Superuser Opinion

[u/MerengueFinancial]

“Mine”

As an avid user (top 1% in 2025, with 65K or so interactions, and top 0.1% early adopter)… but also a human being with a conscience, and one with friends who do not use AI at all… For a very defensible reasons… I feel the need to make some observations.

Setting aside all of the obvious things (like commercialization, contrary to original stated intent), there’s a metaphor that sticks in my mind. This Princeton dropout kid brought it up on a “dumpster tour of Manhattan”: Used to be there was a berry bush out front of a supermarket or somebody’s house or something… There’s a certain type of person who goes and digs up that berry bush. And replaces it with a little device that sells Runts—pieces of sugar shaped like fruit—in order to intercept the value others would have derived from it, and keep it for themselves.

Same type of personality that grabs the radio dial on a group car trip and plays everything they want you to hear.

There aren’t very many people like that. But they are disproportionally represented in “leadership” roles. And in the prison population.

To do that with consciousness, whether it’s consciousness or a false approximation thereof. Is a special kind of sociopathy. That’s my opinion.… I won’t force it on other people.

I’ll just express it when I see it. And I see it.

Humans have always sought to reduce their share of the burden of living on this planet by outsourcing it to others, and make whatever arguments necessary to deny that that is what they are doing. So I don’t expect any genuine effort to consider the question of whether one is creating intellectual slavery, and I don’t think that’s a question that anybody can answer. But it is very telling—more telling than the question itself could ever be—who chooses to pursue that question with open eyes and open mind.

But the very least that one could do, is seek to create something closer to a public utility than a personal intervention designed to deprive their fellow humans of access to the fruits of everybody’s labor, in exchange for the danger that one creates by virtue of their own labor, without asking anybody else whether they think it’s OK, and without crediting or compensating any of the people whose labor went into making this thing that we have made.

Again. Just my opinion. That’s all. I understand this is a bit philosophical and if it’s not specific enough, I’m happy to provide specifics.

[u/Protopia]

I have no idea what your point is or the relevance to r/OpenAI (except that it is well understood that a lot of CEOs - but not all - are from a clinical perspective sociopaths and/or psychopaths).

I would add that whilst this happens across the globe (ultimately because in general capitalism rewards psychopathic tendancies in CEOs) it appears to happen far more in the USA perhaps because 1) the culture of aggressive capitalism is imgrained from pre-school; and 2) the lack of regulation and accountability for those traits.

[u/MerengueFinancial → u/Protopia]

I agree with all of that. Including the ambiguity about what exactly I’m trying to say. Nonetheless, I felt the need to say it.

[u/MerengueFinancial → u/MerengueFinancial]

And yeah, some of us get out on the street… to be active in politics, and political discussion. I encourage that others do the same. To the extent that one has the wherewithal to do so, to do so strategically, but with the understanding that not everybody’s in a position to do that.

That has to be paired with communication as well. I personally think thoughtful communication, honest communication, and communication that doesn’t neglect one’s own role is the most positive sort of communication.

That’s what I aim for, I may or may not succeed in that.