This is the same position of Yuval Noah Harari in his recent Economist interview: The ones in power (Musk etc.) try to frame the bad AI future as inevitable, instead of shouldering responsibility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNZhxTtOL-I

The whole interview is well worth your time.

It's the correct choice according to the fundamental principles of capitalism, as set down by Milton Friedman.[1] and Lewis Powell.[2] Friedman set down the theory:

In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate. There are no “social” values, no “social” responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form. ...

(But) the doctrine of “social responsibility” taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book “Capitalism and Freedom,” I have called it a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

Then Powell (the Powell who became a Supreme Court Justice) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce set out to change the rules of the game. The 1971 "Powell memo" was written when the values of the 1960s had permeated society. The objective of the memo was to turn that around. It's a battle plan to use corporate power to change government. When it was written, few companies had lobbyists. Now, corporate lobbying is huge, and effective.

The extent to which this well-funded project worked doesn't have to be described today. What's worth realizing is that it wasn't always that way.

The U.S. Government of the Lyndon Johnson era ("Great Society", "War on Poverty") was organized to deal with something like the impact of AI on employment. The current government is not. It is permeated with people who think it the government shouldn't do anything about it.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr...

[2] https://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

I agree with your summary. Greed has won out over everything else.

Its certainly the wrong choice if by all indications the R is apparently missing in your ROI.

Yeah. And the quality of AI will only get worse from here unless we can commoditize open weight models.

If Google and Anthropic and such are able to own access, they will enshittify it horribly. Because they are powerless to do anything but, in the name of profit.

I'd say that the outcome mostly depends on whether something resembling AGI is achieved since that would more or less inevitably end up leading to something resembling ASI ('super-intelligence') which in turn makes it questionable whether the resulting entity can be counted upon to 'serve the common good' - whatever that may be. The quest for ROI has at most a temporary influence on the direction if this path is followed unless it actually keeps AGI (and thus ASI) from being achieved.

My view is that it doesn't really matter, and focusing on it is likely an attempt to distract from the substance of the encyclical, which could be seen as critical of AI insofar as it calls for stronger regulation and more conscientious use of AI. As an aside, I think the arguments put forward in the blog post you link are pretty weak, but again, getting into that would just distract from the actual points being made in the encyclical.

I have caught myself writing in a manner similar to LLM output. I put it down to reading so much of LLM content at work and online that it bleeds into my own style.. Nothing egregious like the "it's not this, it's that" pattern, but more subtle like the cadence and the balance of active vs passive voice.

What I'm saying is that it's possible that some of these tells are becoming part of standard writing style now.

The encyclical is not anti-AI, so there's not really any contradiction or hypocrisy if AI was used to write it. It's more of a criticism of the "technocratic paradigm" and the potential for abuse of power and lack of accountability.

who gives a shit tbh, argue with the substance, not the style.

I think it's a matter of incentives. American billionaires are mostly highly financially exposed to AI, so are not really incentivised to say anything interesting about it except "it's great, you should buy it".

Saying relevant words is part of the Pope's job description. Not so for billionaires

the Pope is an American billionaire at this point, in some Vatican sense.

> abortion to the margins along with birth control even when HIV became an obvious pandemic.

How are abortion and birth control at all related to HIV? I don't understand the connection.

The abuse, sure, but the birth control stance is really the only one compatible with the Catholic idea of sex only being appropriate in the context of a monogamous, lifelong married couple. I'm not really sure what you're getting at with that one, since there wouldn't be an HIV or STI epidemic in that world.

>trying to force abortion to the margins along with birth control

Do you have some suggestions about the doctrines that Catholics should assent to?

Is the Catholic Church against condoms being used for gay sex? It's my understanding that they're only against them because they're against purely recreational sex. If the sex can't result in a child anyway then I dont think they're going to treat it as a double sin.

Did you read it?

89. Living out justice in the Church means purifying ecclesial relationships and structures from distortions that give rise to inequality, lack of transparency and abuse of power. In this regard, listening to the victims of spiritual, economic, institutional, sexual and power-based abuse, as well as abuses of conscience, is an integral part of a journey toward justice, which includes acknowledging the harm done, just reparation and taking steps to prevent it from happening again. Every power is at the service of communion and mission. All authority is at the service of the People of God. This ministry of service is expressed not only through our faith celebrated and lived in the Sacraments, and in the adoption of a synodal style, but also in the concrete sharing of goods. Following the example of the early Church, ecclesial resources need to be shared so that no one among us may be in need (cf. Acts 434, and so that their administration may support the mission of proclaiming the Gospel to the poorest. Regular assessments of the exercise of ministerial responsibilities should be encouraged, not as judgments on individuals, but as tools for learning and correction oriented toward mission. 116 Only to the extent that we are open to the action of the Holy Spirit will these principles of Social Doctrine become incarnate in ecclesial life. In this way, the Church will be able to bear credible witness to society that seeking the common good together, with shared responsibility and fraternity, is not a utopia, but a real possibility.

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/events/event.dir.h...

Catholic nuns and religious were some of the first and only to help gay men during the AIDS crisis, so your moral pearl clutching is somewhat hyperbolical. Yes the church has particular moral beliefs you disagree. Join the club.

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but Magnifica Humanitas was published earlier this year.