Tag Archives: funny

“Views” is such a frustrating number to optimize for. What does it matter how many people see what you’ve said or done, if you don’t know how many people you’ve actually affected?

You know what a much more useful metric would be? “Number of minds changed.” That sure would be nice. It is so exhausting when someone’s wrong on the internet in a way that it feels so gosh-danged important to try to correct them, but is it really? You can sometimes tell if the person you’re arguing with changes their mind, but what about all the lurkers who never pitch in? Maybe you helped some other people’s understanding, even if you couldn’t get the OP to budge. Or maybe not! Who knows? It’s maddening!

Anyway, to completely and randomly change the subject: AI doesn’t need a personality or instincts or emotions or a desire for self-preservation or even consciousness to be superintelligent and wipe us all out; just because something has been in fiction a lot and has never happened before doesn’t mean it isn’t about to happen; and if some fatuous nimrod says a thing, that (by itself) is not evidence the thing is false. If you disagree, you are being Wrong On The Internet and if you would please just stop now it would save me a lot of aggravation. Thank you.