I agree with you semantically, but these days I'm less and less concerned with "intent" when it comes to scams. It ultimately just revolves down to empty moralism about "people today," and fails to grasp the issue at hand.
Like how phone scammers are often themselves trapt in a system beyond their control [1].
Or even case in point with this thing. Maybe the owners aren't malicious, but if not, they are clearly somewhat being scammed themselves by AI hype, to the point they are willing to invest so much in the chatbot box, tie their entire business presumably to one current API or another, however bad an idea we know that is.
There are just many long chains of debt, confusion, hyperstition that are knotting around us, with no clear source. One person's scam turns into another's "innovation" before turning again back into a scam for the end user.
If we are really getting ready for the AI future, we need to get used to being wronged and taken advantage of by technically blameless entities, whose intent is logical, capitalist, and at least nominatively "benevolent."
The era of morality itself might soon turn to something else! In a world so predetermined and calculated, where there is such advanced science around influencing thought, cybernetics, etc, how does it even make sense anymore? Or at least, how is focusing on something like intent here even satisfying anymore beyond saying "bad people do bad things"?
I agree that intent is not relevant, but humans must be held accountable for outcomes. Ever since we've had algorithms that appear to make decisions, we've been fighting this idea that _humans_ are "technically blameless entities", just following orders from the black box. We must not get used to it.
Like how phone scammers are often themselves trapt in a system beyond their control [1].
Or even case in point with this thing. Maybe the owners aren't malicious, but if not, they are clearly somewhat being scammed themselves by AI hype, to the point they are willing to invest so much in the chatbot box, tie their entire business presumably to one current API or another, however bad an idea we know that is.
There are just many long chains of debt, confusion, hyperstition that are knotting around us, with no clear source. One person's scam turns into another's "innovation" before turning again back into a scam for the end user.
If we are really getting ready for the AI future, we need to get used to being wronged and taken advantage of by technically blameless entities, whose intent is logical, capitalist, and at least nominatively "benevolent."
The era of morality itself might soon turn to something else! In a world so predetermined and calculated, where there is such advanced science around influencing thought, cybernetics, etc, how does it even make sense anymore? Or at least, how is focusing on something like intent here even satisfying anymore beyond saying "bad people do bad things"?
1. https://www.propublica.org/article/human-traffickers-force-v...