This argument has, to me, always reeked of naivety. Heroin is a tool, but it has clear ethical implications, and we make attempts as a society to manage those. So is nuclear, and a particularly relevant one, since many leading AI figures have officially and explicitly stated AI is as dangerous as nuclear weapons. There are countless other examples of "tools" that require moral judgement (all of them, really).

I think Linus is being naive, and given his position of power, irresponsible.

And no, AI isn't perfect.

I could write an essay about how much of an understatement, to the point of being wrong, this is. Many, far more capable than me, already have.

This is NOT some kind of "social warrior" project, never has been, and never will be.

No, of course it's not, but he seems to be treating it like ethics and context are for children.

It makes me worried for the Linux project. Not that he's willing to use AI, but that this is how he sees it. This is a learning experience for me.

I'm reminded of this quote that, to be honest I don't really understand, but feels relevant

Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the 'content' of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind...The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.

-- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.

This is a nice one.
And I see it happening right in front of my eyes at work. 'How it is used' will defer by the individual and specially for new tools, there will always be a generation of suffering.
Project Management, Jira/scrum etc had one (I'd say, still ongoing for most workplaces, that haven't figured out the correct match). This one will too; probably more of it.

[–] farooqkz@realbitcoin.cash 1 points 2 days ago

oh I thought this "one generation of suffering" only happens in me country! It happens in here for non technical stuff. When some new stuff gets widespread in me country for the first time, a lot of people misuse or abuse it. An example is telephone. Another is Internet itself. And lately, coffee has become widespread in here(Iran) and people don't know when to have an espresso and how many espressos per day is fine. There was a guy "I take 5-6 espressos per day and I'm fine".

In a similar way, many people spend too much time on social media rather than doing something productive.

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