I suppose I don’t understand the alternative, doesn’t the United States ask immigrants to do a similar type of pledge? I kinda expect most countries do. Seems logical. I could be wrong about that, maybe immigrants don’t have to pledge loyalty to the US for citizenship? I’ll have to look it up.
I guess to me it seems disingenuous to judge someone for making arrangements to live in a country he cannot leave. He is forced to stay there by the United States, it wasn’t a choice.
Anyway I could definitely be missing something here but I can’t think of what he could have done differently, what would you have done in his situation?
As an aside, I have a lot of respect for Snowden because he showed us how little respect the United States has for obeying its own laws. The laws which are based on our supposed virtues. The US violated every principle it proclaimed that American citizens had. We never had them. Turns out we’re just as crooked as the countries we judge. I value that knowledge, Snowden is a patriot who risked everything so the American people would know the truth about our government and he did it with utmost care. He’ll go down in history as such. He’s the reason we can even discuss this topic. I thank him for that gift, despite the contents being disgusting.
At this point it’s less about trusting Snowden and more about not trusting Russia. I wouldn’t put it past Russia to find a way to speak on his behalf and say what they want with his voice, power, and reach. That’s tantalizing. AI, Photoshop, social media posts, whatever. He’s under their control willingly or otherwise.
You mention topics worth discussion and thought.
As far as Snowden’s words, I look at the content of what he says, and I have yet to notice any straying from the original message. The message being, “The United States does not follow its own laws or ideals, and not only intends to violate these rights with regards to terrorists but with regard to everyone.” If I were to notice straying from the message, or propaganda (coerced or otherwise) I would of course react accordingly. Every interview I have seen, and I haven’t seen them all, his views have been measured, thoughtful, terrifying, and enlightening. Not to mention, backed by substantial evidence.
As far as LLMs (AI doesn’t exist), it’s far too nascient to be undetected. Like ad-blockers and advertisers, there is a permanent war between LLM output and LLM detectors. In this battle, the detectors have, by far, the upper hand. In five years, who knows. But I work Iin tech and dabble in my own models. The LLM tech of today is extremely primitive.
