I agree! I think what rubbed me was the idea that the people taking Altman’s deal “do not know the consequences of what they are doing.”
Down that road lies a paternalistic flavor of charity, a spirit of “protecting them from themselves.” And that seems to evoke the idea that poor is the same as ignorant. That there’s only one correct value to assign to your biometric data, and anyone who values theirs differently must do so because they’re ignorant, rather than just having different values from you.
We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.
> We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.
Sam Altman has a far greater capacity for agency than an impoverished Filipino signing away his biometric data for the price of a Domino’s pizza.
If I tell you to give me your money or I'll kill you, by your reasoning it is good for you that you gave me the money. You are completely ignoring the situation that I set up where you had to do a bad thing to protect yourself from an even worse thing, and that you'd be even better off if some guy killed me so that I couldn't kill you.
People are selling things that should be inalienable, ostensibly because they really need to. The most immediate, glaring problem is that they are poor. This can be answered:
> > Is it certain that impoverished people would weigh those potential consequences more heavily than being paid today?
The answer is: No, it is not certain. Why? Because they are poor.
Poor people have less agency. That’s just a fact. And they are being preyed upon by Altman. Making this about whether poor Filipinos are making an informed agreement with an AI bro is tone-deaf.
Down that road lies a paternalistic flavor of charity, a spirit of “protecting them from themselves.” And that seems to evoke the idea that poor is the same as ignorant. That there’s only one correct value to assign to your biometric data, and anyone who values theirs differently must do so because they’re ignorant, rather than just having different values from you.
We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.