Post #1362134

2026-04-10 04:21 UTC

[Found an interesting take](https://youtu.be/y85nqc2zm7M) on YouTube, of all places. Her argument can be summarized (with high compression losses) as "AI companies and technologies are bad for basically all the reasons that non-cultist critics say, but trying to shame and argue people out of using them entirely is less effective than treating them as a normal tool with limitations and teaching people how to limit the harm." She makes the analogy to drug policy. I think she makes a very compelling argument, and I'm still digesting it a bit because I definitely had the knee-jerk rejection as an insider shill, but especially towards the end as she talks about how the AI industry *targets* low-literacy users as ideal customers (because the more you know about it the less you're likely to actually use them) I found myself agreeing more than not. I do wish she had addressed the dangers of cognitive offloading more, since being mindful of which tasks you're letting the computer do for you is pretty significant part of minimizing those harms, especially for students and some professionals who face a strong incentive to just coast by on slop if they can get away with it.

Replies (4)

@jaschop@awful.systems 2026-04-12 06:59

I just watched the whole thing. She makes a consistent case. I felt a little called out by the being tolerant bit. I for sure haven't had great success in talking to close people about their AI use. And I was maybe a little too cold to colleagues, who tried to get ahead of the AI literacy circus with good intentions, although I grudgingly agreed that they are right. Maybe I don't meet enough randos to get feeling on the level of pervasiveness of chatbots. Maybe it's a personality thing; I worked myself out of depression mostly by disciplining myself and stopping to buy my own excuses, and that's kind of how I approach every problem now. That sure isn't a vibe that most people respond to. There was one part of my AI beliefs that wasn't adressed. Besides the "front-end" and "back-end" harms, that can be mitigated, the tech as a whole still seems trash to me. That may be boomerism setting in, but chatbots just feel counter to and displacing my positive vision for a social fabric, be it for responsible professional communities or for interpersonal connections. (I do buy into the use-case for a context-sensitive search engine, e.g. for walls of legalese. But the current framing of the tools is just so harmful, even that use is hazardous as seen in the anecdote.)

Open ##1362216
@V0ldek@awful.systems 2026-04-10 09:54

I think that's 100% correct and also it's year 3 of this nonsense and I cannot be fucked. My response to genAI in any context now is to scream and start doing jumping jacks. Imagine the drug policy context but then also half of your colleagues are doing meth every day every time you see them, people say shit like "everyone does meth, those that say they don't are lying", and meth is a trillion-dollar industry that has been telling you "meth is the future" for years. You'd be much less inclined to argue calmly against meth and much more inclined to start screaming and jumping.

Open ##1362217
@Evinceo@awful.systems 2026-04-10 15:14

I feel like there's a difference between alcohol and drugs, something people can make in their back yard and AI which requires a first world country's entire economy to be oriented towards it to function... a difference in what we should be required to accept. I don't buy the general argument about shame either. We teach children to shit in toilets and not sidewalks. I see rampant AI use as just another form of disgusting public indecency and the faster we bring shame in to remedy it the better.

Open ##1362218
@jaschop@awful.systems 2026-04-10 05:42

Sounds kind of like the [Baldur Bjarnason strategy](https://illusion.baldurbjarnason.com/) but for your coworkers instead of your boss. I can see the value of someone with a critical understanding diving into the technology, so they can talk others down from the ledge. But you also need the social pressure to maintain some slop-free spaces. Not everyone can be asked to accomodate recovering slopaholics.

Open ##1362219