For those not aware, Google is rolling out their new AI-based “Generative AI” search, which seems to mesh Bard with the standard experience.

I asked it today why Google no longer follows their “don’t be evil” motto… The results are pretty hilarious.

  • democracy1984@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Corporations are neither evil nor nice. They are indifferent. By design they only care about money, they don’t care about anything else.

    • Alperto@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Not really. They’re not indifferent at all. In reality they act like narcissistic and like psychopathic humans. I watched a documentary years ago exploring that and talking with psychologists about symptoms and they agreed that they behave like psychopaths. And don’t forget that they are run by humans.

      Corporations:

      • Can buy and sell stuff
      • Can do evil things without consequences (an employee can pay the consequences but the company will keep going).
      • They have no remorse or empathy.
      • Can manipulate to reach their goals, no matter who (from media to politics to countries).
      • Whenever somebody at the top can’t reach an economical goal, that person is fired and replaced by one who can. It’s like a hive evil mind.
      • Goal #1 is always money (absolute selfish and egomaniac), no matter what or who.
      • CybranM@feddit.nu
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        1 year ago

        Didn’t you just list a bunch of reasons for why they’re indifferent? They literally only care about money and are indifferent to externalised costs and ethics.

        • my_hat_stinks@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If a person cared only about money and regularly injured or killed people to get it, would you say they are good, evil, or just “indifferent”?

        • Alperto@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          They would be indifferent if they were also indifferent about money, but they’re absolutely driven by greed, so no, they’re not indifferent: if they see a chance to make more money, they’ll go for it no matter what or who they harm with it.

    • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      By design they only care about money, they don’t care about anything else.

      That is cartoon book clear definition of evil. No empathy, clear goal, willing to do anything to reach that goal - yep that is evil.

    • yata
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      1 year ago

      They are indifferent

      They only care about money

      They can’t be both, and since the latter claim is the correct one, then it also supports the claim that they are evil. Because since we know that their sole and primary concern is money, then we also know to which extent they will go to get that money.

    • Nichaes@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Not being outright malicious but ending up doing malicious things makes this distinction pretty pointless.

    • kaba0@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      They are the stereotypical paper clip AI that will drain our blood to extract its iron content for more paperclips. Except it wants money.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Most evil is caused by indifference though.

      Someone who hates people can be talked to and potentially can change.

      Someone who’s indifferent will use hatred as a tool to control people. When this tactic is successful, and indifferent person can’t be swayed from using it, because it works.

      I mean if it were proven that google’s algorithms are encouraging violence, what would an indifferent person do? They’d ask, “is the algorithm making money?” And if the answer is yes, they would make no change to the algorithm. Because they are indifferent to the evil that they are causing.

    • outdated_belated@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Correct in the sense that it’s the incentive scheme, i.e., capitalism (supported by state power, e.g., by enshrining the entity of a corporation and then enforcing its protection) that is the more meaningful, or at least actionable, cause of these behaviors.

      While those incentive schemes are in place, ascribing too much agency to corporations themselves, i.e., calling them evil, is not particularly effective as it’s not going to change the underlying incentives.