This isn't Church, we aren't here to worship specific political figures of the past. You need to explain what your thoughts mean and in the current, modern context that we're in. You don't get to excuse yourself from accountability by vaguely pointing at a famous communist who has written tons of things.

[–] ferret@fedi.workersofthe.world -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@amemorablename I would've thought people would be familiar with the terminology, given this is an ML group, and Mao uses this terminology with some frequency.

marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-…

[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago

This still doesn't explain what "the backward group" has to do with generative AI, which didn't even exist in Mao's time. Hell, he says in the passage you linked:

The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements.

(bold emphasis mine)

So he was specifically in favor of winning over the "backward elements", which contradicts with your implication that AI as agitprop is "unwanted by people" and somehow bad as propaganda because it would only "be effective agitprop [for] the backward group."

And…people don’t want it. The only people for whom it would be effective agitprop are the backward group.

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