The article all seems a bit negative. I mean AI isn't you friend or your enemy. It's a tool that can do some quite useful stuff, in a similar way to the internet or cell phones or whatever. There can be good and bad aspects to all of those. And none are going away because for every misery who thinks they are predators etc. there are quite a lot of us who like using them.
AI is not your friend
101–110 of 124 posts
Re: AI is not your friend
#1028 paragraphs of negative emotional valence. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, you won't learn anything new here.
Same with your comment? Just don't up-vote or comment in the future?
My comment isn't surrounded with multiple calls to action to pay me money in exchange for more of my writing. “Flippantly dismissive” is exactly the level of criticism it deserves, given the amount of cheer-leading inanity on display.
Re: AI is not your friend
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference between Chrome and Chromium is that Chrome is marginally worse but largely identical. People mostly install Chrome instead of Chromium by accident because Google markets Chrome and they don't know that Chromium exists and the differences are things they don't strongly care about. But if Chrome ever started doing something they don't like and actually care about, anyone could instantly switch to Chromiu…
Sure, but that statement, while true, does not make Chromium one of 'the most popular web browsers.'
Doesn't it? It's the same codebase as Chrome, and not in the sense that they used to be. They still are. Changes to one go into the other. And that code is open source, so anybody who doesn't like what Google is doing with it can create a fork, just like with any other open source project.
Arguing that it isn't because the most popular distribution has some proprietary bits in it is like arguing that it isn't because the most popular operating system it runs on is Windows. It doesn't change the fact that if the browser defects against you, you can fork it.
Re: AI is not your friend
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The trend is to have less and less control over the devices you own. Markets are two-sided. Stop patronizing companies that abuse you. If you can't find a viable alternative, instead cause problems for them on purpose. Contact support and waste their time hearing your complaints. Buy the device from the retailer where they get the highest margins so you can leave a bad review, then return it and buy a used one inst…
>> The trend is to have less and less control over the devices you own. > Markets are two-sided. Stop patronizing companies that abuse you. The market can't fix this. That's a fantasy. The manufactures all have an incentive to do this, and a combination of asymmetric information and users being like frogs in a pot mean they'll suffer little to no blowback. The market converges on devices that turn against their users…
> The market can't fix this. That's a fantasy.
Competitive markets would fix this immediately. The main problem is that some markets are concentrated enough for suppliers to collude, and people keep telling themselves that there is nothing they can do because they've been conditioned by the sort of arguments you're repeating into being submissive and compliant.
> The manufactures all have an incentive to do this
And the customers all have an incentive to choose the one that doesn't, putting any manufacturer willing to respect the customer at a competitive advantage.
Unless you convince customers that they can't actually do this and should just learn to love the boot stomping on their face and buy from the companies defecting against them.
> Those are totally impractical suggestions. The weirdos willing to tilt at windmills over this can have no noticeable effect.
That depends entirely on how many of them there are. How many will there be if people are propagandized into believing it can't be effective, vs. creating a culture in which refusal to countenance bullshit is a moral imperative?
It's okay to be the only person doing the right thing. Somebody has to be first. Don't make fun of them, don't tell them it's futile, join them and convince others to do so.
> Rooting a device takes a lot of work, if it's even possible at all. Volunteers just don't have the combination of skills and dedicated man-hours to make that a practical alternative across the consumer device space, except maybe in some unusual cases.
You only need one person to succeed. It's a fun and socially beneficial hobby, and has been successful across a range of consumer devices in the past.
Re: AI is not your friend
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of tangential don’t you think
not really. There's a difference in how much one needs to keep up with tech trends, because there's a difference in how reliant one is in getting and maintaining a job. Despite being paid fairly well, it's unlikely that I'll be able to retire early, given the housing market. A massive amount of every dollar I make is going to quickly ballooning rent and attempting to chase an ever-distant target of home ownership. I…
You can always move to low cost of living area.
You can get a decent apartment for 200k USD in the good neighborhood in the large city in east Europe.
You can even work at Google there, for something like 50k USD annual salary!
Re: AI is not your friend
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
not really. There's a difference in how much one needs to keep up with tech trends, because there's a difference in how reliant one is in getting and maintaining a job. Despite being paid fairly well, it's unlikely that I'll be able to retire early, given the housing market. A massive amount of every dollar I make is going to quickly ballooning rent and attempting to chase an ever-distant target of home ownership. I…
You can always move to low cost of living area. You can get a decent apartment for 200k USD in the good neighborhood in the large city in east Europe. You can even work at Google there, for something like 50k USD annual salary!
There are vanishingly fewer 'low cost of living' areas. I'm in the central valley and the prices here (traditionally low enough for working class to own) have been going nuts.
The problem is that we've opened up real estate investment to professional investors, who have then securitized those investments in risk-adjusted bundles to make them attractive to large investment banks. Money goes in, prices go up. Personal dwellings ought not to be subject to this but hey, anything that increases apparent GDP, right?
"Large City in East Europe" - where exactly are you talking about? If it's anywhere near the Russian border I'll pass, thanks. I consider "having my home shelled" an unacceptable risk.
