runarberg

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No. Not in the contemporary common meaning of the term “AI”.

5 years ago you would be technically correct, but today “AI” is only a subset of technologies that used to be included in the term. Namely Large Language Models, Text To Image Models, Text To Video Models, and other forms of generative AI that take in a user text prompt. These other types of statistical models are now simply called Machine Learning Algorithms.

Very few people today say “AI”, and mean “any type of Machine Learning Algorithm”.

Reverse naivity? Never seen that term before, is that synonymous with healthy skepticism?

I will keep assuming any news coming from AI companies are a type of corporate propaganda, and that AI companies frequently use their millions of dollars of marketing money to create a narrative to maximize hype and make money.

They build cities around the car, they defund public transit, they close down rail lines, they build new housing a 5 km away from your closest grocery store, and 20 km away from any cafés and other cultural venues. Your job is located 50 km north of where you live, your partner’s job is 60 km in the other direction, and your child’s school is 10 km in the third direction.

They neglect to build sidewalks, and force you to walk 1-2 meters from cars racing at 70 km/h. With all the noise and high risk stressing you up to the level you just wanna scream.

stevenhuang: No one forces you to drive. You can still walk.

A group of 80 academics sounds like the level of dysfunction that can only be superseded by a group of 80 politicians.

I think speed to market and revenue of the company are nonsensical measures of successful consumer products. Like did Theranos have a successful consumer product? How about Juul?

Self evidently so, I suppose.

Perhaps I am just blind to consumer markets, but it is not self evident for me, at least. When I think of successful consumer products, I think of stuff like Coca Cola, the light bulb, the CD, acrylic paint. Are you saying that Claude is as successful consumer products as the Ford model T, and Nike sneakers? I am not buying it.

Really? The most successful consumer product? of all time?

They were. Or rather they were all friends/family/the same people. Iceland is one of the most corrupt countries in Northern Europe. What happened is due to how small the economy is, the country simply could not afford to bail out the banks. The money required to do so simply did not exist, so they had exactly one option.

Note also that since then, all the nationalized banks are back on the public market with the state only holding plurality or even minority shares. Investment/retirement funds and private investors together hold bigger share then the state. These shares were more often then not released on a steep discount allowing investors (many of whom responsible for the 2008 crash) essentially free money from the state.

Icelander here. The banks were only temporarily nationalized, the plan was always to privatize them as soon as possible. Only a handful of bankers went to jail, their sentences were extremely light, and every single one of them returned to investing as soon as they were able (or even kept investing via family members while in prison). Today they are still the richest people in Iceland and own the majority of all assets.

I think the only reason Iceland nationalized the failed banks in the first place was because they had no other option, the economy is too small, and they simply could not afford to bail them out, the money literally did not exist.

Also, today’s Iceland is extremely troubled by austerity. Schools and healthcare is extremely underfunded. Teachers- and nurses strike almost every 2 years. The city of Reykjavík just started their biggest round of mass-layoff ever.

Everybody hates AI, even Republicans hate AI. Republican members of congress might not want to explain to their constituents why they are going to vote against an anti-bailout bill for AI, so some of them might opt to support such bill, fearing their constituents may vote them out of office.

> people aren't only using AI because they're being forced to.

I‘d like to counter that. Those of us that don‘t use AI are loosing our jobs, fast. The industry is artificially selecting for AI users. Use AI or loose your job, sounds like a forced choice to me.

And the Soviet Union only fulfills 7 of these points. Crucially missing includes:

>> 1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

>> 8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

>> 9. Corporate Power is Protected

>> 10. Labor Power is Suppressed

Saying that any of these points applied to the Soviet Union at any point in its history is ahistorical.

In addition we have nuanced points like:

>> 2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

This was true for a small period during Stalin’s purges but under Khrushchev the human rights record of the Soviet Union was on par with other (non fascist) European colonizers like France. If we were to consider this true for the Soviet Union we must also include France under Charles de Gaulle to be fascist. But again we have another name for the ideology behind these atrocities: colonizer.

Note also that there was a Fascist colonizer in Western Europe for most of Soviet Union’s history. And that was Portugal. Are you telling me that what made Portugal fascist, could equally apply to the Soviet Union? Nobody thinks so, probably not even you.

Also note this point:

>> 3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

This was true throughout the history of the Soviet Union, but an important distinction/nuance is the unifying enemy of the Soviet Union was Fascism and Western Imperialism, and not The Jews, Feminists, or Collage Campuses. The latter three are indication of fascism, the former two are indication of most centralized states.

How so?

> we no longer have to worry about looking for a missing semicolon, typo, or off by 1 error,

These are all things that static analysis tools do very well. I have been using linters and type-checkers for almost my entire career that caught these things. For the past 10 years at least these tools have been integrated in my editor such that they highlight a typo, a missing semicolon, etc. as soon as I type them. This was never a real problem for me, and I assume most experienced software developers.

