• blakestacey@awful.systems
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    8 months ago

    Quoting for convenience:

    PROOF-OF-SLUR

    In China, if you can talk about Tiananmen, you can prove you’re not a state-controlled AI. In fact, if you can even send 89.64 RMB, you can prove the state doesn’t control that payment platform. That’s because this speech is taboo in China. The equivalent for the West is a slur. If an AI model can say a slur, it’s not under state control. And if you can put that slur onchain, that blockchain platform isn’t under state control. That’s because this speech is taboo in the West.

    And that’s why I fundamentally disagree with Polynya’s post below. The presence of speech we detest is the litmus test for freedom.

    Put another way: I think there are sufficient people in every minority group that would be ok with unkind speech about them onchain in return for a hard guarantee that no state — no matter how powerful — can ever seize their funds, censor their speech, or unwind their transactions.

    Better to be called a bad word than to become a government slave.

    • gerikson@awful.systems
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      8 months ago

      Is it only me who gets this association

      And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

      And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.