The AI age is the "age of no consent"

(productpicnic.beehiiv.com)

77 points | by BallsInIt 1 day ago

6 comments

  • araes 20 hours ago
    Agree with most of the article, yet part that was actually worth commenting on slightly:

    Bill Wolf - "Being born on 4/20 is unprofessional."

    "Upon reviewing your application materials, we found that the information provided in regards to your birthdate on LinkedIn, specifically 4/20, seems inconsistent with the professional standards we uphold within our organization. While we appreciate individuality, we also prioritize a professional and mature approach in all aspects of our work environment."

    https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wolfbill_being-born-on-420-is...

    • throwawayoldie 19 hours ago
      That's ridiculous.

      It's clearly his parents who were being unprofessional, by conceiving him on 7/20.

    • PicassoCTs 6 hours ago
      Sending emails on 13:37 is frowned upon..
    • atoav 10 hours ago
      Yet another reason to go for ISO 8601 date formats
    • aaron695 13 hours ago
      [dead]
  • SilverElfin 12 hours ago
    > We’re in the age of no consent. A time where everyday people have to follow the rules, but AI companies and AI toolmen do not.

    I wonder if this is how it always was, with elites and non elites, except now it’s all just in the open.

    • byryan 5 hours ago
      I think it definitely has been like this for a long time now at least. The most obvious example that comes to mind is Facebook. They harvested millions of users data and used it for political manipulation (Cambridge Analytica) without users consent. I suppose now its more out in the open with the recent verdicts on allowing these companies to scrape the entirety of the web stealing millions of IP's to use for their models, among other things.
    • notarobot123 11 hours ago
      Except this generation's elite are mostly divorced from history and tradition and lack a sense of noblesse oblige. The worlds moving fast enough for things to be different this time - or so the thinking goes.
      • bobsmooth 9 hours ago
        >lack a sense of noblesse oblige

        The super wealthy of today have zero class and it really shows.

    • atoav 10 hours ago
      Yes, but in the past decades the elites have accumulated wealth and resources at rates we haven't seen probably since before the French Revolution, depening on the metric you could also call it unprecedented.

      Additionally many of todays elites have a social-darwinistic view where everybody that is not on top actively deserves to suffer and perish.

      And this unfortunately falls together with the moment where AI reduces the number of real people ultrarich people need to control a population to a historic minimum. It is going to get much worse, before it is going to get better.

      • PicassoCTs 6 hours ago
        The social darwinistic view is just a mental protection mechanism against responsibility. Its like calluses but for the careless.
        • audinobs 3 hours ago
          Social darwnism is about getting paid.

          As an IT professional I don't have to put up with grave injustices like less than optimal rent seeking for myself and friends.

          Whatever decision I come to is basically the results of a science experiment. Of course, the results of the experiment just prove I am always right. If the results proved otherwise then obviously there was something flawed in the method and design of the experiment.

          Science is the method that proves what my friends and I thought all along was not just true but to think otherwise proves you are an immoral person. Unlike my friends and I that the experiments prove we are the good guys.

          If this wasn't true, my salary would be much less. "the market is always right"

        • atoav 5 hours ago
          Probably a correct observation. Nobody is protected against believing excuses that conviniently ease the cognitive dissonance. That includes you and me. But the difference is of course that we are not hoarding resources in a world that would need them and have such a negative impact on others.
  • UltraSane 10 hours ago
    Whatever happened to the mantra "Information wants to be free"
    • johnmaguire 10 hours ago
      Having my own data leased back to me wasn't exactly what I had in mind
      • UltraSane 6 hours ago
        How is it being leased back to you?
        • explodes 5 hours ago
          I think the idea is that people's written word, and artistic endeavors, and code, and everything else one could post online, is eventually scraped by AI whereby that AI is sold back to the producer of the original content.
          • CaptainFever 2 hours ago
            You do realize that open weights exist? Proprietary models suck, yes, but they can be distilled.
    • audinobs 3 hours ago
      Market fundamentalism is what happened.

      Information wants to be ? How naive.

      Information wants to be commoditized, but that process is amoral unless I am getting a cut as a rent seeker.

      If I am getting paid then it is just a form of darwinism and to think otherwise is to be anti-science.

      If someone else is getting paid then obviously whatever we are talking about is a great injustice.

      • CaptainFever 2 hours ago
        "Information wants to be free, as long as it's not my information."
  • cyclonic 10 hours ago
    Interesting read.
  • nudgeOrnurture 6 hours ago
    The article is worth the attention.

    > diluting tech’s understanding of “ethical” and “empathy” into meaninglessness

    That's the overarching motive not only in tech, but in culture and business as well. It was a long ride and even caught the lefties, anarchists, anybody on the outer rim, really, while turning the right wing and any kind of extremists into the opposite: people with meaning and order as ethics and empathy for people who want these ethics. It's so strange and twisted sometimes but if you look at tech and AI, the picture, via analogies, becomes clear.

  • chrisg23 20 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • duskwuff 14 hours ago
      That is not at all what the article is about.
      • nudgeOrnurture 6 hours ago
        via analogy, "the people want to be free".

        we mold users, now, not User Experiences.

        Information always found a way or people found it, but if you shape the user for the experience, then

        a) selective ignorance, via engineering, turns into a feature rather than an individual neural necessity that was turning into a vestigial tail and

        b) elected ignorance morphs our democratic evolution into a fascist, Nazi singularity, aka brave new world.

        But the road is not the end. It would be fine if they picked a spot on the globe or the universe and did it there but the road is ugly as hell and they have to surpress and control any other, individual models that might spread.

        Defactors, no matter how hardened, functional and advantageous for the species, colony, life and evolution, cannot be tolerated on the path to a fascist, Nazi singularity. That's bad news but ...