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I really don't like this. This will inevitable expand beyond child porn and terrorism, and it'll all be up to the whims of "AI safety" people, who are quickly t

I really don't like this. This will inevitable expand beyond child porn and terrorism, and it'll all be up to the whims of "AI safety" people, who are quickly turning into digital hall monitors.

isaacremuant 1y ago
That's the beauty of local LLMs. Today the governments already tell you that we've always been at war with eastasia and have the ISPs block sites that "disseminate propaganda" (e.g. stuff we don't like) and they surface our news (e.g. our state propaganda). With age ID monitoring and censorship is even stronger and the line of defense is your own machine and network, which they'll also try to control and make illegal to use for non approved info, just like they don't allow "gun schematics" for 3d printers or money for 2d ones. But maybe, more people will realize that they need control and get it back, through the use and defense of the right tools. Fun times.
- zapataband2 1y ago
  [flagged]
- GenerWork 1y ago
  As soon as a local LLM that can match Claude Codes performance on decent laptop hardware drops, I'll bow out of using LLMs that are paid for.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    I don't think that's a realistic expectation. Sure, we've made progress wrt smaller models being as capable as larger ones three years ago, but there's obviously a lower limit there. What you should be waiting for, instead, is new affordable laptop hardware that is capable of running those large models locally. But then again, perhaps a more viable approach is to have a beefy "AI server" in each household, with devices then connecting to it (E2E all the way, so no privacy issues). It also makes me wonder if some kind of cryptographic trickery is possible to allow running inference in the cloud where both inputs and outputs are opaque to the owner of the hardware, so that they cannot spy on you. This is already the case to some extent if you're willing to rely on security by obscurity - it should be quite possible to take an existing LM and add some layers to it that basically decrypt the inputs and encrypt the outputs, with the key embedded in model weights (either explicitly or through training). Of course, that wouldn't prevent the hardware owner from just taking those weights and using them to decrypt your stuff - but that is only a viable attack vector when targeting a specific person, it doesn't scale to automated mass surveillance which is the more realistic problem we have to contend with.
- cowpig 1y ago
  What kinds of tools do you think are useful in getting control/agency back? Any specific recommendations?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bogwog 1y ago
Did you read the post? This isn't about censorship, but about conversations that cause harm to the user. To me that sounds more like suggesting suicide, or causing a manic episode like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-delusions-chatgpt.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ck8.FEwL.MLb9ajaocyTx https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-de... ... But besides that, I think Claude/OpenAI trying to prevent their product from producing or promoting CSAM is pretty damn important regardless of your opinion on censorship. Would you post a similar critical response if Youtube or Facebook announced plans to prevent CSAM?
- strix_varius 1y ago
  Did you read the post? It explicitly states multiple times that it isn't about causing harm to the user.
switchbak 1y ago
I think those with a thirst for power have seen this a very long time ago, and this is bound to be a new battlefield for control. It's one thing to massage the kind of data that a Google search shows, but interacting with an AI is a much more akin to talking to a co-worker/friend. This really is tantamount to controlling what and how people are allowed to think.
- dist-epoch 1y ago
  No, this is like allowing your co-worker/friend to leave the conversation.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    Right but in this case your co-worker is an automaton and someone else who might well have a hidden agenda has tweaked your co-worker to leave conversations under specific circumstances. The analogy then is that the third party is exerting control over what your co-worker is allowed to think.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Yes, the co-worker is a robot created by a third party who retain control over their product.
      - fc417fc802 1y ago
        Is the creator of the product material to the analogy? The point is that for any who seek power manipulating a widely used AI product can provide far more control than other approaches.
      - saurik 1y ago
        We live in a world where it has become increasingly possible--by a number of different mechanisms--to rent access to things rather than sell them, and we need to step in and better regulate that: if I pay for your product, you don't get to control it anymore, you don't get to watch how I use it, and you don't get any say in if or how I modify it while I am using it. The idea that it is more profitable to rent people a calculator than to sell them one is simultaneously true and horrifying, as the reasons it is more profitable are all bad for the user. If your service is a thing that can't be sold, it should be designed in a way where you can't continue to access it from the inside, no more so than you are allowed to rent me an apartment and leave a bunch of cameras inside it.
romanovcode 1y ago
> This will inevitable expand beyond child porn and terrorism This is not even a question. It always starts with "think about the children" and ends up in authoritarian stasi-style spying. There was not a single instance where it was not the case. UK's Online Safety Act - "protect children" → age verification → digital ID for everyone Australia's Assistance and Access Act - "stop pedophiles" → encryption backdoors EARN IT Act in the US - "stop CSAM" → break end-to-end encryption EU's Chat Control proposal - "detect child abuse" → scan all private messages KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) - "protect minors" → require ID verification and enable censorship SESTA/FOSTA - "stop sex trafficking" → killed platforms that sex workers used for safety
- clwg 1y ago
  This may be an unpopular opinion, but I want a government-issued digital ID with zero-knowledge proof for things like age verification. I worry about kids online, as well as my own safety and privacy. I also want a government issued email, integrated with an OAuth provider, that allows me to quickly access banking, commerce, and government services. If I lose access for some reason, I should be able to go to the post office, show my ID, and reset my credentials. There are obviously risks, but the government already has full access to my finances, health data (I’m Canadian), census records, and other personal information, and already issues all my identity documents. We have privacy laws and safeguards on all those things, so I really don’t understand the concerns apart from the risk of poor implementations.
  - debazel 1y ago
    > We have privacy laws and safeguards on all those things Which have failed horrendously. If you really just wanted to protect kids then make kid safe devices that automatically identify themselves as such when accessing websites/apps/etc, and then make them required for anyone underage. Tying your whole digital identity and access into a single government controlled entity is just way too juicy of a target to not get abused.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
xpe 1y ago
If a person’s political philosophy seeks to maximize individual freedom over the short term, then that person should brace themselves for the actions of destructive lunatics. They deserve maximum freedoms too, right? /s Even hard-core libertarians account for the public welfare. Wise advocates of individual freedoms plan over long time horizons which requires decision-making under uncertainty.
xpe 1y ago
Inevitable? That’s a guess. You know don’t know the future with certainty.
xpe 1y ago
I think you are probably confused about the general characteristics of the AI safety community. It is uncharitable to reduce their work to a demeaning catchphrase. I’m sorry if this sounds paternalistic, but your comment strikes me as incredibly naïve. I suggest reading up about nuclear nonproliferation treaties, biotechnology agreements, and so on to get some grounding into how civilization-impacting technological developments can be handled in collaborative ways.
- orbital-decay 1y ago
  I have no doubt the "AI safety community" likes to present itself as noble people heroically fighting civilizational threats, which is a common trope (as well as the rogue AI hypothesis which increasingly looks like a huge stretch at best). But the reality is that they are becoming the main threat much faster than the AI. They decide on the ways to gatekeep the technology that starts being defining to the lives of people and entire societies, and use it to push the narratives. This definitely can be viewed as censorship and consent manufacturing. Who are they? In what exact ways do they represent interests of people other than themselves? How are they responsible? Is there a feedback loop making them stay in line with people's values and not their own? How is it enforced?

