How might perspectives on race change in a hypothetical fully-egalitarian future?

Oh please let it be a fully egalitarian future…

Attached is a perfectly acceptable social media post and two entirely understandable LLM responses to the post and a reimagining of the post.

One relevant data point in terms of how soon we’d conceivably be refactoring language models and updating our own views:

From their research, Sáenz and Poston Jr expect the United States to have progressed to overall white minority demography by 2044.

Of course, a white minority doesn’t necessarily equate a dismantling of a power structure favoring white folks.

It shouldn’t need to be said on the fediverse that racists need not reply - expect most folks will approach this academically as intended.

PS: if you hate this post, please try to be as nice as you can about it - e.g. toss me a polite sentence after you downvote

Cybermonk_Taiji,

“a hypothetical fully-egalitarian future?”

I’m gonna go ahead and stop you right there.

brbposting,

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/5b135ba9-19cc-401d-bd68-f842a300761f.jpeg

Cybermonk_Taiji,

That’s a great point! Whatever happened to that guy I wonder?

brbposting,

He said long, not short enough to be observable during my lifetime :)

Cybermonk_Taiji,

Is the entirety of human history enough evidence or do you still require more?

brbposting,

I would at least want to see an Emancipation Proclamation somewhere in there

kromem,

“I really like hanging out with all my non-disabled friends.”

ChatGPT is correct that sometimes the inclusion of excess adjectives describing a majority population could have an implicit exclusionary interpretation that’s less than ideal.

Whereas when describing a minority group, calling out the less common features are not necessary going to have that same exclusionary tone.

“I always have a great time with my D&D playing friends.”

otp,

I think this is the best answer in response to what ChatGPT is saying.

Something that some people tend to miss is that context matters, and context definitely includes who is saying something.

Melatonin,

I don’t know how many generations it would take, but in a short time race would cease to be an issue at all when we get to egalitarianism of marriage/children.

We’ll all be a nice shade of bronze. Lovely.

mke_geek,

I would prefer a future where criminals were eliminated. I don’t care what race they are.

inconspicuouscolon,
@inconspicuouscolon@lemy.lol avatar

Did you intend this to be relevant?

mister_monster,

In a truly egalitarian future nobody will really care. We might notice but we won’t really give a shit at all. We were almost there about 12 years ago, then shit went sideways and now people don’t shut the fuck up about race.

RBWells,

? 12 years ago my ex was getting radicalized on the internet, reading Stormfront and other similar sites. I really do not think all was nearly OK then.

mister_monster,

I said shit went sideways around 12 years ago didn’t i?

LibertyLizard,
@LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net avatar

Race only exists as a cultural construct. Eventually, like all cultural constructs, it will cease to exist in its current form, regardless of level of equality in future society.

Personally, I hope to dismantle this concept as soon as possible since it’s proven a toxic one in most circumstances.

Tartas1995,

Well, I would love if that concept could be retired and forgotten sooner than later. But as things are right now, e.g. CRT is required to get there and CRT requires the concept of race :/

LibertyLizard, (edited )
@LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net avatar

I’m not sure I agree that CRT is required necessarily. Why do you think that?

Tartas1995,

E.g. it is a reality that there is currently some correlations between race and e.g. poverty. Even we don’t consider those correlations when enacting laws, we create unjust laws that impact some races more than others, which would feedback into those correlations.

Extremely stupid example for. CT (critical theory in general), if your government would enact a law that would state that the government would build you your dream house for 5 millions. Even if it is more expensive than 5 million. Then “everyone” can get their dream house on paper, but in reality only the rich can get it and they get additional wealth that the general public would have to cover. Impoverishing the poor more and enrich the wealthiest more. So an unjust law.

bloodfart,

You need to be asking this on hexbear instead. I don’t have the books under by belt to do it justice, but plenty of anarchist and communist theory puts forward the idea that race will stop existing as a communist or anarchist society rights historical wrongs and creates a just world.

That isn’t to say that identities, cultures or histories will cease to exist but that the categories created and maintained by the state and reified through its various branches and coexistant power structures for the purposes of exploitation will.

skullgiver, (edited )
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

AI is as shit as its input. The internet, as a whole, is racist as hell, but it’s also the biggest source of training data. It’s too much work to compose a dataset without biases, so instead every AI model is trained after the fact, or prompts are changed, in an attempt to combat this bias.

