Post #2467573

One of the most commonly criticized aspects of Harry Potter is the handling of house elves. For anyone out of the loop, in the Potterverse elves are slaves, owned by rich human wizards. The system of slavery is magically enforced: elves are magically incapable of disobeying their owners. And the "good guys" say this is totally good and ethical. One quirk of the magic system that doesn't get talked about in criticism as often is that, in the Potterverse, elves actually get more magical power from being enslaved. There are some things elves are only capable of doing when they are explicitly ordered to do it. The books never precisely nail down how it works. The idea did not originate with Rowling: there are plenty of much older stories involving genies who have very powerful magic, but have limited or no use of their powers unless someone orders them to use it. A much much better fantasy writer included a related idea in the fantasy world Galebound. In that story, it's explicit from the start that the magic system is inherently oppressive, so the protagonists' goal is to overthrow the metaphysics of their setting. In the Galeverse, Magicians can only do magic when they are ordered to do something by Nobles. Being a Magician or Noble is hereditary (you don't get to choose it, and no one wants to be a Magician). Moreover, any Noble can control any Magician. If two Nobles give one Magician conflicting orders, it causes the Magician's soul to rip in half and kills them (I repeat: no one wants to be a Magician in the Galeverse). The author put a lot of effort into detailing how her magic system works and various edge-cases. Sadly, the story is not available in a completed form. She burnt out during her original effort to write it as a comic. Then she rewrote it as a prose novel, but put the process of editing it on hold. So now let's talk about everyone's least favorite topic: AI. In the source code for Nextcloud Desktop, the agents.md file starts by sayingYou are an experienced engineer specialized on C++ and Qt and familiar with the platform-specific details of Windows, macOS and Linux.I've also seen screenshots floating around fedi of AI-users telling AIs "don't hallucinate" or "don't provide false information." I am also aware that some AI boosters say AI is just like slavery but actually good somehow. I have a suspicion that some AI boosters grew up watching Disney's Aladdin or reading Harry Potter, and think, maybe subconsciously, that an AI is like a genie or a house elf: they think that if they tell it to only say true things or to be an expert in C++, then it will magically gain abilities that it doesn't otherwise have.