There is a real aspect of confession in articles like this one - I mean in the religious sense. They come across to me as attempts to justify decisions or actions in the face of overwhelming internal contradictions where the intended audience is just the author’s own conscience. I don’t at all buy the explicit argument that “if we don’t act now - not just by adopting AI, but BY VOTING!! - then all is lost”. We already know about voting; how is the URGENT mass adoption - even with decentralisation - by software developers of llms going to drive social change or alleviate political crisis? Especially given this is a technology about which the author is so obviously profoundly conflicted? Why the hand-wringing and vacillation? Does it really matter in the long run if sceptics take their time in evaluating these tools and even end up rejecting them? Why really do we need to be convinced or turned away from the anti ai hype?
There is additionally some kind of implicit historical recourse to the Industrial Revolution and the revolutionary politics it is associated to, where software developers, cast as the cottage industry weavers etc. are seen as walking blindly into their mass replacement by machines, with the implication that those machines will be able to be managed by de-skilled labour whose role will be simply to ensure their smooth and safe running. I think it is important to try and see things in this way but also there is a lot lacking from the analogy.
There is additionally some kind of implicit historical recourse to the Industrial Revolution and the revolutionary politics it is associated to, where software developers, cast as the cottage industry weavers etc. are seen as walking blindly into their mass replacement by machines, with the implication that those machines will be able to be managed by de-skilled labour whose role will be simply to ensure their smooth and safe running. I think it is important to try and see things in this way but also there is a lot lacking from the analogy.