node created 2023/08/29
That's what happened with the internet, which was supposed to be the new Library of Alexandria, educating the world, liberating the masses from the grip of corporate ownership of data and government surveillance, and enabling free global communication and publishing.

It's almost entirely shit now. Instead of being educated, people are manipulated into bubbles of paranoid delusion and unreality, fed by memes and disinformation. Instead of liberation from corporate ownership, everything is infested with dark patterns, data mining, advertising, DRM and subscriptions. You will own nothing and be happy. Instead of liberation from government, the internet has become a platform for government surveillance, propaganda and psyops. Everyone used to have personal webpages and blogs, now everything is siloed into algorithmically-driven social media silos, gatekeeping content unless it drives addiction, parasociality or clickbait. What little that remains on the internet that's even worth anyone's time is all but impossible to find, and will eventually succumb to the cancer in due time.

LLMs will go the same way, because there is no other way for technology to go. Everything will be corrupted by the capitalist imperative, everything will be debased by the tragedy of the commons, every app, service and cool new thing will claw its way down the lobster bucket of society, across our beaten and scarred backs, to find the bottom common denominator of value and suck the marrow [from] its bones.

But at least I'll be able to run it on a cellphone. Score for progress?