LLMs are demonic

[boccaderlupo]

Conjured intelligences of questionable human provenance and ever more inscrutable intent, to which more and more people are deferring questions that would typically be handled by a person's intellect, will, and imagination...not good.

Comments

[jprussell]

My own take is that they're not necessarily demonic, but they're very likely prone enough to it to be worth avoiding as a rule. A possible analogy: unboiled, unflowing water doesn't necessarily have gut-ruining microbes in it, but you probably shouldn't drink it anyway. Not a perfect analogy, since sometimes you might decide you need the water enough to risk it, and it's hard to think of a situation where you "need" an answer to a question badly enough to risk asking an LLM (rather than thinking about it, guessing, or asking you nearly-most knowledgeable friend).

[sdi]

I'm also not sure I'd go so far as to say "demonic;" the reason being that LLMs are more stupid than humans, while even wicked demons (being in the realm of water rather than earth) are smarter than humans. I would say that LLMs are subhuman, thus of a lower level than us, and thus following them naturally leads us away from divinity, though.

I don't know if this is helpful to you, but I've actually been thinking about LLMs in terms of the "Ra"-inspired interpretation of the Teiresias myth. If the goal of the human life is to make a willed commitment to love (either love of self or love of others), then LLMs are simply a natural extension of the higher end of the "love of self" path; it's a subtle form of not just enslavement but self-enslavement, which adds to the power of those psychopathic elites who push for them (and thus furthering their path to the divine, even if in a roundabout way). Of course this seems horrific to those of us, like you and I, who are growing to the point of firm commitment to the "love of others" path... since what can we do in the face of it? We can try to educate those who are being bamboozled, but "one can lead a horse to water, but not make them drink," and the really insidious part of it is, that having allowed their thinking capacity to atrophy, education is generally ineffective, here. The horror is amplified by this general collapse of educability being pushed not only by LLMs but by all facets of society.

I have been thinking a lot of Laozi, lately; that the only way to help others is to align oneself utterly with the Tao, and in that way they will naturally be helped without our having seemed to do anything. Thus I endeavor to open myself to God with renewed vigor, and trust that Providence will work all the rest out in Its time.