Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
One thing we don't talk about, when we talk about AI, is that, for hackers, AI-assisted software development threatens our livelihoods and lifestyle. It undermines the special position that we hold in the social and economic order.
No amount of lowering power consumption, careful training data provenance, or decentralised deployment will help with that.
@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
It would be interesting to have the discussion of how, if we don't manage to abolish all LLM-assisted software development entirely, we can maintain hacker culture and a positive influence on the world's use of technology.
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@scottjenson @Gargron “AI people” are not a protected class. It seems much more important that we focus on being a welcoming and inclusive platform for protected classes, particularly actual marginalized communities.
@dgodon @scottjenson @Gargron consider though that there are people in marginalized communities who are also "AI people". are they not welcome? is anti-AI (or anti-whatever) more important than welcoming marginalized people? literally, where is the line?
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@evan @panos @carnage4life @scottjenson I do not concede that LLMs are "orders of magnitude" less harmful than flying. Also I do not fly.
Anyone dismissing LLM harms doesn't understand the scale of the climate crisis or of LLMs. Sadly, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” I can't force this understanding onto anyone in a few toots, they would have to want to understand, when the industry requires LLMs if you want to eat.
@skyfaller My work has been up until recently building software to make greenhouse gas inventories. I am well aware of the causes of the climate crisis, and I can tell you categorically that AI is not a significant one. You've already seen my math on the topic, but I can share the links again if you need them.
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@evan @scottjenson @carnage4life sure, let’s take steps to prevent abuse and make this a more welcoming and inclusive space, but let’s stop pretending that “AI users” are a marginalized community. It’s like arguing that cops or Republicans are a protected class. Center actual marginalized groups in these discussions! If they feel welcome then there’s a better chance non-hype AI users will too
@dgodon your argument is, i guess, that there are no members of marginalized communities who are "AI users"? or is it that it doesn't matter because your being against AI and their using AI is more important than anything else about who they are?
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@rakoo That was an amazing answer. Thank you.
@scottjenson you might not be the stereotypical pro-white pro-cis man, but the focus of your attention and the way you approach systemic issues might put forward those people: we can't naively say "I'm clean", we're all a part of this because we've all been in there for so long. I think the very first move is to listen to what marginalized people have been saying for ages and start from there. There is no need for yet another discussion, as if the topic was new or still too vague. Recognizing marginalized people, considering them as equals whose voice and expertise should guide us, this is where we must start -
@skyfaller My work has been up until recently building software to make greenhouse gas inventories. I am well aware of the causes of the climate crisis, and I can tell you categorically that AI is not a significant one. You've already seen my math on the topic, but I can share the links again if you need them.
@skyfaller AI is projected to rise to as much as 1/3 of all IT emissions by 2030, so about 0.3% of global emissions. Air travel is about 3.5% of global emissions. That's an order of magnitude.
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@skyfaller AI is projected to rise to as much as 1/3 of all IT emissions by 2030, so about 0.3% of global emissions. Air travel is about 3.5% of global emissions. That's an order of magnitude.
@skyfaller for individuals, an hour of flight can emit about 1kg CO2. An hour of LLM use on a dirty grid emits 0.01kg of CO2.
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@earth_walker @scottjenson @carnage4life
It would be interesting to have the discussion of how, if we don't manage to abolish all LLM-assisted software development entirely, we can maintain hacker culture and a positive influence on the world's use of technology.
@evan @scottjenson @carnage4life I would argue that the history of technology is defined by working with increasing levels of abstraction. First you were plugging in wires, then you had simple instruction sets, then low level languages, then high level languages, and now we can use natural language to write software. Every time this happened, we found new sources of inspiration and made cool and useful new things. I see LLMs as part of that story and not fundamentally different. In my opinion, hackers are ultimately people who trade in ideas, the technology is more the means to actualize the ideas. If you get too attached to specific technologies you'll have a problem when the world changes and the focus shifts to new technologies. So I see the cultural side of the issue as something that people can potentially adapt to.
That said, yes LLMs being pushed by capitalist entities are definitely reducing the economic value of information-based labor. But that's unfortunately also the latest iteration of a long story of industrialization and automation. I believe we should fight against the devaluation of labor by capitalists, but I think that we should be more focused on policy than technology in that fight.
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
"AI" LLMs have no benefit for the mass of normal people. They can't be replied upon, aren't intelligent, are killing the planet, have risen the cost of living and hobbies for everyone and are being used by billionaire narcissists to spread propaganda and kill real free speech and muddy facts. There is no room for commercial LLMs anywhere. They are only useful for research projects like cancer research etc.
