Is there a way back to calling human beings human beings and not "meat"? Or is the sociopathic Jeffrey Dahmer undertone now the new normal?

▲

crote 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That is exactly why the term is being used.

A company like Amazon doesn't treat its warehouse workers as human beings. Workers are seen as disposable: forced to piss in bottles, forced to work around the corpses of their collapsed coworkers, paid the absolute minimum possible, and replaced the second they don't operate like a perfect unfailing machine. You aren't viewed like a human, you are a tool. Cattle. A piece of meat they are forced to retain because a robot isn't quite capable of doing your task yet.

The article's use of "meat shields" isn't any different. Humans are going to be hired for the sole reason of taking accountability for actions dictated by AI. They are there only because the company can't put blame on a machine and will be sued to oblivion if there's nobody to blame at all. Your existence as a person is irrelevant, they are just interested in someone with a heartbeat they can blame when stuff inevitably goes wrong.

▲

chii 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> someone with a heartbeat they can blame when stuff inevitably goes wrong.

if said person can be blamed (and take on the liability), but cannot stop the action or audit the action, take preventative measures (which costs money) etc, then they cannot take responsibility for real and thus whether the blame falls on them on paper is irrelevant - if there's real punishment (like jail time), but no real power to enforce anything, then who would be stupid enough to take on this job? If there's no real punishment, then what does it matter that the blame on paper is there?

	▲	cdrnsf 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Someone who needs to feed their family given that AI CEOs predicting that their technology will either destroy the world, take everyone's jobs or both.
	▲	thunderfork 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There are several historical examples of this sort of job, and plenty of people who took them. For example, plenty of "editors in name only" of publications when the German government got really interested in censoring press in the 18th century.

▲

elcapitan 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's hilarious given that this entire site here is using the term unironically to refer to people in general, good stuff

▲

jjulius 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the article, Ctrl+F for "meat" returns 3 results, while "human" returns 8. Seems like "human" remains the dominant word of choice in this author's vernacular.

Edit: Further, the only times "meat" appears is in the phrase "meat shield", which is an analogy that is very apt relative to the crux of the article.

Edit 2: "People" appears 13 times!

▲

sebg 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

humans are made of meat -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47688678

▲

ai_critic 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"meatshield" has the correct connotations for that sort of work.

▲

cwmma 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What are you talking about, the only use of meat is in "Meat Shield", a phrase that's been around a long time now.

▲

sp527 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sure. Would you like WWII, medieval-era Christianity, or Khanate Asia?

	▲	bythreads 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		stone age gets a vote from me!

▲

fHr 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Meat pupeteering, has nothing to do with Jeffrey just state of slowly getting pushed into doing 95% of devwork with Agents.

▲

techteach00 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There has always been a subset of highly technical people in the software world who are anti-organic. They dislike the "meatspace" and humans and relate more with machines and software.

	▲	elcapitan 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, that was what I was refering to, no the specific part of the article. I've seen it much more here recently. Kind of disgusting and sad, but on the other hand it's good if people show their real face that way.