far too many people try to defend the technology as if the issues with "gen" AI aren't inherent to LLMs as a whole. it's tiring.
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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The biggest stumbling block to most people understanding this is really accepting the idea that “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological”.
(Or if leveraging the ideas of a dead Nazi to analyze fascist artifacts creeps you out, lean on “do artifacts have politics?”)
But you’re also working against centuries of propaganda about Luddites, the industrial revolution, automation, capitalism, the commons…
Edit: Maybe most of all, the pervasive logic of neoliberalism that says modes of production can be cleanly separated from politics.
Yeah. I'm shocked to see so much... well, not neoliberalism, but neoliberal arguments under this post. I really thought this would be uncontroversial in a place like this.
I think Lemmy is generally on the correct side as far as policy when it comes to LLMs, but I think the user base generally see themselves as individual rational actors in a neutral objective shared reality. It’s a pretty common perspective in tech circles, especially ones that are enthusiastic about individualistic liberty.
That frame makes it very difficult to conceive that a thing — particularly a stateless bundle of numeric weights — could exert any kind of political influence just by existing. Let alone conceiving that an entire class of things could inherently have a particular political direction.
Because it seems as though “the difference between a tool and a weapon is the hand that holds it”. But we should know at this point, if we’re willing to be honest about the limitations of the firmware that runs inside our skulls, that weapons can wield people too. And when you have a tool in your hand, the tool also has you in its hand.