Post by @rhamph@awful.systems

2026-10-01 22:49 UTC

This is his rationale: (For the otherwise confused, I do not advocate that people individually refuse to avail themselves of pre-superintelligent AI or AGI. Because AI is not a linear system where slightly less input results in slightly less damage; because the “now you have to pay us $20/month or fall behind” trap is real; and because I personally think it wise to learn and understand the frontiers in whatever ways I most easily find energy to invest there. I would give it all up in a heartbeat if there were an effective and collective treaty to stop it all at once. Don’t be the “Yet you participate in the system. Curious!” meme.) And yet you fail to name ‘Mr. Gotcha’. Curious! I still haven’t managed to decipher what he means by ‘the “now you have to pay us $20/month or fall behind” trap’, or how that apparently justifies sending money to the organisations most at risk of destroying the world? But it sounds like submitting to a kind of blackmail. If he just meant that not having access to chatbots put you at some sort of societal disadvantage, that isn’t a trap. It’s just something you would do. ‘Trap’ implies that, what, this is only a problem if you start slopping things? So how does that mean that you should?

Replies (3)

@lurker@awful.systems 2026-10-02 01:16

“now you have to pay us $20/month or fall behind” trap is real I’m baffled by this too. If I was Yud I would prefer to fall behind than to give money to the people I wholly believe will end the world so they can keep developing the things that I believe will end the world. Because AI is not a linear system where slightly less input results in slightly less damage So I’m assuming this means “well less people using AI doesn’t mean less damage overall done”, which is dumb because AI has very well documented effects of damaging the individual who uses it: just look at all the AI psychosis and suicide cases.

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@blakestacey@awful.systems 2026-10-02 01:32

and because I personally think it wise to learn and understand the frontiers in whatever ways I most easily find energy to invest there. What exactly about “the frontiers” does this one-handed promptfondling help to understand?

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@CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2026-10-02 02:59

The closest thing Yud ever had to a job or a business was selling pulp fiction on Amazon. He is not the person to talk about pressures that working people face! (the “now you have to pay us $20/month or fall behind” trap)

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