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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

#171

Post by awkwardpotato »

jstummbillig wrote: post #86
gortok wrote: post #29

When I use a computer to do work I want the computer to be right. I want to be able to trust the computer. With the inherit non-determinism and probabilistic nature of generative-AI, that fundamental reason why I engage a computer is lost. If the spreadsheet is wrong, it’s because the math is wrong, it’s because I made a mistake. It’s not because all of a sudden the computer decided the nature of algebra should be di…

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…

> Thinking that computer software must be exempt from that mess as a goal is just strange

Software is deterministic, it has been since its inception[0]. Why go from something objective/provable to something that does "strange things", when we already have former? It's like making bricks out of paper and declaring "actually, this is logical next step for bricks because stuff waves in the wind".

> What if our lives get much, much better?

What if not?

[0] (Yes not really/actually if we're being pedantic)

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#172

Post by toomuchtodo »

svara wrote: post #135
slg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only hope we have is that they're wrong, and their power to change things will be minimal. What even is the optimistic outcome if they are right? What are we all working towards? Like do people think that these AI companies will create some superintelligence, suck up all the financial benefits of that, and then just decide to share it with the rest of us out of kindness? Because I legitimately can't see a realis…

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.

Superhuman abilities for the wealthy tech oligarchs, economic indentured servitude and slums for the rest of us.

Tens of millions of people in the US alone cannot obtain basic healthcare today, how would this outcome change for them because AI solved it? The only solid paths are regulation or prying the machine from the hands of those who hold it. GLP-1s are only widely available globally affordably because the patent expired, for example.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#173

Post by raincole »

I believe the current pessimistic atmosphere has very little to do with AI.

Sure, only 16% of Americans think AI will have a positive impact. But if you ask if they believe smart phone, social media, metaverse, crypto, etc will have a positive impact I highly doubt you'll get a much bigger number.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#174

Post by pdonis »

thewebguyd wrote: post #152
ctoth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are jobs for? Should we have them? Should they be mandatory? What does it mean to have to work to eat, is this a good setup? Does everyone have to work? Should they?

I'd answer: No, we should not have to work to eat, they should not be mandatory, and no not everyone has to work. But those problems need solved first before completely upending the current system. The system does need changed, but that change must happen before mass unemployment, not after the fact.

> we should not have to work to eat

It takes time and effort and resources to produce the food you eat. If you aren't expending that time and effort and resources yourself, either to produce the food, or to produce something you can trade for it (or trade for money you use to buy it), who will?

If the answer is "other people", why should other people have to work to produce the food you eat while you don't?

If the answer is "machines", then it takes time and effort and resources to produce the machines, and we're right back to the same question.

There are no other answers.

There is no magical way to let people eat (much less have all the other things besides food, clothing and shelter that we all want to make our lives richer, such as the medium in which we're having this conversation) without work being done. Ignoring that fact of life is a recipe for disaster.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#175

Post by megaman821 »

arjie wrote: post #155

It 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…

Polls like these always remimnd me that I need set up a investing strategy that does the opposite of public sentiment.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#176

Post by ori_b »

vanuatu wrote: post #91

It's interesting that many developing and Asian countries have a more positive view of AI: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/15/people-around-the-w... How much of this is due to AI vs. the government and corporate structures in society? (Saw elsewhere that Chinese people were also much more optimistic)

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/01/nx-s1-5807131/tech-worker-chi...

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#177

Post by hparadiz »

bix6 wrote: post #163
hparadiz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Oh man I can tell you're young. Those directions weren't always right. You couldn't just pull out your phone and find the nearest hospital if something happened during your trip. Or call 911 and have them find you by GPS. And that's just one casual convenience you take for granted. People used to drive around asking random people to use their phone in emergencies. Not exactly fast when seconds matter.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#178

Post by audran_marid »

arjie wrote: post #155

It 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…

Interracial and gay marriage were not "wildly unpopular" "technological innovations". What an extraordinary stretch to try to tie the in-fact deeply unpopular, job-destroying and wealth-concentrating AI boom to human--HUMAN--rights victories.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#179

Post by jurgenaut23 »

Not surprising and well deserved: our industry has done a remarkably poor job at balancing public and shareholder interests. Of course that isn’t the _only_ industry in this situation, but its deep intricacies into personal lives and psyches has made it particularly bad.

The boss of the main private TV channel in France famously said in 90s that his job consisted in “selling brain time to advertisers”. What was handicraft has been turned into a mass extraction business by the Google and Facebook of our world. AI is the cherry on the cake, really.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#180

Post by cryo32 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #164
cryo32 wrote: post #2

The 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.

Not quite. They don't operate like that.

It is not ok to lobby and manipulate governments for fiscal policy changes to write off the costs and risks on the general public.

We MUST be entirely insulated from their failure as society. If they can't raise the capital for the product then they should fail quietly and insignificantly which is not what is going to happen at the moment.

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