this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
1994 points (98.4% liked)

Technology

59094 readers
5089 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

For those not aware, Google is rolling out their new AI-based "Generative AI" search, which seems to mesh Bard with the standard experience.

I asked it today why Google no longer follows their "don't be evil" motto... The results are pretty hilarious.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] democracy1984 20 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Corporations are neither evil nor nice. They are indifferent. By design they only care about money, they don't care about anything else.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really. They’re not indifferent at all. In reality they act like narcissistic and like psychopathic humans. I watched a documentary years ago exploring that and talking with psychologists about symptoms and they agreed that they behave like psychopaths. And don’t forget that they are run by humans.

Corporations:

  • Can buy and sell stuff
  • Can do evil things without consequences (an employee can pay the consequences but the company will keep going).
  • They have no remorse or empathy.
  • Can manipulate to reach their goals, no matter who (from media to politics to countries).
  • Whenever somebody at the top can’t reach an economical goal, that person is fired and replaced by one who can. It’s like a hive evil mind.
  • Goal #1 is always money (absolute selfish and egomaniac), no matter what or who.
[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Didn't you just list a bunch of reasons for why they're indifferent? They literally only care about money and are indifferent to externalised costs and ethics.

[–] my_hat_stinks 21 points 1 year ago

If a person cared only about money and regularly injured or killed people to get it, would you say they are good, evil, or just "indifferent"?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

They would be indifferent if they were also indifferent about money, but they’re absolutely driven by greed, so no, they’re not indifferent: if they see a chance to make more money, they’ll go for it no matter what or who they harm with it.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

By design they only care about money, they don’t care about anything else.

That is cartoon book clear definition of evil. No empathy, clear goal, willing to do anything to reach that goal - yep that is evil.

[–] bighi 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everything after your first sentence described evil.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Nestlé has entered the chat.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

They are indifferent

They only care about money

They can't be both, and since the latter claim is the correct one, then it also supports the claim that they are evil. Because since we know that their sole and primary concern is money, then we also know to which extent they will go to get that money.

[–] meisme 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We need good guys with money to stop the bad guys with money

[–] InverseParallax 7 points 1 year ago

The problem is the money makes them bad guys.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Not being outright malicious but ending up doing malicious things makes this distinction pretty pointless.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Tell that to Comcast...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They are the stereotypical paper clip AI that will drain our blood to extract its iron content for more paperclips. Except it wants money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Correct in the sense that it's the incentive scheme, i.e., capitalism (supported by state power, e.g., by enshrining the entity of a corporation and then enforcing its protection) that is the more meaningful, or at least actionable, cause of these behaviors.

While those incentive schemes are in place, ascribing too much agency to corporations themselves, i.e., calling them evil, is not particularly effective as it's not going to change the underlying incentives.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Most evil is caused by indifference though.

Someone who hates people can be talked to and potentially can change.

Someone who's indifferent will use hatred as a tool to control people. When this tactic is successful, and indifferent person can't be swayed from using it, because it works.

I mean if it were proven that google's algorithms are encouraging violence, what would an indifferent person do? They'd ask, "is the algorithm making money?" And if the answer is yes, they would make no change to the algorithm. Because they are indifferent to the evil that they are causing.