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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

#321

Post by layer8 »

JoBrad wrote: post #199
slg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of American society will get to share in the benefits of those new biological and medical discoveries when we don't have any health insurance because we lost our jobs to AI?

An optimistic view is that the jobs displaced by AI will be like the jobs displaced by industrialization: while fewer people will be needed to do the task, there will be more demand for the task over time, opening up new jobs with different skill sets than the previous job required. At least one data point in favor of this view is the middling success of the AI rollout so far. Of course it’s eclipsed in the short run…

What would be “the task”, other than physical labor or doing dull RLHF work, unless you’re in the 1% of exceptional intellectual talent that AI won’t be able to replace yet?

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

#322

Post by cryo32 »

cozzyd wrote: post #315
idank wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The success of AI doesn't hinge on whether you can vibecode it all or even one particular sector really well. For example, despite several attempts to make vibecoding PCBs, it's still pretty crap. But it's really useful as a copilot, human in the loop for targeted tasks in electronics. Same for CAD work, not so good at drawing but still useful at looking at an image, understanding it, and answering specific questions…

It can barely read a datasheet correctly, in my experience, getting confused between different registers.

Yeah throw it at a moderately complex STM32 clock arrangement and see what comes out.

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

#323

Post by derektank »

paytonjjones wrote: post #290
wyre wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 60s were 60 years ago. There were regulations back then that protected the common folk and capitalism wasn't as ruthless and aligned with the will of the 0.1% as it is now. I want to be optimistic and agree with you, but I don't think the parallels are as strong as you say they are. We already have Anthropic withhold Mythos from the public, the governement now allowing the use of Fable, I don't think its farfetch…

What regulations do you feel protected common folk from capitalism during the development of computing, and how have they weakened?

I was also struck by this. We are a far more regulated society today than in the 1960s. The total body of codified federal law, statutory plus regulatory, grew from roughly 78,000 pages in 1960 to roughly 246,000 pages by 2020. The content matters of course, but I’m skeptical that under-regulation is the problem.

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

#324

Post by carodgers »

It behooves every company working on some form of actual AI to immediately switch branding to distance themselves from the slop bots. Call it image recognition, automated translate, inventory automation, what have you.

I tried to use claude for a completely menial task yesterday, adding some resistant-starch foods to my diet, and it was worse than useless. Actively wasting my time with claims that buckled as soon as I questioned them and completely falsified citations from product pages that it recommended.

If you are branding your product as "AI" when these word salad spitters are still dominating headlines, you deserve all the headwinds coming to you.

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

#326

Post by watwut »

hparadiz wrote: post #272
whimsicalism wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nah, that was ass. i think the really major negative has just been scrollable video. all these other things - uber, airbnb, grocery pickup, etc. have largely just made my life better.

Can you imagine sitting around waiting for a phone call these days? At home? With a landline? Lol. Or going to the video store to drop $20 (with inflation today: $48) on three movies that you had to actually return by driving. The romantic waxing about hanging out with people is hilarious. More often than not it meant coming home at 10 pm and watching shitty network tv by yourself. Now I can play games with all my fr…

I never done any of those things. And I was there, I was old enough. I was not desperately waiting for phone calls or paid a lot of money to borrow movies.

Somehow, I occupied myself just fine, was meeting friends regularly and did activities regularly. There was no societally wide lack of entertainment.

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

#327

Post by mcmcmc »

cryo32 wrote: post #243
JoBrad wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never seen these style arguments pass the “show me a good example” phase, at the scale that would be needed to “prop up the economy.”

Well look at my 500 seat company. We laid off 200 people with no measurable productivity impact. And we didn't embrace AI in the process. We were just keeping the unemployment figures down. Also look at the large tech companies. Same story.

Current layoffs are more correlated with overhiring during/after Covid. The fed money printer, growing national debt and low interest rates are more to blame.

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

#328

Post by francisofascii »

coffeecat wrote: post #231
chasil wrote: post #96

I am mixed on the question. Claude has been quite helpful in reviewing my investments, and I have made a fair amount of money on his advice. His availability is unparalleled compared to any sort of financial planner. Professionally, I have run my programs and scripts through Copilot/OpenAI and sometimes received caustic and fiery criticism, but others praise with helpful suggestions. Oftentimes it does make fundament…

> Claude has been quite helpful in reviewing my investments, and I have made a fair amount of money on his advice. His availability is unparalleled compared to any sort of financial planner. Just out of curiosity, what are some investment moves that you made as a result of Claude's advice? "In a bull market, everyone's a genius."

This. The gains made by Claude stock picks should be compared a reasonable alternative investment strategy over the same timeframe.

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

#329

Post by zuzululu »

vanuatu wrote: post #212
zuzululu wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably because none of these polls can be trusted or accurate representation

but we trust the stat that 16 pct of americans have a positive view?

none includes the article in question.

polls are often done in a way to prove their own biases

if they were taken serious then what we are allowed to say or not would change drastically and political correctness would be laughed out of the room.

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

#330

Post by nathan_compton »

JoBrad wrote: post #199
slg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of American society will get to share in the benefits of those new biological and medical discoveries when we don't have any health insurance because we lost our jobs to AI?

An optimistic view is that the jobs displaced by AI will be like the jobs displaced by industrialization: while fewer people will be needed to do the task, there will be more demand for the task over time, opening up new jobs with different skill sets than the previous job required. At least one data point in favor of this view is the middling success of the AI rollout so far. Of course it’s eclipsed in the short run…

It took decades if not hundreds of years for the social disruption of industrialization to clear.

I literally do not give a fuck about some hypothetical more productive activity I might be able to do in 150 years if it destroys my very real present ability to take care of my family today.

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