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Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

wired.com

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Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#71

Post by Jeff_Brown »

thumbuddy wrote: post #57
civilitty wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m working on a startup that’s training LLMs to be authentic so they can simulate human affection and it’s actually working really well! The key is humanity’s ability to pattern match: we’re actually pretty terrible at it. Our brains are so keen on finding patterns that they often spot them where none exist. Remember the face on Mars? It was just a pile of rocks. The same principle applies here. As long as the AI so…

Whew it's satire. Whew. I've literally seen posts on the internet that read like this sans the satire.

Haha yeah almost had me too.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#72

Post by Jeff_Brown »

resolutebat wrote: post #55
softbt wrote: post #17

Really don’t like the idea that we will act as interfaces for the AI, I honestly believe it will only many the majority of people lazier and dumber. I’m also incredibly shocked that no one is talking about AI as a friend/companion, that has to not be good for you in the long run. Humans need real human connection, AI is too artificial for that (duh). Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead…

A lot of jobs are already human interfaces for computers. Ever talked or messages with a call center? They're following scripts and trying to pattern match your problem with what they have to work with manually, AI is just going to 10x this for both good and bad. Mostly bad, I suspect, because good luck getting an AI to escalate to a supervisor.

I bank with a small credit union. They have a phone robot who asks what I need help with, and so far no matter what I've said, the response has always been to think for a few seconds and then say, "I'll connect you to a representative." It's wonderful.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#73

Post by evilduck »

softbt wrote: post #17

Really don’t like the idea that we will act as interfaces for the AI, I honestly believe it will only many the majority of people lazier and dumber. I’m also incredibly shocked that no one is talking about AI as a friend/companion, that has to not be good for you in the long run. Humans need real human connection, AI is too artificial for that (duh). Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead…

I think we can speculate in the entirely opposite direction where the same action leads to positive outcomes.

Lots of legitimate human companions are abusive. People have a wide range of qualities and many of them are bad. AI may be a poor blanket replacement for all human companionship but it could easily be less bad than someone's immediately available alternatives and be used therapeutically to help someone model healthier behaviors to establish better actual relationships. Or in lieu of normal relationships being possible like long term isolation during space exploration or for life sentence prisoners or just neurodivergent or disabled people who have challenges the average person does not.

Going back to the food analogy, if given the choice between fast food and starving, or fast food and something poisonous suddenly everyone will overwhelmingly choose fast food because for many people "home cooked meal" was never an option.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#74

Post by CatWChainsaw »

When would we ever be ready? A post-truth world is a post-human world so it's no surprise several commenters here seem to be salivating for it.

The Demon-Haunted World remains as prescient as ever. Machines that ought to have advanced knowledge will instead kneecap civilization back to a dark age, if we're lucky.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#75

Post by Jeff_Brown »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #56
softbt wrote: post #17

Really don’t like the idea that we will act as interfaces for the AI, I honestly believe it will only many the majority of people lazier and dumber. I’m also incredibly shocked that no one is talking about AI as a friend/companion, that has to not be good for you in the long run. Humans need real human connection, AI is too artificial for that (duh). Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead…

AI has a good niche as confidante for people with serious issues and no close friend/therapist to approach about them. This is unfortunately a large niche. And if it displaces public social media... That is a net gain. But yeah, overall the fast food analogy is a fitting one.

I wonder if AI could help a user bootstrap into real human sociability.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#76

Post by Jeff_Brown »

rajamaka wrote: post #33
swexbe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comparison. An AI companion will never talk back or tell you that you're wrong. Kind of similar in my mind to how fast food restaurants won't serve you anything that's too "hard to swallow".

An AI companion most definitely could be configured to talk back or adopt any possible personality trait.

And there would definitely be a market for it, just like there's a market for spicy food or BDSM. Indeed those aren't apt comparisons -- an AI that's not a sycophant might be more comparable to food with a little salt?

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#77

Post by [deleted] »

dale_glass wrote: post #7

I don't think we're mentally ready for social media, even. What something like Twitter can inflict on a person when it goes wrong is absolutely unprecedented, and we still haven't adapted to it. Think that for instance going to the cinema, watching a movie, walking out and venting to a friend "Boy, this one sucked. $ACTOR_NAME did a really bad job with this one" is a perfectly normal thing to do. But move that to Twi…

[deleted]

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#78

Post by Jeff_Brown »

anonylizard wrote: post #22
protontypes wrote: post #19

The rapid development of AI could lead to people generally being frightened away from digital products. In my own social environment, I see more and more people who used to be very enthusiastic about computers turning away to more analog entertainment and work. Blindly developing technology only as part of the "power play" without solving real problems is no longer justifiable. AI is starting to create significantly…

The sheer audacity to claim that 'fossil fuel industry' has "created significantly more problems than it has actually solved" If you leave the SF bubble for a split second, and think about the foundations of modern industry, you would realize fossil fuels have created tectonic value for society, that's why transitioning away is so so hard. All the 'real problems', like housing costs, medical costs, education costs, o…

While I'm with you overall -- cheap transport alone has made our lives easily of times better -- there's at least one giant problem that occurs mostly due to lack of regulation, which is environmental degradation.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#79

Post by ClarityJones »

tgv wrote: post #62
ClarityJones wrote: post #2

The church had the same complaints when the printing press undermined their monopoly on Truth. However, it's now clear that the technology gave rise to the renaissance, and the greatest discovery and propagation of truth that humanity has ever seen.

The church didn't object to the printing press, AFAIK. Unless you can produce a papal bull forbidding it, I think you've undermined your own argument.

That's not really relevant to my point, which was that new means of spreading information are capable of spreading both true and false information, and that history has shown that the ability to spread false information does not prevent the positive impact of true information.

So instead of a papal bull, how about a stack exchange with links explaining how (even if the church did not oppose the press itself) the church did attack its users for publishing information that the church was opposed to (i.e. claimed was false). https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/42677/why-did-th...

Or an article about how Luther was excommunicated for what he did with the printing press. https://www.history.com/news/renaissance-influence-reformati...

Perhaps the Church's complaints were more directed at the dissemination of information that the Church considered to be false... like the Wired article's complaints about AI's potential to spread false information. My point is that free speech is good. Free speech may include lies, but people are smart and even lies help listeners learn.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#80

Post by Jeff_Brown »

jwie wrote: post #30
protontypes wrote: post #19

The rapid development of AI could lead to people generally being frightened away from digital products. In my own social environment, I see more and more people who used to be very enthusiastic about computers turning away to more analog entertainment and work. Blindly developing technology only as part of the "power play" without solving real problems is no longer justifiable. AI is starting to create significantly…

That's unfair fair to the oil companies. They at least produce power and a wide variety of very useful materials for industrial applications. The AI tools generate spam. Oil has a trade off that's at least intellectually defensible. Spam does not.

Most of the ancient writing found in Egypt is receipts and porn. The utility of a technology is not determined by its primary initial uses.
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