact. Making a decision when you are single vs with kids and a mortgage are two different things.
Good people can be in tough position where even when they do not agree they may not have much of an option but to keep going.
theres a certain amount of financial security needed for folks to do this kinda thing.
Of course. But software developers are, on the whole, pretty damn well compensated. As a group we have a lot of freedom to make these sorts of financial decisions.
Yes, some members of the group don't have that freedom. But that doesn't excuse the ones who do.
The article addresses that:
You need to have money to do the right thing? Odd take. Plenty of people with much less have sacrificed much more throughout history.
No. This is one of the many excuses that people employ to keep feeding the beast.
The root issue is a lack of honour in the world today.
I think that puts too much onto personal responsibility. Most problems are structural.
And also cost. Standing out from the pack is always costly, you may not find job right away, you might be outcast .. the more we have safety nets the easier it is to quit bad groups.
Good people are easy to mislead into thinking they’re doing a good thing.
Correction - highly intelligent people.
Its the same playbook, over and over again.
For the "benefit of humanity", "saving the world" and "imaging to do good" via effective altruistic ways. /s
It’s an excellent article marred by the last line/ heading.
People do things.
Good or bad is relative to their own biases/experiences/ beliefs and moral compass.
Very few people are truly sociopaths who do evil stuff for personal gain.
Most do it because of the curse of the “banality of evil” (re: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem?wprov=sf...>)
Doesn’t make it right, but like everything else in life the reality is much more complex than saying “good people refuse to do bad things”
The last line/heading of this article makes its main point super clear. Don't deceive yourself (and others).
I’m well aware tech companies are evil and yet work at one.
My current read is that ~20-30% of people in America actively delight in hurting others (ICE supporters etc)
Another 30% do not seem to care about anything but their own well-being. (I don’t like to think I fall here but as a big tech peon it doesn’t look good).
The remaining percent seem to care and are trying their best but looking at how things are going it’s not enough
That Coxon guy looks as delusional as the AI leadership. If you watch interviews he gave he doesn’t articulate what he’s concerned about, only sharing vague information about a supposed AI god that will take over the world, but without articulating why now, and how that would even happen. The more I look into his story the more that move looks like what a grifter would do
I'm deeply skeptical of AI doomer stuff, but I've been struggling to exactly articulate why. I can think of it in my brain and can try to explain but so far none of my explanations have seemed fully coherent to me.
I studied biology in college. I actually did this because I was interested in AI, and already knew a ton of CS and programming. I was already coding in C and using Linux and writing fairly complex stuff. I figured studying the only actual example of a truly intelligent system (especially at the time, early 2000s) was the best way to understand intelligence.
Didn't end up going into AI as my day job, but I've kept up with it all and worked through the math and played with different types (genetic, neural nets, transformers/LLMs, CA / alife, etc.).
I think the root of my skepticism is in what I learned studying biology about how life, adaptation, learning, and evolution actually work in the real world.
I'll try to TL;DR it: I think the doom crowd (and also some of the AI singularity crowd) has a "mystical" view of intelligence. Intelligence is magic pixie dust, and intelligence beyond human is fully unknown and likely has magic superpowers.
Real intelligence is ubiquitous in nature. Trees, grass, bugs, and even bacteria are intelligent. It's also domain specific and limited in capability to what its domain, available training data, and available compute allows.
Good lord. You could apply the same logic to any taxpaying resident of any country whose government is doing something bad. There's some truth to it, it's worth bearing in mind, but it's also the very definition of an Isolated Demand for Rigor.
That is a fantastic term for something that seems to come up a lot, and I had not heard before.
These replies will be full of people showing how worldly and clear-eyed they are by dismissing the same threat the guy resigned over as a marketing stunt.
but what if dude already did it (destroyed the world but it hasnt happened yet) before he quit?
The rule of all games played in capitalism is there's a sucker born every minute. you can work a few years or your whole life before you realize you've been had.
and most do....
If everyone doing a 'bad thing' stepped off the hamster wheel today, the world economy would collapse before markets closed. The biggest companies have built an attention and surveillance nightmare machine that funnels all the money to a relatively small number of shareholders.
Good.
It would be nice to see this survey repeated across professions. In my experience, most people have gripes about their profession because it’s what they know. Only half of respondents saying they would steer newcomers away feels a lot better than what my friends in medicine say all the time. Among my college professor and professor-track friends, this number probably reaches 100%.
[delayed]
I disagree with this article and here's why.
Life isn't black and white with "good/bad". Further, there's no objective measure of what is good or bad. Everything is a shade of gray.
You certainly could argue that some actions are absolutely good or absolutely bad, but those aren't the majority of actions people take on a day to day basis. People aren't often faced with "should I kill this person" or "should I publish the cure for cancer". Instead it's "should I eat a hamburger or a salad" or "Should I finish this jira case or that jira case".
For example, you could argue that anyone working in an automotive plant is doing something bad because they are helping to produce vehicles which burn fuel which perpetuates climate change. But those plants also often produce parts for farm equipment or vehicles used to transport necessities like food.
People working at AI companies can make similar personal calculations. Like yeah there are bad things happening because of AI, but also they can believe that there are good things that can come as a result such as research and product developments.