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If you think there’s simply no way we could better design and regulate consumer LLMs in such a way that the considerable human harm they’re causing would be greatly *reduced*: congrats, you have completely fallen for the lies that the AI bros are trying to sell you.

Faine Greenwood@faineg.com

Of course you can never fully idiot-proof anything, but you are responsible for *trying* to idiot-proof tech - and the current AI boosters are very dramatically failing at this.

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Agree with the central premise about regulation but I'm not sure how regulation can stop people mis-using AI. AI is great for an exec summary of a 5000 word piece one has just written but finding a good path through a mountain range? Seriously? We need a whole mindset change re the use of AI.

It is of course impossible to regulate and design technologies in such a way that they can *never* be used to harm people, but it is also complete, dangerous bullshit to believe that this means it’s therefore futile to attempt to reduce the harm they cause.

Fun fact: The chemical plants along the ship channel in Houston have NEVER been in compliance with the environmental regulations. The were grandfathered in the original law and didn't have to comply until substantially rebuilt. So they rebuilt in smallish sections. For decades.

I work in consumer drone tech, which has been pretty intensely regulated from the beginning because most people could immediately grasp the danger that unregulated and badly designed small drones could post to the public: consumer AI is no different.

Unfortunately people still seem to find it way easier to grasp direct kinetic risk from new tech (like drones falling on people) than they find it to grasp data-based or economic risks (like those posed by consumer LLMs), but I’d like to believe we can change that.

If regulation on technology intended to reduce unethical use was actually pointless, big tech executives wouldn’t be spending massive amounts of time and energy trying to squash those regulations and the people who advocate for them.

As someone who spent my whole adult life in tech, I see it as a tool with a lot of potential, that we'll never unlock if we insist that its current half-baked state is just fine. And as a parent of a member of next generation of SWEs, I know we have the people capable of doing it right.

It is wild to me to see so many people around me pushing for AI status quo while calling those of us who say no, it's not good for popular use yet, it needs more work, luddites in way of progress. Surely working the kinks out of, and putting guardrails around, it *is* progress?