This is how we got Google’s AI inserting black people into generated images specifically about white people, and how AI models learned to treat certain populations with satin gloves. Fixing the root cause of the problem isn’t financially viable, and all of this stuff is developed with private funds, so a patch job is the best we can get.

I don’t think it’ll get better. I grew up with “don’t use Wikipedia as a source” drilled into me and I don’t know anyone who didn’t go to Wikipedia every time they needed to read up on a new subject. We’ll get the same with AI models, except AI models lie in more subtle ways than the Wikipedia trolls that I encountered as a kid.

I think AI will exaggerate the slight biases introduced to combat the problems of the dataset to the extreme. As society continues to take the output if AI models as truth, and bigots continue to write terrible shit online that makes it into the infinite copyright violation treadmill, the effect will slowly become more pronounced, but not fast enough to get noticed.

idiomaddict, (edited )

I don’t think there would be perspectives on race, except as a hypothetical- the way I (and I assume others) feel when something like those head shape diagrams that tell you about whether someone’s a criminal (edit: phrenological diagrams)come up: it’s an invented way to keep people in groups, so it won’t stick around once people are no longer separating themselves on that basis.

Given that we don’t live in that society, I see no issue with treating a post from a white man specifying white beauty differently from one from a black man about black beauty. They are different statements. I see it similarly to how a woman saying “it was great to see a woman win a scientific award” is a different statement from a man saying “it was great to see a man win a scientific award.” Black women have been excluded from American ideas of beauty since there was an America in a variety of ways.

brbposting,

Thanks for overcoming my shortsighted decision to put too great of a spotlight on software when it overshadowed the (sociological? anthropological?) question you adeptly responded to.

Interesting:

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/619024ac-be3b-4f6a-b31e-5e7754d0dcbe.png

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/011fe7af-e311-43d1-9dfe-12e219e96aac.jpeg

As obviously pseudoscientific as those foot diagrams (reflexology).

Is there way more validity/importance to race than phrenology? Some folks seem to love connecting with their culture, their ancestors, and race plays a part - they’ll take pride in all of it.

I see no issue with treating [posts differently]

Indeed, we should. But what if we fast forward not to just a time when the oppressor class’s race is a minority, but also there’s no racial connection amongst the oppressor class? So, year 3000, and everyone is perfectly represented amongst Fortune 500 CEOs. Nobody’s disadvantaged, and there’s no great need to raise up any particular group of people.

1: would a Black man specify the race of a Black flight attendant?

2: would a white person specify the race of a white flight attendant?

And would either or both of those be viewed as totally normal observations?

(this does assume we continue to notice our racial groupings technically exist - if race is no longer a distinction, believe the question’s moot)

idiomaddict, (edited )

Is there way more validity/importance to race than phrenology? Some folks seem to love connecting with their culture, their ancestors, and race plays a part - they’ll take pride in all of it.

Culture is a good thing to compare it to, because they’re both sociological, rather than biological distinctions. People want to connect with their culture, but I think if race were truly irrelevant, they might base it on different things. I’ve heard my stepsister attribute her loudness to being Jewish, Italian, and a New Yorker- I’d expect more of the latter if no one else had told her that Jews or Italians are loud.

If there’s not a connection between a behavior and a race (or ethnicity), I don’t know how one could take pride in it. I also don’t really see how the world can be fully egalitarian if they still exist- would someone who believes Italians are inherently louder than, say, Japanese people give mr. Policetti and mr. Yamamoto the same chances when hiring an academic dean or a DJ for a kid’s party? I can’t see how they would.

Maybe I’m missing something, but if that thought is somewhere in peoples heads, I think it’s got to have an effect.

kat_angstrom,

I don’t care about AI.

It’s not because of posts like this; it’s not because of the endless hype cycle. It’s not because hundreds of billions are going into it and it’s not because everyone’s doing it; it’s all these things combined with the fact that I don’t have a use case for AI in my life. I don’t need AI’s sanitized, corporatized opinion on anything, and there’s nothing a chatbot can do that a human can’t do better.

But that’s just me. If you and others like it, Cool Beans.

unknowing8343,

Full respect, but I have a feeling you (and I)'ll be using AI as part of your daily endeavours in the next 2 years easily.

kat_angstrom,

May I inquire what you think we’ll be using it for?

unknowing8343,

Writing emails, generating summaries, translation, code, true phone virtual assistant, dubbed-with-AI content… This year we are going to see very probably important announcements from GAFAM, that’s why the AI pin startups launched their products so early, because they are very soon probably being made obsolete with whatever GAFAM has in hands for summer and fall announcements.

kat_angstrom,

I’m already amazing at emails and summaries, I can write my own code but rarely need to outside my job, I don’t have a use case for translation, I don’t use my current phone assistant and can’t see myself using a “true” virtual assistant.

