So compression of knowledge is lossy.

The mindless paperclip scenario is far more likely, and if looked at the right way, it’s not only happening metaphorically, most humans are helping it.

The negative side has Kool-Aid? I assume you just refer to the fringe that make outrageous claims and not the “ordinary” doomers that realize if we’ve thrown out safety for profit with “just” LLMs, we’re absolutely going to go in full throttle with anything more.

I haven’t run across anyone involved in the safety aspects of AI in any form who is very happy or comfortable right now. There is a reason for that.

Shorter: You are used as a product for someone else’s profit. If you’re okay with that, don’t worry about privacy and security.

There is no reason to not have backwards compatibility in cases like this. Oh, yes there is. Someone is getting rich from it.

I guess it’s consent. The master/deity or their aide comes to the servant and tells them of master’s will, the great plan. The servant says, yeah, okay.

Yet another fail in writing. Why not make it so God and Gabriel give her the choice, and she adamantly agrees? Remove all doubt from the story’s plot. Or better yet, add some drama, have Mary unsure, and Gabriel explains the importance (not that it’s already planned, but why her choice is key to the direction of salvation and all that). And she with some thought decides to do it.

Oh, right… that would give a woman some agency. Never mind.

No, just debating which set of rules we’re playing by.

Yes. it can absolutely be spun that way, as I said. As most anything in the Bible can be. Let me ask this then. Could she have said no? And when would that have happened?

There wasn’t consent though. It can be spun that way, but biblically Mary was destined to carry, and screw any free will.

Tolkien predicted the failure of marketed AI? I’m not surprised, it’s a product of human industry and progress, something he was critical about.

I say marketed AI as it’s not really AGI, even though it’s sold that way. The good/bad news is that actual progress in AGI will have worse results, and current AI is just demonstrating the issues that will crop up without the faster pace and worse destruction AGI could possibly bring. (See the AI alignment problem for details)

But hey… we learn lessons from history, right?

Right??

It’s a weak loss.

At some point, the realization kicks in that what you’re doing is causing harm, no matter how far down the road. When you decide to keep going anyway, that’s your moment of sitting at the table with the nazis. Doesn’t matter if you’re totally removed from the evil doings, you’re helping, and you know you’re helping. And you’re okay with it.

Animal was always my spirit animal.

That’s the “I might be okay” moment, followed by the body’s too early, “oh, we’re there?” at the last few feet. Sometimes you can distract the mind a bit more by focusing on something else while you make the last steps. A lot like how flying works in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you have to notice something totally off-topic and forget you’re about to hit the ground.

Sam Harris had a video on free will, and in it, he asked the audience to think of something (a color, or something simple but spontaneous). Then he asked them to try and think when in their thought process did that choice make itself known and get picked? I don’t think it’s as simple as there being free will or not, but I think what we experience is a bit of both coming together to give a sense of choice and self, when actually some things are deterministic by who we are or have become through life and experience. The wiring in the brain and its software. We’re not so hard wired that we can be perfectly predicted every time, but we do have preferred pathways created over time that influence any actual choice that’s made at the core.

So in answer to the title, it’s yes and no. There are some things that are far more fixed in our personalities that we understand at least partially why we do what we do. Then there are others that we don’t or can’t, or take years of therapy to figure out. But it’s a mix.

Never looked into it. Wonder if it was an intentional play on the idea by Lucas or just an accident of the script. But the subtle “we’re ALL hypocrites” is great.

There was nothing mild about Usenet discussions, but I agree that how one might have conversations about such things can be very broad.

Sith, absolutes, etc. It depends on the pizza.

It would be “argue about semantics”.

Compensating.