Serious question. Is it some kind of Mastodon norm to tell people what they should write about?
In the past 8 hours I’ve had people
1) ask me not to write about GPT 3 because they aren’t interested in it,
2) tell me to put discursion of ChatGPT behind a content warning
3) tell me to write “#ChatGPT” instead of “ChatGPT” to make it easier for to block,
4) scold me for engaging with ChatGPT, because they considered an unethical technology.
My thoughts in response, for what they’re worth:
1) I recommend following people who write about things you’re interested in and not following people who don’t
2) Content warnings are not subject headers. I don’t want to dilute them thusly.
3) You can block words almost as easily as tags.
4) If I refuse to explore how large language models affect my job as an instructor, they are not just going to magically go away.
I’d like to add a further note about the request to use hashtags. Recall that a primary purpose of not enabling cross instance search here at Mastodon is to avoid harassment and brigading. Given that people are upset about generative AI, using a hashtag like #ChatGPT may bring lots of unwanted attention.
For example, I thought that the response to Hank Green’s MidJourney thread over on Twitter, probing the way the language model operates, was terrible. Who needs that? https://mobile.twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1599254476720066560
@ct_bergstrom
Flawless argument. No sense in using hashtags then.
