No, we are not animals. But life has become so increasingly complex that is infeasible for the average person to be that invested in everything in order to have an educated opinion.
I do NOT want to have to research the business model of companies before I buy their products or services. I would like to outsource that to the government, and spend my time actually enjoying life.
Am I supposed to be invested in every change that happens around me ?
What if I am a baker, using chatGPT to experiment with recipes and develop them. Am I supposed to read about LLMs, tokens, and the silicon valley playbook ?
No. I should not have to do any of those things.
If you think you should not do these things, then you're a part of the problem.
If a company will advertise that they can take your oil and "dispose it legally", and then on their website they will openly write that they've found a loophole allowing them to store oil on the bottom of the ocean, then you say it's morally OK to use their services because it's legal?
If todays legislations are cargo and are being bought and sold based on the number of hired lobbyists, then you say it's OK to base our moral compas on that?
If you're a baker then you need to figure out how LLMs work at least to a level so that you could say that you've tried to figure it out, just as when I'm a software developer and I need to figure out how kidney stones work, because it might be in my own personal interest to know this.
Same thing is when buying stuff from Chinese vendors that ship cheap stuff to every corner of the world. You can buy their cheap products using your blind excuses, but then don't blame your local markets that for some unknown and unpredictable reason they closed operation.
We have brains for a reason, and we need to use this organ to fight our way through the complexity. This is the tax every one of us has to pay for being human and to live in a human world. If you want to have a brain, but decide not to use it, then I think you're just being lazy and entitled.