Can Buddhist economy help us better grasp Large Language Models? _(and capitalism in general)_

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Can Buddhist economy help us better grasp Large Language Models? (and capitalism in general)

Buddhist economy tries to enhance well-being. Commodities and consumption are a means to this enhancement but not its end.

It has 3 purposes:

  1. Giving a person a chance to utilise and develop their faculties,
  2. Overcoming self-centeredness by joining a community,
  3. Bringing the goods and services needed for a decent existence.

When we use LLMs, we are riding the same wave of industrialisation that started with the Madeira Island centuries ago. As we can, we should.

So we mechanised ourselves even more. But we need to be clear on a crucial difference that only the craftsperson can distinguish: the mechanisation that enhances a person's skill and power versus the one that turns a person's work into a mechanical slave. This is precisely what TPS teaches us in the Jidoka pillar with the Human / Machine Separation - respect people through the quality of their work and environment.

As LLMs mimic our thinking and craftsmanship, we can easily fall into the slave-to-machine pattern simply through the words we type into these textareas. The separation is blurrier than it has ever been.

Just as important, the externalities can't be overlooked: concentration of power in the hands of a few that threatens democracy, the enormous amounts of energy, mineral resources, and plagiarized material it requires, people threatened with unemployment, misinformation, and of course, the ecological impact. The feeling of belonging to an ecosystem is not restored. What will the bust look like after this boom?

It is irrational to measure "standard of living" by the amount of goods a person consumes. Instead, Buddhists try to maximise well-being with a minimum of consumption (which is only a means to that end). "Eat or be eaten" has alternatives. Consumption is not the purpose of all economic activity.

References

@youtube

  • The True Origin of Capitalism - George Monbiot | How To Academy

@youtube

  • Clara Mattei: capitalism is not natural - it's enforced | Channel 4 News
  • Small is beautiful | E.F. Schumacher - 1977
  • I am in an abusive relationship with the technology industry | Salma Alam-Naylor
  • Ends of AI | Disjunctionsmag

@youtube

  • Ethics of ChatGPT and AI | gwenvarley