We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege."
- Classism. Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.
- Ableism. Not all brains have same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers “should“ be able to perform certain functions independently or is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can’t “see” the issues in their writing without help.
- General Access Issues. All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don’t always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.
Presented without comment.
I can at least understand the guys who are using the AI text conveyor belt to make a cheap buck. Do the hustle, get your bag, whatever. We live in a capitalist hellscape and if that’s how you choose to survive, then fuck you, but I get it.
I don’t understand these guys who think it’s actively good that people don’t write their own words. It’s just a level of misanthropy that doesn’t make sense for how inflated their egos are.
I feel like this has to be built on a lack of appreciation for words as a facilitator of human connection. By finding means of expression and being understood we manage to link our brains together on a conceptual level. By building these skills communally we expand the possible bandwidth of connection and even the range and fidelity of our own thoughts.
This has to be motivated by a view of words as Authoritative Things that sit on shelves and bestseller lists and are authored by Smart And Successful People.
Exactly, its a natural conclusion of accepting commodification as the One True Path. Words don’t mean anything if they don’t make a profit, and clearly you’re a bozo who can’t Make It (and the bar of Making It is always rising because Number Go Up), so you should join the borg and let my buddy Claude speak for you.
People who hire writers, don’t write their own words. You can say that human connection is a crucial part of the writing process. But I just honestly don’t think that’s true for the vast majority of things we write. But also, eventually AI will be indistinguishable, If not better, than a human writer.
When we hit AGI, if we can continue to keep open source models, it will truly take the power of the rich and put it in the hands of the common person. The reason the rich are so powerful is they can pay other people to do things. Most people only have the power to do what they can physically do in the world, But the rich can multiply that effort by however many people they can afford.
When we hit AGI, if we can continue to keep open source models, it will truly take the power of the rich and put it in the hands of the common person.
Setting aside the “and then a miracle occurs” bit, this basically seems to be “rich people get to have servants and slaves… what if we democratised that?”. Maybe AGI will invent a new kind of ethics for us.
But the rich can multiply that effort by however many people they can afford.
If the hardware to train and run what currently passes for AI was cheap and trivially replicable, Jensen Huang wouldn’t be out there signing boobs.
when my dick grows wings, it will truly therefore be a magical flying unicorn pony