Asimovian AI is the ideal AI that should have emerged in an ideal universe — the AI intended to replace the grueling pains and labors of the masses, not the one striving to become a businessman's utopia of intellectual worker replacement. Intention is the most important aspect of any implementation, and we are seeing the results of current AI implementation right in front of us: workers getting sacked with each passing day, humanity competing with itself day in and day out over who impresses their superiors more on these token metrics, emerging glorious narratives of how AI will be 'The Future', the recurring advice of 'Use AI or perish in the tech market'. Now who really gains from these events and who loses? I wonder if anyone ever gives serious thought to this broader question or just keeps being a cog in the corporate wheel like everyone else.

It's high time we pushed the "Pause AI" button right now and take a breather and reflect a bit on what exactly is going on here. And no, no big catastrophe is going to happen if we do that. China isn't going to get ahead in the race - and even if it did, how does that justify everything else that's happening here?

I really hope there is someone out there with enough clout and influence who can push this pause button - or at least persuade others to do so. That would be the best thing to happen to humanity at this point. By doing so, we might prevent a massive societal collapse and there is really no downside to this.

As the other post suggests, reddit peeps are fleeing reddit as of now and trying to find refuge in other realms. One of my favorite subs /r/StallmanWasRight went dark all of a sudden yesterday, all content vanished and there is no idea when they'll return.

In this post, I'll try to list out a few minimal and "benevolent" sites where toxic corporate interests haven't managed to reach yet and a sane discussion could still be had. The Lemmy fediverse is the first choice, of course, but these are some other online instances who have managed to keep their watch towers lighted in these times of utmost despair:

1. tildes: It's hands down another great network where good discussion can be had. They follow an "invite tree" system instead of allowing everyone and that keeps some check on the degradation of content quality. It also eases the job of the mod/admin a bit IMHO.
2. hacker news: Another high quality content network mostly frequented by open minded techies and engineers. I suspect they've deliberately kept their html/css so shabby and kiddish so that the corporate crowd doesn't even bother to look inside!
3. lobste.rs: Another good social network started by ruby and rails enthusiasts. They have stringent norms on who they take in and it's usually not easy to get an invite here unless you know someone closely on the network.

Special mentions to names like hubski, raddle, said it, indie hackers and slashdot. These also belong to the family of "simple and minimal" networks geared towards honest discussion, not unnecessary clutter and clunk. But I haven't visited any of them since a long time, anyone has an idea what's going on there?