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sanction8 a day ago

a16z talking again?

This is your regular reminder that

1) a16z is one the largest backers of LLMs

2) They named one of the two authors of the Fascist Manifesto their patron saint

3) AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions. (Quoted from Professor Woodrow Hartzog "How AI Destroys Institutions"). Or to put it another way, being plausible but slightly wrong and un-auditable—at scale—is the killer feature of LLMs and this combination of properties makes it an essentially fascist technology meaning it is well suited to centralizing authority, eliminating checks on that authority and advancing an anti-science agenda (quoted from the A plausible, scalable and slightly wrong black box: why large language models are a fascist technology that cannot be redeemed post).

nylonstrung 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This wasn't a16z monolithically speaking as a firm, it was Anish Acharya talking on a podcast.

Seems like he's focused on fintech and not involved in many of their LLM investments

arjie a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I will not claim to be an expert historian but one general belief I have is that nomenclature undergoes semantic migration over a century. So for the sake of conciseness I will quote the first demand of each portion of the Fascist Manifesto. This isn't to obscure, because it is in Wikipedia[0] and translated in English on EN Wikipedia[1], but so I can share a sample of whether this is something we can relate to our present day political orientation. Hopefully it will inform what you believe "author of the Fascist Manifesto" to imply:

> ...

> For this WE WANT:

> On the political problem:

> Universal suffrage by regional list voting, with proportional representation, voting and eligibility for women.

> ...

> On the social problem:

> WE WANT:

> The prompt enactment of a state law enshrining the legal eight-hour workday for all jobs.

> ...

> On the military issue:

> WE WANT:

> The establishment of a national militia with brief educational services and exclusively defensive duty.

> ...

> On the financial problem:

> WE WANT:

> A strong extraordinary tax on capital of a progressive nature, having the form of true PARTIAL EXPROPRIATION of all wealth.

> ...

0: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_di_San_Sepolcro#Test...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Manifesto#Text

holden_nelson 18 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m not particularly political and am also not a historian but I don’t think it’s necessarily correct to equate the literal text of the manifesto with the principles and practices of fascism.

The message of universal suffrage vs. that of preventing an out group from “stealing” an election are not far apart semantically. Same with workers rights - in practice the worker protection laws that were passed in Italy at this time were so full of loopholes and qualifications that ultimately the workers do not gain power in that system.

It is this fair, in my view, to question the spirit of the manifesto in the first place.

arjie 14 hours ago | parent [-]

I suppose we should, in being intellectually consistent, take the appropriate position that 8 hours / day and a wealth tax are fascist principles.