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knowing how things work allows you to criticize and fight things way better than ignoring them because you dislike them does

insisting that guns are bad and their users are immoral, so you don't need to know anything about them, doesn't change what happens when someone aims one at you, and keeps you from knowing how to make one safe if it's necessary for you to do so

i think LLMs suck and it doesn't change the fact that someone can ask Claude Fable who I am (with its ability to search the web turned off) and it will tell them. knowing their capabilities allows me to intentionally shape my online presence to not stand out to something inhuman analyzing my posts

you can believe that LLMs are just as incapable as they were in 2023 all you want. that just means the FBI, which uses modern ones that work pretty well for whatever the hell they're doing with them, knows more about them than you do

also insisting they have or don't have characteristics or abilities that any coworker with a chatgpt account can go and disprove you about instantly just makes you look stupid, and reflects badly on everyone else. would you prefer ammo that can trivially be rendered inert, or do you want to win?

I'm just not sure it matters either way? Except for winning an argument, what problems can I solve better by knowing more about how they work?