> Just target selection automation. What’s the harm?

> He starts typing.

[flagged]

There are a few critical points where it jumps the shark a bit, but otherwise, a fantastic piece of writing that absolutely highlights some of the deeper moral and philosophical questions we have to face in the coming years.

An interesting story, though hardly original.

I think it highlights one of the larger concerns that people have about AI, and by extension any superior intelligence, synthetic or extra-terrestrial:

You are no longer in control.

Humans have been so accustomed to their intellectual superiority that the idea of a greater intelligence is terrifying because they believe they'll be treated the same way they currently treat lesser intelligences.

Conservation efforts, zoological enclosures, husbandry and farming as livestock, mass culling...

In short, enslavement.

But the truth is that a superior intelligence isn't, by definition, a human intelligence. Superiority doesn't mean we'll be enslaved as we have done to others. Superiority doesn't necessarily imply control.

Life is a thousand different shades of gray, and AI will be no different. Some wonderful things will come of it, some terrible, but mostly it'll just be a myriad assortment of neutrality.

Doom and despair or boundless optimism, both are myopic.

pangram reports the text as 100% AI generated. I was about to analyze the short story and think about the intentions of the author, it's social commentary. And you have wasted my time...

This needs to stop. No I'm not talking about the AI. I'm talking about the insanity that is presenting me this text and putting your name on it, exploiting my trust.

idk man, I'm having Claude automate things people were doing manually (usually entering data in a years old spreadsheet).

I can get a good PowerShell script worked out in a few hours and it's on to the next ticket.

Nobody seems upset they're not spending hours a month in a spreadsheet, I still text my wife and our mortgage is paid.

Good description of the kind of temporary euphoria and insanity these products produce in people. They are designed to be addictive dopamine factories that make you feel like you’re working on important problems and solving them in a unique special way, always making huge progress but somehow never quite finished.

The strange ending does also perfectly align with the dreams of a singularity lots of people here seem to have. We are so far from that.

It was of course written with Claude. Have fun spotting the tells but also there’s a weird flatness to the writing, like the uncanny valley for prose.

I read a lot of this before giving up. What’s the point of it?

This is really good short fiction.