I really don't like this. This will inevitable expand beyond child porn and terrorism, and it'll all be up to the whims of "AI safety" people, who are quickly turning into digital hall monitors.

isaacremuant 1y ago

That's the beauty of local LLMs. Today the governments already tell you that we've always been at war with eastasia and have the ISPs block sites that "disseminate propaganda" (e.g. stuff we don't like) and they surface our news (e.g. our state propaganda). With age ID monitoring and censorship is even stronger and the line of defense is your own machine and network, which they'll also try to control and make illegal to use for non approved info, just like they don't allow "gun schematics" for 3d printers or money for 2d ones. But maybe, more people will realize that they need control and get it back, through the use and defense of the right tools. Fun times.

zapataband2 1y ago
[flagged]
GenerWork 1y ago
As soon as a local LLM that can match Claude Codes performance on decent laptop hardware drops, I'll bow out of using LLMs that are paid for.
- int_19h 1y ago
  I don't think that's a realistic expectation. Sure, we've made progress wrt smaller models being as capable as larger ones three years ago, but there's obviously a lower limit there. What you should be waiting for, instead, is new affordable laptop hardware that is capable of running those large models locally. But then again, perhaps a more viable approach is to have a beefy "AI server" in each household, with devices then connecting to it (E2E all the way, so no privacy issues). It also makes me wonder if some kind of cryptographic trickery is possible to allow running inference in the cloud where both inputs and outputs are opaque to the owner of the hardware, so that they cannot spy on you. This is already the case to some extent if you're willing to rely on security by obscurity - it should be quite possible to take an existing LM and add some layers to it that basically decrypt the inputs and encrypt the outputs, with the key embedded in model weights (either explicitly or through training). Of course, that wouldn't prevent the hardware owner from just taking those weights and using them to decrypt your stuff - but that is only a viable attack vector when targeting a specific person, it doesn't scale to automated mass surveillance which is the more realistic problem we have to contend with.
cowpig 1y ago
What kinds of tools do you think are useful in getting control/agency back? Any specific recommendations?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

bogwog 1y ago

Did you read the post? This isn't about censorship, but about conversations that cause harm to the user. To me that sounds more like suggesting suicide, or causing a manic episode like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-delusions-chatgpt.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ck8.FEwL.MLb9ajaocyTx https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-de... ... But besides that, I think Claude/OpenAI trying to prevent their product from producing or promoting CSAM is pretty damn important regardless of your opinion on censorship. Would you post a similar critical response if Youtube or Facebook announced plans to prevent CSAM?

