Transcript
Title text: This is how you all fucking sound
[A smug tech bro wearing a sideways cap, watch, chain around his neck stands in front of a data center by a lake with dead fish. A smoke stack blows pollution into the air]
Tech bro: AI is already here, there’s no going back.
[A smug man in a suit with cigarette in hand stands in a restaurant while two disgruntled diners cough from the smoke]
Suit: Smoking indoors is already here, there’s no going back.
[A smug man in a top hat and suit stands in a factory with two sad and dirty children]
Hat: Child labor is already here, there’s no going back.
[A smug plantation owner stands in front of a field with with two angry slaves]
Plantation owner: The Atlantic Slave trade is already here, there’s no going back.
Bitcoin, NFTs, asbestos, CFCs, leaded substances, the metaverse, 3D TVs like the 7 or 8 different times they've tried to make that a thing, VR gaming, wearable computers, segways, ubiquitous RFID tags, google search (considering they are fucking up their own service, this absolutely counts), the iSmell?, folding-glass phones (culturally insignificant), modular phones (culturally insignificant), gesture control devices for your PC (culturally insignificant), the Internet of Things (culturally insignificant), paper clothing (wtf?), sailors forgetting and rediscovering the cure for scurvy several times, self-healing concrete had to be rediscovered, ...
I imagine you think this list is making the same mistake, but you don't understand this as a cultural issue.
The choice to use it is a behavior.
You, while claiming it is other people who are doing this, are conflating the existence of a technology with the acceptance of it.
Using your own interpretation, we can't go back from cigarettes either. The technology is known. They still exist. People still smoke them. They still give people lung cancer. If we shut down tobacco companies, people can still roll their own. There's no stopping it. It's a societal pitfall we can't climb out of.
And yet, somehow, I can go into a restaurant today without being assaulted by a Counter Strike smoke bomb.
Let's review something else you've said.
In the absolute sense? Like, one person in the middle of Utah won't let it go? Do you really think that I care about them?
This sentiment damages hope for our cause.
You are either doing so deliberately, or do not understand the goal.
Please, spare me the pedantic lecture about what "going back" is supposed to mean.
Maybe I can restate my point more succinctly and spare you a pedantic lecture while still having a useful conversation.
In the other panels, the act depicted (smoking indoors) is fully identical with the act discussed (smoking indoors).
In the AI panel, the act depicted (pollution) is not fully identical with the act discussed (AI). It is closely related, but not identical.
The comic therefore undeniably conflates two separate (but indeed closely related) things. This alone is a mistake in the artist's thinking.
In your counter-argument with smoking, you make the same sort of mistake. The comic discusses smoking indoors, and then you discuss cigarettes. Cigarettes and smoking indoors are related, but not identical things.
We cannot go back from cigarettes, as you agreed. But we can go back from smoking indoors. Similarly: We cannot go back from AI, but we can go back from polluting to produce it.
Because the comic conflates the cessation of pollution to produce AI, which is possible, with the ability to go back from AI, which is not possible, the comic mistakenly implies that it is not possible to stop polluting, contrary to its own purpose, hence why I say the artist is confused and makes a flawed case.
I would love it if you could specify what sentiment exactly it is that damages hope for our cause, and what exactly our cause is. My post, in my opinion, expresses a positive sentiment that would increase hope that there can be a future where there's not pollution for the sake of AI. The comic is what damages hope, according to my reasoning above - Although I would never assume the comic was made in bad faith.
The fact that you think I agree with you on the cigarettes point is part of the problem.
To insist on this difference is to divert public attention into pointless bickering. I've read the CIA document, I know how this works.
If you're going to come into every strategy meeting with useless bullshit on this level, I am kicking you off the team. With prejudice.
It is possible if I cut off your apartment's electricity. Think of it like Morpheus liberating Neo from the Matrix.