mastodon - Link to source
Generative AI is a Faustian bargain. Every use of it weakens you. Maybe you occasionally save a few minutes, but you are diminished for it. With each use you are further from your human potential.
in reply to Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎

mastodon - Link to source

Jack Graham

That's a heck of a claim when some of us are using AI as a prosthesis for things like poor executive function or ADHD.

I have an AI assistant I've set up to have context about all my projects & their status.

If I have a bad brain day where I'm foggy/can't focus, I can ask the AI to help me figure out what I should be working on.

That makes me MORE myself, not less.

And anyway, I'll take a handshake with Lucifer over Yahweh any day. The Devil has integrity.

#ai #llm #disability

#ai #llm #disability
in reply to Quest 💚

mastodon - Link to source

Jack Graham

@corigan01
Sounds like you already have other ways of managing ADHD that work for you. That's cool.

I don't think it's the right assistive device for every case.

In my case, though, it works very well. I did have a stage early on where I'd get distracted playing with the AI, but once that got boring, no problems.

@Quest 💚
in reply to Jack Graham

mastodon - Link to source

Taz the pika🔜Furry Migration!

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@jack You are infantilizing not only yourself, but everyone who struggles with poor executive function. Not only this, you are surrendering your brain, your agency, to some of the worst people on the planet. For the benefit of us all, stop being a booster and go fuck yourself. @benlockwood
@Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎 @Jack Graham
in reply to Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎

mastodon - Link to source

cauZation

Well, from the #TechBros angle, it presents a prime opportunity to corner energy markets, eventually compete with #FossilFuels #Oligarchy when the rest of us are rendered extinct. So why not introduce #AI quickly, faux a pullback publicly, and look like responsible leaders, all the while reaping rewards from bloated energy costs, then eventual #DataCenter #greed.

Remove #TechBros and #FossilFuels #Oligarchy from power

#ai #techbros #fossilfuels #oligarchy #greed #datacenter
in reply to cauZation

mastodon - Link to source

EvoScale

@cauZation It's certainly within their power - especially after teaming with the US Administration - that has hollywood level script writers, from The Apprentice experience, combined with the wealthiest lobbyists from Washington...

The acceleration from 1% to .01% wealthiest, easily puts these abusers in a place of confidence, that they can weather initial push backs, and #grift their way to ultimate abuse of humanity.

But are there just too many #sheeple to #resist such tactics?

#resist #grift #sheeple @cauZation
in reply to Pete Prodoehl 🍕

mastodon - Link to source

Michal Kohutek

@rasterweb @corigan01 if you want to be nitpicky, let me change my metaphor to “Learn to navigate by stars, instead of using a compass” yea, it’s very cool and useful (at night), but refusing new ways of doing things because you lack understanding and there are assholes abusing it is giving away power to those assholes.
@Pete Prodoehl 🍕 @Quest 💚
in reply to Quest 💚

mastodon - Link to source

Orava

@corigan01 @tylnesh Also, all these other examples are deterministic systems which can be understood and utilised with agency. LLM output is fundamentally randomised, using it is just rolling some dice and hoping that the result will be useful; you actually do hand off all agency over your own life when doing so.
@Quest 💚 @Michal Kohutek
in reply to Orava

mastodon - Link to source

Michal Kohutek

@painting_squirrel @corigan01 I don’t hope, I read, reread, reason about it and verify the output. Also saying that LLMs are non deterministic is a gross simplification. Set the model temperature to 0, greedy decoding and fixed seed and barring floating point inaccuracies and similar influences you get close to deterministic output. If you want to go as close as possible, run inference on a cpu.

Do you use compilers or do you write assembly?

@Quest 💚 @Orava
in reply to Michal Kohutek

mastodon - Link to source

ꍌꋪꏂꌦ꒒ꄲꋪ꒯

@tylnesh @corigan01
Hi you seem to be a sarcastic asshole who is trying to act like they are superior, please consider that this makes us all less likely to listen to you, your ego is showing.

As if the point of every argument is to win it, how childish. Clearly a waste of space and breath.

@Quest 💚 @Michal Kohutek
This entry was edited (Thursday, September 10, 2026, 2:40 PM)
in reply to Michal Kohutek

mastodon - Link to source

Weird Socks

@tylnesh
Oof. I appreciate your intention about AI and agree with that intention.
But this was a poor choice for the simile. I work with crew almost every day. In most cases, power tools are a way of avoiding repetitive stress injuries and have nothing to do with sparing muscle fatigue. They are a safety measure.
I apologize for the interruption.
@Michal Kohutek
in reply to Michal Kohutek

mastodon - Link to source

undead

@tylnesh
No, that is a mis-comparison. Unless using a Makita required me to burn down a small forest, and empty a small lake in order to drill those nails. Which, the Makita would occasionally get wrong (using finishing nails instead of deck screws to drill deck things), drilling nails instead of hammering them, and giving me all kinds of output about how it was right anyway.

I clean up so many AI generated messes in my work.

@Michal Kohutek
in reply to Michal Kohutek

mastodon - Link to source

mbk

@tylnesh
That is an unfair comparison, since power tools allow you to do stuff you could never to by muscle power alone.

However, your example with the contact list is more fitting ... because does anyone know a or the phone number to call when they're in trouble? Not 112/999/911, but a person who will help you. I do, but only one and only because that number hasn't changed all my life and I am not the youngest any more. And yes, it bothers me from time to time.

@Michal Kohutek
in reply to Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎

mastodon - Link to source

wraptile

I don't think that's necessarily true.

Sure if you don't ride the bike every day you're worse bike rider but finishing races also makes you a better bike rider.

I'm a senior dev and consider myself a good'ish coder and while LLMs do make me worse at memorizing APIs I ship so much more which on it's own a very useful skill to train.