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life mastodon is not definitively not the same to all of us.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson What does "AI journalist" mean to you?
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson my feed is created by me. I follow people and topics. I either don't follow, quite or block does I don't want to follow. There's not risk of polluting my feed.
As I see it, Mastodon is mostly composed of marginalized communities. Can it, and should it have even more? Sure!
People don't have to like AI and engage with people who like AI, or with that topic, for people who like AI to be here, the same goes to any other topic.
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@evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI Mastodon as a community is quite hostile to AI and anything that isn’t a criticism of AI is viewed with skepticism at best and typically with hostility as the default.
It’s unfortunate because, as in your Mozilla example, there is still time to shape how AI is used in our industry. It’s better to engage and try to influence it versus stick your head in the sand and have the change thrusted upon you.
@carnage4life @evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI
.... as a community, ....Can we pause for a second. Why do we automatically lump people with different thoughts, perspectives into one group?
When you talk to AI-one-shotted person, check if they are also more suseptible to this shortcutting simplification human bias. It may be one of the factors.
There are tons of different not-pleasant-to-AI-fanatics perspectives in this federated space. "Community" brush stroke erases nuances. Please, don't.
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@scottjenson my feed is created by me. I follow people and topics. I either don't follow, quite or block does I don't want to follow. There's not risk of polluting my feed.
As I see it, Mastodon is mostly composed of marginalized communities. Can it, and should it have even more? Sure!
People don't have to like AI and engage with people who like AI, or with that topic, for people who like AI to be here, the same goes to any other topic.
@scottjenson
Liking AI, and being black is not the same, to me mixing those two things is inappropriate. -
@patrick_h_lauke The metrics are clear, people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down. I agree that pursing follower count is not what Mastodon should be about, we likely agree on many points here. I'm just trying to say 'being more welcoming of other points of view' shouldn't be controvertial. Yet so many replies have been "we don't want them here!" which feels very head-in-the-sand to me.
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke What do you understand of being welcome of other people's points of view?
Do we have to agree?
Do we have to like?
Do we have to share?
Is it hostile if we don't do those things?Should we be forced to engage with topics we don't care about (no matter what they are)?
Being hostile and not engaging is not the same, and this is the first toot in this thread I see you making that it somehow clear.
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@evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI Mastodon as a community is quite hostile to AI and anything that isn’t a criticism of AI is viewed with skepticism at best and typically with hostility as the default.
It’s unfortunate because, as in your Mozilla example, there is still time to shape how AI is used in our industry. It’s better to engage and try to influence it versus stick your head in the sand and have the change thrusted upon you.
@carnage4life so they're ignoring our "no" and instead read it as "ask me again in 5 minutes, I may change my opinion"?
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@patrick_h_lauke Good point, I didn't mean to shift the goal posts! Part of my goal here is to understand the problem better. The original post was superficially about engagement but it was really about how a journalist isn't welcome here on Mastodon. (and people seem to be quite happy about that!)
So yeah, my argument is likely shifting with the replies I'm getting. But I can't believe that asking for 'a big tent' is considered a bad thing.
@scottjenson @patrick_h_lauke I've seen that on every platform I've been on since 2000. Assholes are usually more vocal. But actively being an asshole towards is a problem not just for journalists.
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@evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI Mastodon as a community is quite hostile to AI and anything that isn’t a criticism of AI is viewed with skepticism at best and typically with hostility as the default.
It’s unfortunate because, as in your Mozilla example, there is still time to shape how AI is used in our industry. It’s better to engage and try to influence it versus stick your head in the sand and have the change thrusted upon you.
@carnage4life Hi! I hope you don't feel discouraged by assholes.
Loving, hating AI and everything in between is ok. Even caring and not caring about AI.
About engaging with AI. Being AI something great, or whatever, keep in mind that AI is being shoved into people's throats, both on their loved tech, and on every f*in public conversation regardless of what they think or feel about it. So harsh reactions are to be expected, and some will also be unacceptable.
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@carnage4life @evan Strongly agree. The current AI companies have done much to be criticized but the tech itself, especially the open source and local versions (which this community should love) is actually a positive force here. We need to have discussions to understand the differences.
@scottjenson I think nobody has to love any tech, and expecting that is expecting to jump over an impossible bar. That being said, nobody should be disrespectful towards another, and that's just basic decency.
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron we need neither neo-nazi instances nor Ai culture.
