[peterbonney]

The more I learn about how AI companies trained their models, the more obvious it is that the rest of us are just suckers. We're out here assuming that laws matter, that we should never misrepresent or hide what we're doing for our work, that we should honor our own terms of use and the terms of use of other sites/products, that if we register for a website or piece of content we should always use our work email address so that the person or company on the other side of that exchange can make a reasonable decision about whether we can or should have access to it.

What we should have been doing all along is YOLO-ing everything. It's only illegal if you get caught. And if you get big enough before you get caught then the rules never have to apply to you anyway.

Suckers. All of us.

[wrs]

And if you were in any doubt before, this lesson is now exemplified by the holder of the highest office in the land and approved by popular vote. The rewards of acting ethically are, unfortunately, sometimes only personal. This must be a hard environment to raise children in, given the examples they see around them.

[hamburga]

Parent here: it takes a lot of discussion, but it's a great time to talk about the reality of evil and villains. My kids are on the good side, or at least I like to think so ...

[a123b456c]

This argument may focus too much on the category of external rewards.

I might well be kidding myself or self-justifying, but I believe internal rewards are at least as important. Some materially successful people are deeply unhappy.

[Terr_]

> approved by popular vote

Quibble: The majority of people voted against Trump, or at least not in his favor. He only got a plurality, not a majority.

[formerphotoj]

THIS.

[Barrin92]

>What we should have been doing all along is YOLO-ing everything

No it isn't. The actual sucker attitude is copying what they do. You should act morally and with integrity out of respect for yourself. I never had any illusions that large tech companies act with respect towards the law, but it also has nothing to do with me.

[afandian]

If you have a spare few hours, the Acquired podcast episode on Meta is enlightening. They just stumbled through growth hack experiment after experiment without seemingly any risk assessment or ethics.

[walthamstow]

Excellent podcast, slowly working my way through the back catalogue.

[77pt77]

> It's only illegal if you get caught

Not quite. It's only illegal if you get caught and you are the wrong kind of person.

For the right kind of person not even a pat on the wrist.

[clueless]

yep, pretty much.

[callc]

This sort of mindset is devoid of morals and honor. Don’t fall into the this mindset trap.

Like when Trump said he is “smart” for evading taxes during the presidential debates (IIRC the first ones, not recent ones).

It’s absolutely despicable. Have a moral compass. Treat people fairly. Be nice. Let’s be better than toddlers who haven’t learned yet that hitting is bad, and you shouldn’t do it even if mommy and daddy aren’t in the room.

[ok_dad]

I agree with you and will die to defend that position, but what existential reasons do we have to behave well? In reality, it seems like humans are just a bunch of animals, and the only important thing is survival.

My wife, just today, told me that she was very upset that I refused to interview and take jobs for things like building weapons, the panopticon, or advertising (two of those are the same thing), which I refuse to do because of my personal morals and ethics. How do I explain to her that I just can't do that, and give her a good reason why we should lose our home and live in one room with her mother because of my brain refusing to work in such industries? I really want to know, so I can explain to her and my son why such things matter, because for some reason they are concrete and foundational in my brain, there is no changing that.

[cute_boi]

I feel like morality is decreasing. And, I feel like with all these rising issue eg. climate change it will decrease and bite most of us.

[hall0ween]

<Tether's ears burning>