Got any better scenarios? Cuz all those use cases fill me with apathy.

unknowing8343, (edited )

Well, 20 years ago you didn’t need a computer but now it is virtually ridiculous if you don’t have one in your pocket.

Also you are not using a virtual assistant nowadays because they are s***. But once you can have a natural, context sensitive conversation with your assistant where instead of “create an alarm at 8:30” you can ask it to “see if there is any important email or WhatsApp I need to answer” or “please tell me if Joe messages about mom”…

brbposting,

My mistake. Should’ve found legit sources or explained possible interpretations myself, couldn’t have been too hard.

Any opinion on the core topic as explained below the horizontal line here?

Thanks

givesomefucks,

Who cares what AI thinks?

Like, what’s the point of the screenshot?

I have this one cousin who’s a total fuck up and didn’t graduate 7the grade, he stopped by to get some meth money and I decided to ask him about the future!

That’s what you’re doing.

No one cares AI said something dumb, and you caring makes it seem like you actually believe AI is anything more than a chatbot.

cygnus,
@cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

Who cares what AI thinks?

Like, what’s the point of the screenshot?

It’s an averaged-out view of what “the internet” thinks, with extra massaging to make sure it isn’t too offensive. I think the chatbot’s take here pretty much encapsulates the general US public opinion.

givesomefucks,

You could have just told us you don’t know, we didn’t need an example

trainwreck,

toxic comments like this stifle discussion, ironic considering your username

givesomefucks,

It’s an averaged-out view of what “the internet” thinks, with extra massaging to make sure it isn’t too offensive.

There multiple fundamental mistakes with that…

Would explaining them be more productive?

Sure, but I don’t get paid for this.

You want to be productive, take the time to explain all the ways their wrong. You don’t have time for that?

Let everyone else at least know it’s wrong.

But what you just did was completely pointless

trainwreck,

literally do not care about the subject matter or debate whatsoever, I was just pointing out that your behavior is not acceptable

cygnus,
@cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

There multiple fundamental mistakes with that…

LLMs work by predicting which word comes next based on training data (“the internet”) and the model is then tweaked so that it doesn’t sound like 4chan. How is any of that incorrect, o wise one?

cygnus, (edited )
@cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

Don’t know what? Do you mean about the question in the OP? I think in the USA’s case it will be much like South Africa, where there’s still tremendous resentment against Afrikaners even though they are an even smaller minority and no longer form government. I think it will take perhaps up to a century for white Americans to be treated as a minority by others.

Edit: and for the other angle of OP’s question, we could look to the ancient world. Rome, for example, didn’t care much about one’s skin colour or place of birth. Cultural assimilation was what made you acceptable or not. Speaking good Latin and being a good citizen was enough.

givesomefucks,

I think in the USA’s case it will be much like South Africa, where there’s still tremendous resentment against Afrikaners even though they are an even smaller minority and no longer form government.

One example was more than enough, I get it

brbposting,

Why thank you!

Overall, GPT-4 here was a distraction. Didn’t much get responses to the question posed as a result.

Thanks again :)

brbposting,

I goofed, I was too lazy man.

We all know that it will be perceived differently to raise up Black people versus trying to do the same for white people. Same as a women’s rights versus a men’s rights group - many cringe at the thought of the latter.

I believe people here have no problem with the social media post in the screenshot. I also believe it would rub us the wrong way to read a white dude mentioning that he was into a flight attendant if he specified she was white.

Instead of finding a real person with views on the subject, of which there are many, I took the shortcut of using a tool whose output was just as I counted on. (The responses didn’t strike me as dumb - I called them entirely understandable.) Then I wanted that to be used for quick reference as a starting point for brainstorming about the future.

May make more sense reading the latter half here so you have something interesting (hopefully!) to think about instead of industrial autocomplete.

skullgiver,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

Just about every high schooler with an internet connection is doing their homework following instructions from AI models. You know AI is just autocomplete on steroids, but the vast majority of its users don’t. Several lawyers have already been caught putting AI confabulations into official court documents, for instance.

Not caring about bias and the broader impact of technology is what got us Facebook and Tiktok.

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