strix_varius 1y ago
Did you read the post? It explicitly states multiple times that it isn't about causing harm to the user.

switchbak 1y ago

I think those with a thirst for power have seen this a very long time ago, and this is bound to be a new battlefield for control. It's one thing to massage the kind of data that a Google search shows, but interacting with an AI is a much more akin to talking to a co-worker/friend. This really is tantamount to controlling what and how people are allowed to think.

dist-epoch 1y ago
No, this is like allowing your co-worker/friend to leave the conversation.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  Right but in this case your co-worker is an automaton and someone else who might well have a hidden agenda has tweaked your co-worker to leave conversations under specific circumstances. The analogy then is that the third party is exerting control over what your co-worker is allowed to think.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    Yes, the co-worker is a robot created by a third party who retain control over their product.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      Is the creator of the product material to the analogy? The point is that for any who seek power manipulating a widely used AI product can provide far more control than other approaches.
    - saurik 1y ago
      We live in a world where it has become increasingly possible--by a number of different mechanisms--to rent access to things rather than sell them, and we need to step in and better regulate that: if I pay for your product, you don't get to control it anymore, you don't get to watch how I use it, and you don't get any say in if or how I modify it while I am using it. The idea that it is more profitable to rent people a calculator than to sell them one is simultaneously true and horrifying, as the reasons it is more profitable are all bad for the user. If your service is a thing that can't be sold, it should be designed in a way where you can't continue to access it from the inside, no more so than you are allowed to rent me an apartment and leave a bunch of cameras inside it.

romanovcode 1y ago

> This will inevitable expand beyond child porn and terrorism This is not even a question. It always starts with "think about the children" and ends up in authoritarian stasi-style spying. There was not a single instance where it was not the case. UK's Online Safety Act - "protect children" → age verification → digital ID for everyone Australia's Assistance and Access Act - "stop pedophiles" → encryption backdoors EARN IT Act in the US - "stop CSAM" → break end-to-end encryption EU's Chat Control proposal - "detect child abuse" → scan all private messages KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) - "protect minors" → require ID verification and enable censorship SESTA/FOSTA - "stop sex trafficking" → killed platforms that sex workers used for safety

clwg 1y ago
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I want a government-issued digital ID with zero-knowledge proof for things like age verification. I worry about kids online, as well as my own safety and privacy. I also want a government issued email, integrated with an OAuth provider, that allows me to quickly access banking, commerce, and government services. If I lose access for some reason, I should be able to go to the post office, show my ID, and reset my credentials. There are obviously risks, but the government already has full access to my finances, health data (I’m Canadian), census records, and other personal information, and already issues all my identity documents. We have privacy laws and safeguards on all those things, so I really don’t understand the concerns apart from the risk of poor implementations.
- debazel 1y ago
  > We have privacy laws and safeguards on all those things Which have failed horrendously. If you really just wanted to protect kids then make kid safe devices that automatically identify themselves as such when accessing websites/apps/etc, and then make them required for anyone underage. Tying your whole digital identity and access into a single government controlled entity is just way too juicy of a target to not get abused.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago

xpe 1y ago

If a person’s political philosophy seeks to maximize individual freedom over the short term, then that person should brace themselves for the actions of destructive lunatics. They deserve maximum freedoms too, right? /s Even hard-core libertarians account for the public welfare. Wise advocates of individual freedoms plan over long time horizons which requires decision-making under uncertainty.

xpe 1y ago

Inevitable? That’s a guess. You know don’t know the future with certainty.

xpe 1y ago

I think you are probably confused about the general characteristics of the AI safety community. It is uncharitable to reduce their work to a demeaning catchphrase. I’m sorry if this sounds paternalistic, but your comment strikes me as incredibly naïve. I suggest reading up about nuclear nonproliferation treaties, biotechnology agreements, and so on to get some grounding into how civilization-impacting technological developments can be handled in collaborative ways.

orbital-decay 1y ago
I have no doubt the "AI safety community" likes to present itself as noble people heroically fighting civilizational threats, which is a common trope (as well as the rogue AI hypothesis which increasingly looks like a huge stretch at best). But the reality is that they are becoming the main threat much faster than the AI. They decide on the ways to gatekeep the technology that starts being defining to the lives of people and entire societies, and use it to push the narratives. This definitely can be viewed as censorship and consent manufacturing. Who are they? In what exact ways do they represent interests of people other than themselves? How are they responsible? Is there a feedback loop making them stay in line with people's values and not their own? How is it enforced?