Working for Google for 50k USD means being taken advantage of by Google in a really gross manner. Wherever you work you ought to make what you're worth to the company, and 50k for FAANG is ludicrously low.
Re: AI is not your friend
#107I've not been advertised to by any AI so far. I've not had a product or service promoted to me by a chat answer, nor have I seen any advertising elements in an AI-generated image. The chat experience has been a lot better than, say, Google search, in terms of spam. The claim would have to be that those promotional elements are there, but are subliminal, so as not to be consciously perceived, which is a stretch. To be…
> I've not been advertised to by any AI so far ... nor have I seen any advertising elements in an AI-generated image.
You do know detecting AI generated anything is mostly an unsolved problem, right? If you can detect it you have super powers.
Besides, in some ways I don't think it matters if it's AI generated or not. The goals are still set by humans and the goal has always been to shift product, not to reliably and honestly inform. Telling lies in ad's has been an art form for centuries, dating well back before the snake oil salesman of yore. Modern countries have been creating competitive markets by passing laws limiting the lies told, and so modern the marketing professional has become skilled at skating as close to the line created by those rules as possible. If everything else remained the same, AI ad's might skate a tiny bit closer. That's all.
But everything has not remained the same. The internet has come along. It's had lots of effects. Delivering ads is now much cheaper, so we see more of them in any given hour of the day. They've become hidden, only appearing to certain demographics so the authorities don't see them, and they are often from foreign entities outside of the reach of your countries law. The net result has been an avalanche of poorly policed ads that are near total bullshit. Who believes a bunch of glowing Amazon reviews for a new product now?
AI doesn't effect any of that, but it will effect the price of producing an ad. It will not so much drop as plummet. Before, spamming HN with subtly written unique ads required an enormous highly skilled workforce. We see now the output of state sponsored workforces in places like twitter where one comment will be shown to millions. It's twitter because such workforces cost a lot of money, so a lot of people have to see each post to make it worthwhile. AI will reduce the cost so much just about anyone will be able to pollute HN's comments. Now producing a video ad took many hours of a script writers time, paying actors, and editing. Very soon you will be able to do it for a few dollars. The hundred or thousand fold drop in price will be corresponding increase in the number of ads, and a similar decrease in societies ability to police them.
In other words, you will be overwhelmed with AI generated ads that lie better than the humans. (They are so convincing when they hallucinate, aren't they?) In the short term, anyway. In the long term, I think perhaps our political masters will attempt make the infrastructure that delivers these ads take some responsibility for their quality, so maybe some sanity will be restored. I hope so anyway.
But in the mean time if believing you can detect whether an AI is behind an ad or not brings you some comfort, go for it.
Re: AI is not your friend
#108I've not been advertised to by any AI so far. I've not had a product or service promoted to me by a chat answer, nor have I seen any advertising elements in an AI-generated image. The chat experience has been a lot better than, say, Google search, in terms of spam. The claim would have to be that those promotional elements are there, but are subliminal, so as not to be consciously perceived, which is a stretch. To be…
> I've not been advertised to by any AI so far ... nor have I seen any advertising elements in an AI-generated image. You do know detecting AI generated anything is mostly an unsolved problem, right? If you can detect it you have super powers. Besides, in some ways I don't think it matters if it's AI generated or not. The goals are still set by humans and the goal has always been to shift product, not to reliably and…
> You do know detecting AI generated anything is mostly an unsolved problem, right? If you can detect it you have super powers.
I'm not sure what you mean. My comment was about situations in which I'm sure I'm using an AI system to generate AI content.
The topic of whether AI inserts ads into its responses, not whether ads you see in the wild are AI generated (they certainly are).
Re: AI is not your friend
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can always move to low cost of living area. You can get a decent apartment for 200k USD in the good neighborhood in the large city in east Europe. You can even work at Google there, for something like 50k USD annual salary!
There are vanishingly fewer 'low cost of living' areas. I'm in the central valley and the prices here (traditionally low enough for working class to own) have been going nuts. The problem is that we've opened up real estate investment to professional investors, who have then securitized those investments in risk-adjusted bundles to make them attractive to large investment banks. Money goes in, prices go up. Personal…
So many options to run away from high cost of living and so many reasons not to do. Looks like you are ok with current state of things.
Re: AI is not your friend
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that's when AI will hit you Hit me and do what though? That's the bit that loses me on these hypotheticals. I can't think of any time I've bought something that wasn't researched or didn't sit in a checkout basket for at least a week. And this is maybe only a few times a year, most months I don't buy anything except groceries. I don't trust AI but I'm unconvinced about how successful it could be at manipulation.
What if the AI is manipulating those sources you're researching? Comments like this come off as completely lacking in imagination imo. I don't understand why you need specifics because the world is already full of things trying to manipulate you. Have you never made a bad purchase?
Maybe I bought some wine I didn't like at the supermarket, but I don't believe there is any advertising for any of these wines.
When buying something, I wouldn't use some source or community that I'm not previously aware of. I understand that advertising must work, to be such a profitable industry, but I guess my brain just isn't wired that way. I find it very easy to never buy things that aren't necessities.