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Except... your "ai+ethics" post are very... mild at best? I guess people might complain about not addressing the more pressing issues of fake videos to destabilize elections, as Putin has successfuly done in US / Brazil / EU etc?

I hadn't heard about those particular fake videos, any good articles I can read? Would you say my ai+ethics coverage is so mild that it doesn't protect me being labeled as a breathlessly proselytizing LLM shill?

3/1/25, 10:23 pm0 reposts2 likes

Just to be clear I'm not personally trying to blame you for anything yet as technologists we have to be aware of what we're doing to the world and right now it feels like working on AI means "accelerating tech in the hands of the powerful" which basically means: building a jail for the rest of us

that's why I personally exited the AI field. I know I could make much more money there, and even have stimulating work there but I'd be "working on the atom bomb" that's not satisfying for me in terms of values

Avoiding "accelerating tech in the hands of the powerful" is a driving motivation for me - it's why I spend so much effort showing people how to understand and use this stuff, and why I track both openly licensed models that run on personal devices and the falling costs of hosted models

It's also why I've been so celebratory of the increased completion from more vendors - the idea that only a tiny group of (or even just one) organizations could have exclusive control over this kind of technology terrifies me

The problem is not so much the exclusive control, the problem is that if **one bad** actor has access to a very powerful tech, he might do serious damage There is therefore a civilizational question. Should we continue such developments or not? /1

pbs.orgHow Russia is using artificial intelligence to interfere in electionsMoscow's attempts to interfere in U.S. and other elections are nothing new, though their tactics and strategy are constantly evolving. Special Correspondent Simon Ostrovsky recently sat down with an i...

Just found this on PBS www.pbs.org/newshour/amp...

simonwillison.netAnalyzing US Election Russian Facebook AdsTwo interesting data sources have emerged in the past few weeks concerning the Russian impact on the 2016 US elections. FiveThirtyEight published nearly 3 million tweets from accounts associated with ...

I did do this project around Russian election interference via Facebook ads six years ago - the all itself is no longer online though simonwillison.net/2018/Aug/6/r...

Might be the reason why people are being vocal on social media... they feel that even though you might from time to time show a critical view of AI, you're mainly showing its uses as a tool... but that leaves a lot to be desired when looking at it from a civilizational perspective (IMHO) /1

since AI is only going to increase inequalities, accelerate tech (and therefore consumption through the rebound effect), and therefore misery for those who don't have access to it, or for the planet (the planet has it's own "balance and rhythm" and trying to force an accelerated rhythm on it just /2

I am indeed mainly showing its uses as a tool: that's the niche I've chosen for myself, describing exactly what the current generation of models can and cannot do I don't ignore the ethics component - I talk about it a lot - but it's not at all my primary focus

Dario aka SgalluZ

@sgalluz.bsky.social

Why do you need missile and bomb to change a government when you can write tons of posts on social Networks?