‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
theguardian.com
‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
1–10 of 76 posts
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#2Media does not get AI wrong... media wants to create sensationalism that drives clicks so it publishes stories to that effect. It happens for every topic people fear which these days includes terror and AI...
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#3Good old capitalism cannot stop mixing reality and sale-speak, only if you start taking the "magic sauce" pitch for technical facts, it's no wonder you end up scaring yourself. On that same note, I kind of understand that AI researchers have this need to sell their craft as magic sauce. That's how selling things works, after all. Here we go in another cycle of debunking the same magic sauce as common snake oil.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#4This quote is nice: “We’ve told stories about inanimate things coming to life for thousands of years, and these narratives influence how we interpret what is going on now,” Bell says. “Experts can be really quick to dismiss how their research makes people feel, but these utopian hopes and dystopian fears have to be part of the conversations. Hype is ultimately a cultural expression that has its own important place in the discourse.”
Hypes are not necessarily wrong. I also think in the end you won't get AI winters anymore. If it is advanced enough AI will be used and you won't get the genie back in the bottle.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#5Good old capitalism cannot stop mixing reality and sale-speak, only if you start taking the "magic sauce" pitch for technical facts, it's no wonder you end up scaring yourself. On that same note, I kind of understand that AI researchers have this need to sell their craft as magic sauce. That's how selling things works, after all. Here we go in another cycle of debunking the same magic sauce as common snake oil.
Real AI researchers shouldn't need to be "selling" their craft. You're confusing "data scientists" at places like Facebook and Google with genuine scientists.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#6Good old capitalism cannot stop mixing reality and sale-speak, only if you start taking the "magic sauce" pitch for technical facts, it's no wonder you end up scaring yourself. On that same note, I kind of understand that AI researchers have this need to sell their craft as magic sauce. That's how selling things works, after all. Here we go in another cycle of debunking the same magic sauce as common snake oil.
Real AI researchers shouldn't need to be "selling" their craft. You're confusing "data scientists" at places like Facebook and Google with genuine scientists.
"Real AI researchers" also need to, if they want to get funded for their research.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Real AI researchers shouldn't need to be "selling" their craft. You're confusing "data scientists" at places like Facebook and Google with genuine scientists.
"Real AI researchers" also need to, if they want to get funded for their research.
There's a certain amount of puffery that goes into a grant proposal, but it's nothing like marketing-speak. For one thing, "magic secret sauce" will never get you funded.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#8The AI hype also seems to lead to sub-hypes in certain fields. E.g. in the legal profession there is a new buzzword called "Legal Tech". The hope is that AI-driven programs will eventually transform the field. While I think this is certainly possible and will eventually happen, it is astonishing how few programs there are admit the huge hype and countless workshops and conferences about the topic. And while it is possible to compile a list of programs and companies on the market, from my experience most of them aren't actually really used in business.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#9>The result is dangerous
The complaints in the article seem to apply to crapy sensationalist journalism in general and there is much more danger from that applying to immigrants, politics war and the like. If the Sun prints some nonsense Facebook's bots does it really matter? Nonsense about the enemies WMDs on the other hand can costs thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
Re: ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI wrong
#10It is fascinating how the whole thing is following the classical hype cycle. This and blockchain will tank, and, then come back at a later stage, hopefully, matured.
I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. I did my masters' thesis in 2004 using evolutionary algorithms. No ordinary person would talk to me about that, even worse, I was easily labeled an outsider and a nerd. Today, people having AI skills are the cool kids on the block. That's the good side of the hype: it's bringing all these nerd topics into the mainstream.