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this is the really ineffective head-in-the-sand reaction a lot of folks on Bluesky tend to have if you talk about any harm reduction-based approach to the reality that millions of people are using AI tools today. The current approach to critiquing AI is obviously not working, but they don't care.

Been debating writing my "AI is not going away" article about why people reacting with the "shut it all down" response are making it more difficult for people who want to build better user-empowering AI tools

People just know that "build[ing] better user-empowering AI tools" is just horseshit. That's not what's going to happen and everyone knows it. You guys keep acting like it's impossible to get rid of dangerous technology that hurts people, but we've done it before or you'd be brushing with radium.

I don’t keep acting like that, I’m literally arguing for tactics that are *more* likely to achieve that goal. Bluesky did not get adoption by going on Twitter & shitting on people. Ghost & Buttondown are not getting adoption by telling Substack users they’re scumbags. Engaging with users is *good*.

But you aren't trying to get rid of it. Instead you're promising a non-dangerous version and that doesn't exist. You are putting a sugar coating on a poison pill. No one's saying you have to go yell at AI bros, but you're actively supporting it, and that's different.

that hasn't actually happened tho. radium is still used for radiography, we just don't wear it anymore. lead is the center of a thriving industry, but not for housepaint. asbestos is in fucking microwaves. similarly, llms will continue to power IDEs even if chatgpt is axed

we live in exactly the world you claim isn't real; where shit doesn't actually go away, we just reduce the harm caused by improving containment and finding new usecases

A ton of this industry, the sell transformers to everyone industry, will crash and burn. that's true and you're right to say it. it's also true to say that the shit isn't going away

Since the radium thing will never happen here - there is nobody around to tell them to stop putting radium in things! - what you’re saying is: The shit is not going away. Kids are going to keep dying every week, probably every day. Old people too. And there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Me too. And it’s not just that guy - or the other one. It’s also that the tech industry funded a slew of 2024 campaigns to oust key tech-regulatory Dems like Sherrod Brown - helping give the majority to the Rs and leading to the total abolition of crypto regs. We live in an anti-regulatory moment.

it's pretty disturbing, while there was something feckless about the way that the dem-valley alliance worked, I sure as hell prefer it to this shit

(to this end, it's worth noting that the gippity company has already started to agitate for regulation, which means that they know it can be done in a way that fucks their opponents)

I agree, tho I don’t know if it’s actually in their interests to fuck their opponents - corporate AI data center agreements are really weird. I think they’ll just pass “regulation” that just abolishes regulation, like the GENIUS act.

what I am saying is that trying to make a technology go away is not a realistic aspiration, even for regulation. as you note/seem to agree, the radium regulation didn't make radium go away, it limited the use cases permitted for radium. the skeets are vague because they are skeets, not policy docs.

it also represents a misunderstanding of what the tech is, which is the thing that I am upset about. we need the mass voices asking for regulation to actually understand what they want from it. otherwise, it is really easy for the state to dismiss them by calling out their obvious misunderstanding