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

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

#171

Post by harterrt »

rcktmrtn wrote: post #131
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…

More than interfaces. To quote McLuhan: "Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth." The AI thing has been jarring but it's nothing new. All part of the same process.

Thanks for sharing. I want to hear more from him. Do you have a recommended book by McLuhan to start with?

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

#172

Post by DantesKite »

Havoc wrote: post #53

The comment by Yuval Noah Harari seemed insightful to me. If you argue against a bot about a political matter, not knowing it’s a bot - you always lose on a long enough timeline. ie you can never pursuade the bot but it can wear you down / eventually find an argument that works. The only winning move is not to play. So I could see this having a chilling effect on all discourse Aside from the whole skynet thing the ab…

Humans are like that too.

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

#173

Post by paulpauper »

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…

> Humans need real human connection, AI is too artificial for that (duh). Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead of healthy home cooked meals growing up. Yes, people that grow up on fast food are still alive, but they are less happy and have more health problems (mental and physical), but it did the “job”, that job was to fuel them.

let's of people derive enjoyment and happiness from activities that does not involve other people, and also pets such as dogs. plus, if you cannot tell the difference between ai or human, it may still be good enough.

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

#174

Post by kubectl_h »

dcsommer wrote: post #138
robviren wrote: post #130

I feel that you could replace "AI-Saturated Post-Truth World" with any number of technological changes over the last 100 years and find a similar article at that time. I am impressed by LLMs and these more powerful AI agents, but I also have confidence that over the course of time their capabilities will become utterly boring and commonplace to my growing kids. In a generation their place in society will be as unspec…

Smartphones have dramatically changed the way humans relate to each other, with incredibly profound impact on mental health and social interactions. The negative impact hasn't gone away just because part of the population hasn't seen a different world and can't imagine anything different. The same may be true of LLMs and all the hallucinated information they share. I would respect and listen to what experts in psycho…

Agreed. The argument of "we've always had XYZ and we've done fine" always conveniently ignores acceleration/rate-of-change as a factor -- as if the printing press, radio, tv, internet, computing, mobile revolution, AI etc are distinct events that we "got through" with no relation to each other, when in reality they are just cycles in an ever tightening feedback loop.

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

#175

Post by BizarreByte »

hospitalJail wrote: post #143
BizarreByte wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead of healthy home cooked meals growing up A person who is starving will do better with fast food than with no food at all. It's far from ideal, but for some people this will make their lives marginally more tolerable.

On a similar note, I'll take the AI medical advice any day of the week. Had a buddy describe a difficult morning and I opened chatGPT to diagnose, it suggested he had a stroke. My buddy was not going to the hospital because its so expensive, but since chatGPT said it was a stroke, and his symptoms matched the stroke, he went to the hospital. He had a stroke. On a similar note, I am stable and don't need therapy, but…

> I was never going to pay for therapy, this gave me some insight and actually made me interested in therapy.

ChatGPT could never be as bad as most human therapists, at least if it tells lies they're believable and it won't try to insult, belittle, or infantalize you.

Medical usage is perhaps the single most interesting use of ChatGPT to me, the problem will be solving the liability issue should it get something wrong.

For simple things though? I can see a future where bots even prescribe medication. Why burden the healthcare system when you have a simple infection and all you need is a round of Amoxicillin?

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

#176

Post by KaiserPro »

So the problem I have with this sentiment is that the entire point of news organisations is to trace the validity of claims.

The press have evolved a bunch of mechanisms to prove or disprove points in a story.

AI doesn't really change this.

Sure there are fakes, and yes you can create thousands of bullshit websites/text. But that was always true.

Yes GenAi images are more concerning. But we've had photoshop for a long time, and some very talented people. Yes its slightly harder to spot a genai image, but with the correct tooling, its pretty trivial.

The issue is, we have a crisis of funding for good quality news sources.

News is a freeby now. Which means that the news you get is now either much more partisan (because "they" whomever you find creepy/shadowy/disagreeable, who are smear all over the political spectrum) or simply doesn't have the time to do basic research (see standard tech journalism, breathlessly re-formulating press releases. See Apple Vision Pro)

So AI "propoganda" is a side show, the much bigger risk is a further dropping of standards amongst the assembled ranks of the press.

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

#177

Post by saratogacx »

civilitty wrote: post #39
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’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…

Can you install it in those automated sliding doors we have in places like grocery stores?

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

#179

Post by jtode »

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.

Got me too, I was literally following my mouse cursor to the down arrow with my eye and I saw this comment. I'll never be the guy telling a comedian what they can do, but damn mang, that was rough...

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

#180

Post by scrubs »

civilitty wrote: post #39
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’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…

You wrote: "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!"

I got news for you buddy: I and a hell of a lot of people know the difference between eating the menu (AI) and the meal (loved ones and dear friends). My lady is from south America, multi lingual, and has a better degree from a better school than I.

Seriously, how are you gonna lay a finger on that? You ain't.

Over reliance on AI is just another route to or though mental illness

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