1127
Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying (www.thenerve.news)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
451 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Yes, exactly.

Block chain would have been an amazing solution to most democratic vote validation processes.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    It can still be used that way. While most people talk about how corrupt politicians enrich themselves with fake currencies, more legal and legitimate uses can still use decentralized ledgers for useful things. Of course these won't make headlines.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    There are far better global ledger approaches than blockchain.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I believe you, but can you name one so we can all learn more about the alternatives out there?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    SWIFT is the easy one. Fun fact they looked into blockchain at one point and went "yeah, nah"

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Aren't votes meant to be anonymous to avoid retribution?

    Isn't the public ledger identifying information to be used by authoritarian violence on every single voter in that case?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Well no, because we don't have a problem that blockchain solves (better than open software, if it must be digital), and there are loads of problems that the blockchain doesn't solve. Like how am I supposed to vote with that thing under no coercion.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I'm not really sure what you're getting at. The blockchain is a good mechanism to maintain a source of truth that is inspectable and verifiable by anyone. It would only serve to certify that official counts can't be tampered with in certain ways.

    But it doesn't replace the whole democratic voting process. It doesn't protect against coercive voting, for instance.

    My point originally was that blockchain can be of use to us, but tech bros ruined its rep. Same with AI. I've been waiting for routers with ai-powered (really, just machine learning) firewalls that can adapt rules to environments. But instead of that, everyone is obsessed with generative stuff that isnt very good.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Yeah I hear you, but the 51% attack exists. Like if you use paper ballots, you're safer and it consumes less energy. There is just nothing better by using a blockchain, and paper ballots (for example) can be verified by anyone, the blockchain not so much.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent