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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

#181

Post by bwestergard »

manoDev wrote: post #71
AngryData wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tech industry is overestimating its value. Because it can code they think it can do anything else, but unlike code a lot of other work can't have a bunch of little bugs and mistakes because you can't open up real life and edit it after the fact. Plus it lacks actual reasoning to solve novel problems. Hiring an engineer to finetooth comb blueprints for mistakes before construction will take nearly as much…

Definitely. The secret will be identifying use cases where AI usage is a potential upside with limited downside, not the current blanket statements about replacing all jobs without considering lifetime ROI. There’s a lot of boring work AI can automate with minimal risk. There’s also the potential to decrease risk with AI too, including ensembles of different AIs modals and AI + human.

"There’s a lot of boring work AI can automate with minimal risk. There’s also the potential to decrease risk with AI too, including ensembles of different AIs modals and AI + human."

I think the trouble, economically speaking, is that while it will be possible from a purely technical standpoint to unbundle a job performed by a human into separate tasks, many of which can be "done" by agents, the new process will not present a cost savings overall once the entire lifecycle of the task is taken into account. The economist David Autor has written about these challenges extensively, and his theory accords with my experiences.

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

#182

Post by BruSwain »

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…

This is definitely a take.

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

#183

Post by sylos »

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.

The system won't change until there is massive chaos and destruction. Why would it otherwise? The people with the means to gently and voluntarily change things are living like gods. They have no incentive to help. In fact, a sick and unhealthy society keeps competitors weak. No, I'm afraid to say there will be no fixing things.

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

#184

Post by Zigurd »

ericmcer wrote: post #123
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…

Heavily agree. The computer should be a force for order, because being a living creature is chaos. That said LLMs can be used in ways that promote order. People just got excited and wanted to believe they could be trusted in chaos mode. For reference chaos mode would be prompting something like: "Look at my journal entries and tell me what I should do to fix my life". Versus using one to build a table of common theme…

Part of the reason coding agents are widely accepted and used is that human coders are chaos, and human coders have spent a lot of time building tooling to ameliorate chaos. Everything from git to language design, to lint, to profilers, etc. was built to keep the human chaos out. It's pretty good at keeping the LLM chaos out, and when it blows up anyway you can roll it back to the previous commit.

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

#186

Post by mlsu »

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…

Stubbing my toe fucking sucks, but perhaps the fact that I think it sucks is actually evidence that it is secretly a good thing!

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

#187

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

sheeshkebab wrote: post #26
khalic wrote: post #9

People don’t even know what it is, they think it’s chat bots. Useless statistic. In the meantime, AI has given scientists 20 years of incredible tools, from which we now reap the fruits in our daily lives

it’s not been useful anywhere else - no self driving cars, no laundry helpers - just some idiotic animatronic carcasses that are barely able to walk around, and semi autonomous killer bots on ukraine frontlines.

I saw over a dozen self driving cars on my way to work today. Weave Robotics launched a laundry helper months ago, although my sense is that "laundry folding" is a bit of a meme and people don't actually care very much about automating it.

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

#188

Post by arjie »

megaman821 wrote: post #175
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.

Amusingly, I actually tried something like this using /r/wallstreetbets and there was no signal I could extract on a sufficiently small scale. Far dominated by Trump antics and rate actions. Perhaps others will have better luck.

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

#190

Post by [deleted] »

ctoth wrote: post #113
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…

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?

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