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Throws grenade and runs (europe.pub)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
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Fire in the hole!

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[–] 166 points 1 day ago (23 children)

If we got all the other socialist progressive benefits of the Star Trek universe, including no billionaires, then I think we'd be a lot less unhappy with generative AI as presented in that world.

How they built it, and what they plan to do with it is a pretty big part of the reason for our anger.

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  • [–] [S] 104 points 1 day ago (16 children)

    Yeah, if we de-meme it and really want to define it, the difference is Star Trek is a post-scarcity world, so generative AI building things doesn't take anything away from human artists - it doesn't affect their livelihoods because their livelihoods are guaranteed.

    As always...

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago

    We very nearly live in a post scarcity world too. Just all our resources and labor are funneled into the hands of a few wealthy billionaires.

    Star Trek is very Utopian. If it operated anything like our dystopian world it would have a lot of scarcity. For instance there is only one earth in Star Trek.

    In our timeline it is most billionaires goal to own the whole planet. Then after that 2 planets then hundreds of planets then 1000s of galaxies.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (14 children)

    Plus I think it helps that much of what the holodeck recreates is centuries old at that point. 21st century earth, long ago. It’s not anyone’s current creations, and then beyond that it’s using data that the federation personally got by exploration. Like if people only used AI to generate medieval drawings I don’t think anyone would be too upset really. Maybe weirded out but not upset. Aside from the environmental concerns I guess.

    however generating holo characters that look like your coworkers and doing weird stuff to them is a entirely canon issue. And Star Trek never touched on it, but wow would it be easy to fake footage of historical events in a holodeck, especially to civilizations without advanced technology. I work in history as my career and the amount of YouTube videos telling fake stories and showing fake footage of 20th century history is genuinely terrifying. I don’t know what the solution is. Digitization was meant to preserve historical footage but now it just makes it look just like the fake stuff. If anyone digitized historical footage and the physical no longer exists, verifying anything will become a nightmare and sometimes it would be strictly possible.

    Honestly the more I think about the holodeck the more I think it’s dangerous as fuck, literally and socially, and Star Trek shows usually only very innocence uses for it. Like you thought parasocial relationships are bad now?

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Some trekker should correct me here, or clarify, but I'm pretty sure that in TNG the character Barclay used the holodeck to treat his crippling social anxiety, which involved holos of his crewmates and got into some very awkward situations.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Also Geordie falling in love with the holodeck version of a visiting researcher, Christy Henshaw in the episode "Booby Trap." She encounters her holodeck version swooning over Geordie and it weirds her out tremendously

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    That’s the one I had in mind when writing the first comment. The worse part is Geordie kept that largely respectable. Could you imagine what someone with no self control and a holodeck of their coworkers could do?

    I’d love if there was an exploration of what holodeck usage for civilians looks like. If you can have a holodeck that can bring the entire universe to you, why bother doing anything? Especially since you are already in a post scarcity society where strictly speaking you don’t need to do anything. I always felt that the federation having motivated people is societal momentum from earlier centuries, but in a couple more centuries I think it’s entirely plausible that most of humanity would become simply indifferent to the greater world around them, infinitely entertained by holodecks and again, zero scarcity. Honestly, not so different from the Q in a way. How much of society in Star Trek is actually productive? Someone’s gotta be mining the dilithium. Is there genuinely enough people who just volunteer for that?

    How exactly does a post scarcity society function?…. And could they please tell us so we can get there ASAP.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago*

    I dunno, I want to live an interesting life, so I'd volunteer to try ALL the jobs. Mining dilithium, serving aboard a starship, fighting baddies on the outskirts of Federation territory, raising a family, becoming a holodeck program writer... A life of leisure means you get to try whatever you want, and can always fall back knowing you'll be fine. I think more people would want to do stuff, like me, than you think.

    Kinda like how every single pilot program and study they've done with basic income has had the same end result, no reduction in work force. People want to feel useful, and they want to get ahead. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, when everything else is met, people just want to feel needed.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 22 hours ago (1 child)

    One extremely interesting aspect of that episode is that while Barclay DID create holographic depictions of the crew for his fantasy world, and it does weird out the staff, they don't actually present the holodeck recreations of the crew members as a PROBLEM in and of itself. The prevailing view isn't "This is unacceptable" - it's that "This is a disruptive fantasy that is preventing Barclay from developing socially and fitting in as a member of the crew." Whether you chalk that up to bad writing or the future being accepting of using the holodeck to realize one's personal desires is up to the viewer's interpretation, I guess. Even after all these years, I don't think we have enough information about the Star Trek universe to know.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

    Actually Star Trek: Lower Decks covers the issue of using AI for nefarious purposes. In the series finale, an enemy Klingon superimposes video of a Starfleet admiral over herself making a message ordering the handover of a Klingon asylum seeker (second-in-command smells something fishy and hides the asylum seeker, until the video is confirmed a fake). Then in the comic Shaxs' Worst Day, the head security officer, Shaxs, uses the holodeck to recreate the bridge of a ship he just commandeered to pretend to be the captain he just killed while communicating with evil universe Starfleet command.

    It should be noted that Lower Decks was made in the last decade, and not only incorporates a lot of contemporary social/technological issues and concerns, but also is a comedic reflection on the Star Trek franchise, and freely calls out things that have made fans go "huh?"

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  • [–] 34 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    The Star Trek universe also seems to be able to run their AI without boiling the oceans.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Still requires boiling oceans, but they've found a few uninhabited water planets that can safely be boiled without bothering anybody.

    (Also, our AI isn't even that good. They're not boiling the oceans. They're boiling what previous little fresh water we have that could be used for drinking or irrigation. It would be a lot less of a problem if they just built their cooling systems to deal with salt water and used seawater instead.)

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  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago

    EXACTLY

    If they didn't invest our entire country and ecosystem into it because they thought it meant digital slaves that could replace the meat popsicles they abhor, then it might not have looked so fucking evil

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