This post comes across as a carpenter who rejoices in the fact they no longer have to sharpen their tools because now finally, they can buy all their interiors from IKEA.

So basically the kid bought into exactly the corporate propaganda which has littered almost every workplace for the past two decades. I am not gonna blame the kid here but rather a culture of hyper-capitalism which is creating this illusion seemingly on purpose in order to get workers who are more loyal to their exploiter over their own material conditions as workers.

We can also just ditch the AI. It is more trouble then it’s worth.

I have issue with it. Fascism is explicitly and by definition a right wing ideology. It is explicitly anti-communist. Communist cannot, by definition, be fascists. If they were, then we need to redefine the meaning of either fascism or communism.

The word you are looking for is authoritarianism. Tankies and the USSR were and are both authoritarians (the former also by definition). Note also that modern Tankies share a lot more with fascists (both historical and modern) then the USSR did, most notably nationalism, the belief in strict social hierarchy, conspiracy theories (mostly of an enemy that is weak enough to squash like a bug, but at the same time strong enough to end civilization), and general bigotry.

Note that on the left we also have Nazbols who, in addition to all the crap tankies belief, they are also racist ethno-nationalists. However just because the left also has racist bigots (albeit not nearly as many as the right) that still doesn’t make them fascists. To become fascists they would need to become pro-business capitalists and start blaming communism for everything what is wrong with the world.

You seem very convinced. But the way you are using the term it is completely synonymous with authoritarianism. Maybe you should tell me, how do you define fascism?

I am also gonna add, that you are arguing from a very weird position that has no support in academia, nor from most people.

That job exist does not equate that good jobs exist. Some jobs are far away requiring you to commute for two hours (you can’t because you have a family) or move (you can‘t because you can‘t afford the move), most are low paying to the extent that they are simply not even worth your time. Many are stressful (to the extent you physically can‘t do them), etc. etc.

Anyway, this has been explained a lot in the literature, unemployment rates are a poor measure of the difficulty of finding a job.

Learn to AI won’t give you a job though.

AI stole our labor, is renting it back to us, and if you oppose you‘ll loose your job. This is blackmailing, plain and simple.

That is terrible.

There are people playing that same game on the other end, and they have the tools to exploit market swings which you may not have. Those are the people who will benefit from the potential huge upswing, and that money came from somewhere, most likely from your investment.

Playing the stock market is a loosing game. It is gambling where all the rules and all the odds are stacked in favor of a handful of people who gamble for a living. (it is also systemic exploitation of the working classes; so if you are into worker solidarity [you should] you should not partake in said exploitation).

What they did was fight fascism. And liberate Eastern Europe from fascism.

If we were to consider the Soviet Union fascist, simply because of their atrocities, than we would have to consider the British rule over India fascist. And there we also run into problem, because the British also fought and defeated fascism (albeit not as decisively as the Soviet Union; leaving fascists in power in Spain and Portugal). And there is even more of a case for fascist UK because unlike the Soviet Union, the British enacted racist ethnodemocratic policies emblematic of fascism.

But we have another name for the types of government which ruled India in terror. And that name is Colonialism. The British government wasn’t fascist, it was colonial. And it committed their numerous atrocities in India under the ideology of colonialism.

Likewise with the Soviet Union. At no point in their history were they ruled by a right wing, pro-business, pro-religion, racist regime. The Soviet Union committed their atrocities not to enrich the business elite, with some ethno-nationalist/religious ideology, but to further the ideology of Communism. Businesses were state owned, education was universal, and unions were elevated. The party elite then put them selves in high paying positions for the state owned businesses, created better schools for their own children, and pushed union leadership loyal to the party. So corruption for sure, but still not fascism. For that we need the unions disbanded, their union leaders executed, ethnic minorities kicked out of schools and into ghettos, and state corporations handed over to the aristocracy, etc.

Some communist governments are authoritarian, all fascist governments are authoritarian, and not all authoritarian governments are fascists. The Soviet Union under its most authoritarian and repressive ruler fought and defeated fascism. So the Soviet Union was in the first category above: communist + authoritarian.

Fascism is more then authoritarianism. It is a set of explicitly right wing and explicitly anti-communist and anti-socialist policies, fascism is extremely pro-business. And it is explicitly racist and nationalistic.

The Soviet Union was explicitly pro-worker, it was explicitly communist, it was explicitly left-wing. Under its first ruler it was even explicitly internationalist (to the extend that the Internationale was their national anthem; But their second ruler was for sure a nationalist). There is no definition of fascism which includes the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union were fascist, then fascism becomes a useless term completely synonymous with authoritarianism.

Fails criteria 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. So that is 7 out of 14 = 50%.

USSR was famously anti-religion (criteria 8) and pro labor (criteria 9 and 10) so thinking USSR shared 80-90% with Nazis is kind of laughable.