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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • Our technology for destroying each other has outpaced our ability to morally cope. We used to be able to depend on murder being a relatively face-to-face thing. For a soldier to kill you they had to get up close with a rifle or sword, at least close enough to watch you die. They need some personal motivation for that, and people get sick of it quickly.

    Now it’s abstracted to the push of a button, depersonalized so you can target a car, or a building, or a city center, not just a particular person. You don’t even have to watch.

    If we let AI start making those choices for us, we don’t even have to push the button. It all just happens in the background. No moral conflict needed. No appealing to each other’s humanity. No burden, no guilt. Just death.

    I like Roger Fisher’s proposal for adding humanity back into the nuclear weapon equation: implant the launch codes in a volunteer. Require the president to murder someone up close and personal before he can choose to murder thousands (or more) from a distance.

    And keep AI the FUCK away from war.