AI epitomises chasing a narrow definition of progress that benefits the few (increasing profits via automation) over a holistic definition of progress that benefits the many (reducing poverty, improving health, providing meaning). It's no wonder people hate it.
Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
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Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reality is non-deterministic (not actually, but in practice). We do strange things to balance this out all the time. Thinking that computer software must be exempt from that mess as a goal is just strange, and concerns itself too much with the ideal of a tool and not enough with the more important question: What if our lives get much, much better? Roughly everyone wants more out of life including the top one percent…
This is completely incoherent. Of course we need deterministic computer programs; much of society depends on it.
All software written will not disappear. There is nothing keeping us from using partly undeterministic software (see: humans) to write deterministic programs.
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#163It's no surprise. The wild tech optimism of the 1990s and 2000s has completely fallen apart as time and time again tech companies have proved to be some of the most hostile actors in most American's lives. Perhaps edged out only by things such as actual violent crime and partisan hatred. (which itself, of course, is stoked to the absolute maximum in part due to technology trends in the past 15 years or so) The loneli…
People just forget the before times. No one wants to go back to printing out driving directions or emailing photos. We take all these things for granted now but I am 100 certain the technology we have now has saved hundreds of millions of lives through downstream butterfly effects.
How does not printing directions save hundreds of millions of lives?
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#164The pushback I see everywhere outside of tech suggests the tech industry vastly overestimated the interest. The tech industry doesn't speak for the entire planet as much as it likes to think it does.
They didn't overestimate the interest. ChatGPT is extremely popular and notable.
>The tech industry doesn't speak for the entire planet
Of course they don't, but they are still allowed to make a product, and pivot if there's no consumer demand. However there is huge consumer and business demand for AI so they are justified in making the investments they are.
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#165It is to America’s great fortune that her technological innovations are not passed by committee. In particular, polls always capture the status quo. Other things that were widely unpopular: interracial marriage, gay marriage. And especially for technology, public opinion led to the stalling of fission power in the US. So hurray for ignoring the majority of people. I’m glad people can offer other people services in a…
This is an insane take.
Also wrong, gay marriage had 60% support before Obergefell v. Hodges.
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#166I think one positive thing that might come of this is for AI to act as a sort of counterweight to the fragmentation of reality into different filter bubbles.
It might be difficult to make models that have useful, high intelligence, but also are very biased. It could create a sort of grounding in logic and reality.
Grok might actually be early evidence of this. Despite the bad press it gets, it's really not so bad.
One can always hope ...
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm legit pretty excited about applying AI to accelerate biological and medical discovery. It's already happening right now, still in relatively mundane ways, but there's so much to do.
I fear that at this rate the oligarchs will use medical breakthroughs to keep us alive and laboring against our and nature’s will like what industrial farming has done to chickens and other livestock
I worry that you're right, although they might change what "alive" means
https://www.science.org/content/article/not-alive-not-dead-d...
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#168It's no surprise. The wild tech optimism of the 1990s and 2000s has completely fallen apart as time and time again tech companies have proved to be some of the most hostile actors in most American's lives. Perhaps edged out only by things such as actual violent crime and partisan hatred. (which itself, of course, is stoked to the absolute maximum in part due to technology trends in the past 15 years or so) The loneli…
> ... tech companies have proved to be some of the most hostile actors in most American's lives. Perhaps edged out only by things such as actual violent crime
Not so fast. Violent crime has been declining for about 30 years. Tech has been ascendant in that time.
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#169It's the people not technology. Way back before AI was the hot issue, Eric Schmidt set a new bar for being tone deaf by going straight for saying privacy is dead get over it. Not "here are some tools to retain some privacy," not "here is some legislation to punish privacy violations," just get over it.
It's gotten worse from there. The "dark enlightenment." Flirting with fascism. Creating the biggest meme stocks in history and promoting that as accomplishment. You're not fooling enough people. We might not be in your face about it, but we know you're not good people.
Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society
#170> Despite all of the skepticism, a whole lot of Americans also report using AI in their daily lives on an increasingly regular basis. About a quarter of Americans say they use AI chatbots on a daily basis. Those who do are typically using the chatbots for research purposes or for work, Pew says. Yeah, we don't have a choice. These things were foisted upon us, and now we all just have to deal with it, so long as we wa…
Yes, "use this or be fired" tends to have an impact. A friend once made a analogy to opium: Sure, it's supposed to be addictive, but if you say no anyways, we're going to show up with gunboats.