To be fair, much of the memetic hazard posed by various technologies is not actually the fault of the technologies, but a fault of the person having no self-control, no accountability for their own actions, or having some form of undiagnosed medical issue they are unaware of.
Its like saying video games cause school shootings: the problem isnt the video games, its the person. The video games are an excuse to shift blame and accountability away from the person.
what you say has merit, however its akin to saying that the memetic hazard posed by heroin isnt the fault of heroin. like, sure. heroin is just a substance. certain software is similar, but its made to be a certain way (dark patterns in gaming etc) and should be regulated for harm reduction just like addictive substances
Okay, but if we take care of the problem that people have, legal regulation would not be necessary. We wouldn’t have to have a trillion laws stipulating all the various minutae of what we should or shouldn’t do because of how harmful it is or isn’t, people would be able to figure this out on their own. Less laws in general is better, when the population is intelligent enough to understand that you don’t drink bleach because a computer screen showed those words to you in that order.
Opiates wouldn’t need to be illegal because people would be intelligent enough to know how harmful it is and thus wouldn’t use it. A law wouldn’t need to be created listing every known or unknown opiate derivative that is banned or for whatever use. People would just be smart enough to know.
Basically, too many people aren’t using their own brain. AI is definitely a helpful tool, but not if you’re an idiot and believe it to have any actual intelligence. Its not there to replace your doctor or teacher, it is there to help you with word processing, pattern recognition, or other such language based tasks. AI used as a tool is queried for things like “check this passage for overly repetitive terms and suggest improvements that keep the same meaning.” AI used by an idiot is queried for things like “what do my lab results say about my health?”
I suppose this is too far advanced for humanity at this point. Laws are important, but too many laws begins to speak about a general decline in intelligence.
Laws are important, but too many laws begins to speak about a general decline in intelligence.
Let me take a contrarian position on this. While I agree that in principle less laws are generally better, the way the world works makes it almost systematically impossible to lower the number of laws.
Let’s make a thought experiment; how many products and services were available to a given “middle class” individual in following years:
1500
1800
1900
1950
2000
2025
Now if we take this same breakdown, and modify it to show how many products and services de facto require the time, inclination and resources to evaluate associated “Terms of Service” and “Privacy Policy” documents (and some products have other supplemental legal docs). Not to mention tracking the changes in these legal documents and associated laws (which in some countries might not only be national, but also regional and even local).
Keep in mind that with TOS/PP was limited to software in say the 90s, now it also covered even something as “simple” as a washing machine.
Now also add the UI/UX complexity of managing these services to make them reflect your true preferences (try and look at LinkedIn’s privacy management dashboard or their notifications dashboard).
So perhaps rather talking about regulation, we need to talk about not requiring a legal degree to use a product and using common sense approach to TOS/PP validity (and legal/criminal penalties for those are knowingly contributing to this issue).
Not to mention the fact that “less regulation” polemics are often used in some countries to enable corruption, criminality and worse governance.
To be fair, much of the memetic hazard posed by various technologies is not actually the fault of the technologies, but a fault of the person having no self-control, no accountability for their own actions, or having some form of undiagnosed medical issue they are unaware of.
Its like saying video games cause school shootings: the problem isnt the video games, its the person. The video games are an excuse to shift blame and accountability away from the person.
what you say has merit, however its akin to saying that the memetic hazard posed by heroin isnt the fault of heroin. like, sure. heroin is just a substance. certain software is similar, but its made to be a certain way (dark patterns in gaming etc) and should be regulated for harm reduction just like addictive substances
Okay, but if we take care of the problem that people have, legal regulation would not be necessary. We wouldn’t have to have a trillion laws stipulating all the various minutae of what we should or shouldn’t do because of how harmful it is or isn’t, people would be able to figure this out on their own. Less laws in general is better, when the population is intelligent enough to understand that you don’t drink bleach because a computer screen showed those words to you in that order.
Opiates wouldn’t need to be illegal because people would be intelligent enough to know how harmful it is and thus wouldn’t use it. A law wouldn’t need to be created listing every known or unknown opiate derivative that is banned or for whatever use. People would just be smart enough to know.
Basically, too many people aren’t using their own brain. AI is definitely a helpful tool, but not if you’re an idiot and believe it to have any actual intelligence. Its not there to replace your doctor or teacher, it is there to help you with word processing, pattern recognition, or other such language based tasks. AI used as a tool is queried for things like “check this passage for overly repetitive terms and suggest improvements that keep the same meaning.” AI used by an idiot is queried for things like “what do my lab results say about my health?”
I suppose this is too far advanced for humanity at this point. Laws are important, but too many laws begins to speak about a general decline in intelligence.
even the most intelligent people on the planet can become addicted to something. what youre asking for is utopia and not rooted in the real world
Let me take a contrarian position on this. While I agree that in principle less laws are generally better, the way the world works makes it almost systematically impossible to lower the number of laws.
Let’s make a thought experiment; how many products and services were available to a given “middle class” individual in following years:
Now if we take this same breakdown, and modify it to show how many products and services de facto require the time, inclination and resources to evaluate associated “Terms of Service” and “Privacy Policy” documents (and some products have other supplemental legal docs). Not to mention tracking the changes in these legal documents and associated laws (which in some countries might not only be national, but also regional and even local).
Keep in mind that with TOS/PP was limited to software in say the 90s, now it also covered even something as “simple” as a washing machine.
Now also add the UI/UX complexity of managing these services to make them reflect your true preferences (try and look at LinkedIn’s privacy management dashboard or their notifications dashboard).
So perhaps rather talking about regulation, we need to talk about not requiring a legal degree to use a product and using common sense approach to TOS/PP validity (and legal/criminal penalties for those are knowingly contributing to this issue).
Not to mention the fact that “less regulation” polemics are often used in some countries to enable corruption, criminality and worse governance.