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Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

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Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#71

Post by xigoi »

chank wrote: post #40
version_five wrote: post #33

> I work professionally in the machine learning field I'm curious what you do in ML, because I also work professionally in the field, and see no relationship or even pathway between current ML research and practice and any sort of "AI" that would reduce or commoditize human intelligence. It's all just marketing hype. If we somehow get "I robot" style robots (the movie, not the book) that we're uncomfortable with, sur…

>"AI" that would reduce or commoditize human intelligence. Computer generated art (DALL-E~), fiction literature, music et al. It wouldn't really reduce human intelligence, but it will definitely commoditize creative crafts even further. Which I think is what the OP is mostly referring to.

If your artwork can be generated by an AI, are you really creative?

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#72

Post by sureglymop »

NO-AI wrote: post #14
t-3 wrote: post #5

Why? AI is a tool, not even a servant, for that would imply will. We can use and direct it to whatever ends please us. The realization of AI as a general tool for the individual is approaching rapidly, and it will have radically transformative potential. Don't be afraid, push from behind so that progress won't stall in the period where it's only accessible to institutions.

Capitalism is a wonderful system. But when your mind has become a commodity your economic value will approach zero. I hope you're not expecting our capitalist society to coddle you when that day arrives. Perhaps you will do manual labor for the machines, but I doubt the value of human physical labor will last. So good luck.

"Capitalism is a wonderful system".. What? That seems hypocritical, considering that capitalism does not value or reward your "mind" or "creativity", it is purely based on profit and extracting the most value. It is obviously not a wonderful, but an exploitative system. The AI you are describing and you fear is mainly a product of capitalism also. Regarding your concerns, we could have discussions and even regulations about ethical AI and ethics in that field. It is capitalism that will disregard or circumvent those guardrails in order to generate as much profit as possible.

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#73

Post by wnkrshm »

version_five wrote: post #45
chank wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"AI" that would reduce or commoditize human intelligence. Computer generated art (DALL-E~), fiction literature, music et al. It wouldn't really reduce human intelligence, but it will definitely commoditize creative crafts even further. Which I think is what the OP is mostly referring to.

I was in a gift shop recently that had what looked like oil paintings for $40-100, all imported from china or somewhere they were made cheaply, all of some uninspired beach or flowers or something. We also have muzak, we have online "content" that's really just some outsourced minimum to try and do seo. It's already all a commodity. Having ML that can streamlines that changes nothing. It's still not doing anything cr…

Also, I feel the core of art is some promise of meaning pertaining to human experience. Look at some abstract art and what do you think about? You think about the meaning and what it might represent, inevitably assigning your own meaning to it in some way. Then you get told by the artist "oh I just threw some paint at the wall because people liked my previous experiment", I bet the piece instantly loses the majority of its luster.

(Edit: Same goes for representative art, mostly, as in illustration. There is a promise of an entire world hidden behind the painting, which offers a glimpse into it. If it's just an incoherent one-off, that's not that interesting, just like the commercial muzak art you mentioned.)

A painting generated entirely by an algorithm is more like looking at a flower, which is also aesthetic but not necessarily art.

I feel that the 'real' AI-tools for artists will be more sophisticated and more focused, like "take my catalogue of the last 10 years and train on that" - being able to go back to a former style (which is difficult for artists) and re-experimenting with that, with actually stylistically coherent output. I think we'll see a lot of art made from mashing historic styles with modern subjects in the coming years.

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#74

Post by gone35 »

qgin wrote: post #8

> As a society we can reject this technology. I don't see a lot of precedent for this. I actually can't think of one example where society has rejected a useful technology. I believe that affluent people will pay more for artisinal/organic/human-created things. But the majority of the world without disposable income will choose cheaper over human. Even if human-made is better. Especially if AI-made is better. It's tr…

I actually can't think of one example where society has rejected a useful technology.

Nuclear energy, for one.

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#75

Post by prohobo »

Cypherpunks, crypto evangelists, ecovillages, Lord Richard Stallman, pirates, etc.

All of these movements are pretty closely related - meant to be a parallel structure to the hypercommoditized mainstream.

They also have major problems, which I'm sure are mostly self-evident by now. If anyone's wondering what's wrong with ecovillages: they tend to be run by nutjobs who want to play emperor. They almost always devolve into Lord of the Flies style internal politics. It's a metaphor for every other populist movement like it.

So, coming up with a viable alternative will be very hard. I think it's worth pursuing though.

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#76

Post by keskival »

Refusing to utilize automation is what all those people refusing to use automated self-checking counters in supermarkets are doing.

They say things like: "I want to be served by a real human", while basically condemning people serving them to standing behind checkout counters all day in a very dehumanizing and unhealthy task.

These people are either getting their kicks out of subservience of other people, or what they actually want is to provide a living to working class people.

If whatever people need is provided by automation, then that is just great and we can increase more humane pursuits which aren't driven by profit.

Things like UBI and similar will solve the issue of our societies' wealth distributions being based on labor where labor is becoming less necessary.

That is highly preferable to defending continuations of the existing economic models which force people to toil their lives away in unimportant tasks.

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#78

Post by tluyben2 »

In my opinion we should not fight against advances in AI, but rather against having that AI be owned by a few big corps. AI must be open and when it gets to the point you describe, we might not have to work anymore; we need only to guard that that won’t kill us of hunger or turns us into Soylent while the few rich control everything. AI can make humanity better by helping us out of wage slavery so more people can pursue what they really want (and sometimes that is what really matters; more than now anyway).

Re: Ask HN: Viability of an anti-AI social movement?

#80

Post by reustle »

colechristensen wrote: post #28

>thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind I'm not worried about ML "art" or literature, those are curiosities and don't actually threaten to replace anything, people who expect them to are very optimistic about the progress of ML. I am worried about ML replacing human judgement on the road, with weaponry, content moderation, law enforcement, and using it to do things that humans wouldn't have the…

idk I plan to use dalle to generate the art in a specific style for my next saas launch site.

I wonder how well it can generate logos…

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