ChatGPT Outrage Must Die

 Interestingly, all of the issues that we're having with ChatGPT relate to Derrida's Dissemination and his reading of the myth of Thoth, the Egyptian god who gave writing to mankind. In the myth, Thoth presents the new technology to the god Ra and Ra rejects it saying that it will make men's minds weaker and replace their need to memorize. That is the first parallel. The new technology will make things too easy for people.

However, Derrida makes it clear that he won't take Ra at his word and hence digs into another reason why Ra would prevent humans from getting writing. To be sure, this is a myth that is thousands of years old, and still has relevance today.

Anyway, essentially, the new technology is a threat to the authority and power of the King who is used to being able to set policy for everyone. With the new technology, ideas would spread, humans would begin considering alternative possibilities, it would empower them to have the same power of the king, the power to assign value.

ChatGPT is an amazing resource. They could have charged thousands of dollars for it, but instead they made it available freely to everyone. I think ultimately, the fact that it was gifted to the public bothers certain people more than the fact of its existence.

Their outrage would go completely dormant if it cost $100/month. And that tells you everything you need to know about their morality.

ChatGPT could teach any precocious kid how to program, answer some of the questions they'll ask, steer them in the right direction if they want to learn something new. It's amazing. All a family needs is access to the internet, and they can acquire amazing skills with less effort and money. Poor kids can learn skills from home that they never would have been able to learn from their underfunded bullshit school systems.

So, if I have very little sympathy for the anti-ChatGPT crowd, I can justify that. I'm at peace that. It's the printing press. It's the telephone. It's the plow. It's writing. It's that big of a deal.

It increases the speed of learning exponentially.