Post #618217

2026-03-10 22:29 UTC

Technology is not inevitable. We've decided not to have asbestos in our walls, lead in our pipes, or carginogenic chemicals in our food. (If you're going to argue that it's not everywhere, where would you rather live?) We could just not do LLMs. It's allowed.

Replies (4)

@DJGummikuh@mastodon.social 2026-03-10 22:32

@Gargron@mastodon.social while all your examples are 100% valid, I seriously question whether we would be able to manage to do that today. With the utter shambles most democracies are in currently, multi-national Corporations can run roughshod on environmental protection, worker safety, child protection and just about everything that past generations fought hard for.

Open ##618262
@Tekchip@mastodon.social 2026-03-10 22:40

@Gargron@mastodon.social would you know if you've seen a good outcome of an LLM? You'd somehow be able to identify when the LLM got it right? I assure you you've experienced good LLM output and don't even know it. Because that's what good LLM output looks like. Indistinguishable from human output. Your examples are perhaps false equivalencies. Take asbestos. We didn't abolish insulation. We developed better, safer insulation. We didn't stop dying food colors, we just developed safer dyes etc.

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@HappytoBe@mastodon.social 2026-03-10 23:07

@Gargron@mastodon.social You sound like me arguing against the inevitability of mass use of the cell phone. I never understood why we gave up crystal clear audio, a two way simultaneous connection (yes, both parties could talk at the same time and hear wha5 the other had to say), and phone books for unintelligible garbled speak, dropped calls, delays, and no way to look up the damn phone number.

Open ##618815
@KerryMitchell__dup_80954@mastodon.social 2026-03-10 23:29

@Gargron@mastodon.social It's hard to put the brakes on advances, like the Ghost Shirt Society finds out at the end of Vonnegut's Player Piano. I heard an interview with a professor yesterday who wrote a book on the benefits of keeping cash alive and not relying completely on digital payment systems. He suggested using cash at least once a week. Maybe people will be able to do that with AI - limit their use and rely on their own brains at least some of the time. https://blogs.bu.edu/zagorsky/

Open ##619059