At the end of the day it's just another computer. If you use the one that's in your skull as well then you'll be just perfectly fine.

in reply to wraptile

mastodon - Link to source

barbra

@wraptile @rasterweb @corigan01
"Yeah but a more modern form of transportation will get you much further :P "

Or we can design our cities more human-scale, where everything we need is within a 1-hour bike ride.

Less pollution, better health, saves lots of money so you have more money for other things (or work fewer hours because you're not spending half your pay on a car, parking, insurance, registration, maintenance, car washes, tires, fuel, a garage to park it in that always ends up full of crap, etc).

@Pete Prodoehl 🍕 @wraptile @Quest 💚
in reply to wraptile

mastodon - Link to source

Quest 💚

@wraptile @rasterweb like maybe a train/tram?

I love riding my bike, then getting on my bike accessable tram, and finally getting back on my bike once at my desired stop. I can get quite far in very little time!

Hopefully you aren't trying to imply a car here...

@Pete Prodoehl 🍕 @wraptile
in reply to wraptile

mastodon - Link to source

Wilkuu

@wraptile
Well, getting over the finish line does not make you a better bike rider, it's the actions between the start and finish that refine the skill. AI would be like doing a race on an e-bike.

When it comes to the term "shipping", I do not really understand it.
I wonder where does it the coding end and shipping starts.
Pressing submit is not a skill, after all.

@wraptile
in reply to Wilkuu

mastodon - Link to source

wraptile

@wilkuu it absolutely makes you a better biker. I'm not sure how far how far this bike analogy can get us here but there's more to life and career that dishing out code. Yesterday I learned about cloudflare tunnels just because I had to ship something which in turn lead me to learn about fortifying my local network with techniques I would have never bothered with.

Most of human knowledge is transferable, we are not paperclip factory machines ­— we're people.

@Wilkuu
in reply to wraptile

mastodon - Link to source

Jean-Sébastien Zbeul

@wraptile I don’t know man, it feels a bit sad that to compare your brain to « just another computer », or that shipping more code would have anything to do with realizing your potential on this earth.

When it comes to growing as a person, we all know that the quest is what really matters.

@wraptile
in reply to Jean-Sébastien Zbeul

mastodon - Link to source

wraptile

@Minos your brain is absolute a computer _but_ also more than a computer.

And I didn't say "ship more code" but _create more_ to the very end where it's more than just exploration of an idea but a full product. Finishing stuff matters. Diversity of experience matters.

AI tools absolutely great for this unless you don't know how to use them or too weak willed/unfortunate enough to get caught by sub-optimal paths which is absolutely a valid and real issue for some.

@Jean-Sébastien Zbeul
This entry was edited (Thursday, September 10, 2026, 2:11 PM)
in reply to Diligence Jones

mastodon - Link to source

M.S. Bellows, Jr.

@DeliaChristina "Is their humanity diminished"?

Yes. Because AI is environmentally unsustainable, is contributing substantially to our warming planet, and is trained on stolen material. Even the best use cases fail to account for the harms. The fact that a Dalmatian puppy fur coat might keep one person from freezing to death is not justification for killing and skinning Dalmatian puppies.

@Diligence Jones
in reply to Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎

mastodon - Link to source

Jimmy

@Gargron Depends on how you use it. I think it makes me better because I let AI organize my files and deal with mundane task management, giving me more time for my hobbies and creative pursuits.

Let the robot do the robot stuff, and free up the humans to do more humane things.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎

mastodon - Link to source

John

But you don't save a few minutes, and the output is notably and dispositively worse than if you'd just done it yourself.

"Faustian" implies that there's a benefit that eventually leads to ruin. LLMs have no benefit; they are all ruin: ecological, social, cognitive, and economic.

in reply to Michelle Hughes

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Plan-A̵̛͈̬̥̿͋̓͛̕

 — (0.0.0.0/ 0)
@Michelle Hughes @Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎
"AI" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. A decision tree classifying tumors, a reinforcement learning agent balancing a robot arm, a recommendation system none of those have a "master." They're narrow tools doing one job. The "serving its master" worry only applies to one slice: generative models trained on someone else's data by a company you don't work for. Using "AI" to mean "that one scary thing" is like saying vehicles are evil because of that one truck that ran over me.. think about it and know the distinction between the whole of AI and Corporation led generative AI please
"AI is the One Ring" Cool metaphor until you realize the One Ring is one object, one master, and it's magic you can't inspect. An LLM is a model file on your disk. You can read its weights, run it offline, point it at your own data, and delete it. The Ring doesn't let you do that. The Ring also talks to Sauron. Your local LLM doesn't talk to anyone. You built it.
@Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎 @Michelle Hughes
in reply to Plan-A̵̛͈̬̥̿͋̓͛̕

mastodon - Link to source

Lea

@zer0unplanned
Like it or not, 'AI' now means LLMs/generative AI because the broligarchs adopted the term and made it so. It's a fait accompli.

If it once meant something different to some people, that's over now. Any efforts to change that by replying to posts on Mastodon are as futile as trying to bail out the ocean with a bucket.

@benlockwood @MegaMichelle

@Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎 @Plan-A̵̛͈̬̥̿͋̓͛̕ @Michelle Hughes
in reply to Ben Lockwood, PhD 🌎

mastodon - Link to source

poor_labsafety

Well big question is what are people who used it supposed to do about this (besides just quit)? Those with mental disorders are VERY easily swayed by it, especially those with OCD, who are VERY drawn towards stupid question answering reassurance machine, to the point it becomes its own addiction (ask me how i know... i still cant fully stop myself...). Do you believe this damage can ever be fixed? How do you "get off" this cycle?
This entry was edited (Thursday, September 10, 2026, 5:16 PM)
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