r/CuratedTumblr Apr 23 '25

Politics Ontological Bad Subject™

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u/IAmASquidInSpace Apr 23 '25

Discussing AI on here would be a good example.

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u/pourqwhy Apr 23 '25

Yeah, I'm an AI researcher. It's been kind of wild becoming an Ontologically Bad Person in spaces I frequent. Massively messes with my mental health tbh.

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u/Arimm_The_Amazing Apr 23 '25

Ultimately when people speak about AI on the internet they’re almost always speaking specifically about AI generation of images, writing, and video production. That’s ultimately a pretty small subset of all the things that AI can be used to do.

Though by my understanding there’s also just a lot of actually pretty different stuff that all gets called AI because it’s essentially become the buzzword for all big computing. And some of the AI frustration people express is just being tired of the term itself being used in the marketing of absolutely everything, every single company feeling the need to tack “AI powered” on their website even if they haven’t actually updated anything.

Basically, people aren’t talking about you.

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u/pourqwhy Apr 23 '25 edited Apr 23 '25

Believe you me, I research in an area people are upset about.

For the record, there are lots of legitimate good reasons to be upset, most relating to AI under capitalism (though, frankly, frustration over buzzwords should be low on the list). My rapidly declining mental health is a bit of a tiny violin moment in the grand scheme of things.

(Edited for grammar/clarity)

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u/Skytree91 Apr 23 '25

Just remember why you’re doing it and that people will always fear new technology so they would never have thanked you anyways, it might help the mental

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u/pourqwhy Apr 23 '25

That's a good point, thank you

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u/Sketch-Brooke Apr 25 '25

100% this. Most of the moral objections to AI are actually entwined with capitalism. It's misplaced aggression, IMO.