The article mentions more research is needed to confirm if the effect is long-lasting, but personally I’m happy someone may have found a good, practical usecase for LLMs.

  • Daemon Silverstein
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    2 months ago

    I’m not supporting conspiracy theories (they don’t even matter to me anymore), but people fiercely attacking conspiracy theories generally are unbeknownst to how some few conspiracy theories became facts (not every crazy-fetched theory, but a little few): back in 2012, I was aware of the existence of an annual meeting called “Bilderberg Meetings”. Around 2014, an official website popped up, finally listing matters and subjects being discussed at their secret meetings, as well as its attendees, but the group existed since 1954, so decades of talking about global matters behind closed doors. It took a journalist (now deceased) nicknamed as “Big Jim” to disclose the topic list, attendees, meeting dates (beginning and ending) and location (such as which 5-star hotel to be paid with taxpayers money), before the site finally became to disclose such things.

    I remember being called “crazy” when I pointed to the fact that such meetings existed, now it’s simply normal and well-accepted (but it doesn’t take back the offenses I received that time). That’s OK for me, because I moved on. As I said, it doesn’t matter to me anymore, now I’m really numb to it all. There are worse things than rich people and politicians gathering behind closed doors, such as impending weather disasters and scorching temperatures due to the now irreversible climate change (in parts, some of the corporations that attended such meetings to be blamed, but not only them; if they were transparent about their discussions about climate change, maybe people opened their eyes earlier about how impending were the now climate disaster, uniting and charging companies and governments to earlier actions with the needed transparency).

    TL;DR: For a fun, I tried the mentioned bot. I talked to it about the former secrecy of Bilderberg meeting (before 2014, when their official website got online).

    He “agreed” but pointed on how “this level of privacy is not uncommon in high-level discussions” and regarding “media spotlight and pressure, which is a reason why the meetings are private”. I counter-argued by pointing out how the phrase “If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to fear” does not only apply to “mortal citizens” but also to CEOs and politicians, but it insisted on how such meetings needs “discretion”.

    One thing it pointed is valid, tho: “correlation doesn’t imply causation”. Indeed, the fact that such meetings were undisclosed doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re criminal or conspiratory. But does the same rule apply for citizens? The same rules should apply for both the “powerful” and the citizens.

    As I said, time passes, really bad things happened so far (climate change, rise of bigotry and inflation worldwide, COVID-19 with seven million fatalities reported but up to 30 million estimated deceases including one of my uncles, etc) and I became really, really numb, so I don’t care anymore. Humanity (even the richest men) is deadwalking towards extinction, anyways. Unfortunately. Sorry for my sadness and numbness.