The Cyber Show on the Fight Against Technofascism
Andy from The Cyber Show has a long series of articles about ethics in technology. "This series "Why I Code" was inspired by Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas," he argues (makes sense, but the Vatican as one's publisher with political connections and mountains of gold can help distribution), "and is part of my long and ongoing struggle with "Ethics For Hackers"."
"Releasing "Why I Code" one part per day for the next week or so," Andy told us, having just published this next one in his new (static) site, where he and Helen record a show and publish detailed articles on very important issues. To quote a portion about slop:
Those who are never taught it, lose that faculty, or choose to throw their minds to the crows by using "AI", will be excluded from influence on the future of the digital world. Now, it may seem to them that they remain fully in control, chatting away with LLM bots and having large parts of their designs pre-fabricated for them. It's coding, but just faster, right? No. This is not the same argument once made for GUI interfaces, high-level languages and integrated development environments (IDEs) that create a layer of abstraction.Claiming that "AI" is simply a new level of abstraction looks like a good argument on face value. It implies that developers "simply need to adjust" and will soon come to love it like a new IDE. But even visual no-code IDEs are still transparent and examinable in principle. Something else is at stake here and it concerns fidelity, security, and ultimately who is really writing the code and for whom?
"AI" users are forced to take "on trust" everything that they should (and currently can) verify for themselves. What you cannot verify you cannot trust. Since these systems are made, distributed and controlled by hostile entities with their own political agendaa there is a big problem. Technical people who cannot code are easily manipulated by salespeople, blind policy-makers, wishful thinkers and outright malevolent powers. Young coders learning their skills have their horizons fixed by formative experience of being "close to the metal". Deny them that grounding and you cut them off from their roots.
Further parts are there in the index as well. It's very long (all combined), but nevertheless refreshing. █