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The AI backlash is only getting started

economist.com

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Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#71

Post by estearum »

dwa3592 wrote: post #64

People have been made to believe by very influential people (dario, sam, elon etc) that AI will replace them. As a result people are getting angry. Who did not see this coming? Why da f*#$ do they have to continue developing a technology which they think will replace droves of people by machines?? There is nothing sexy about it. There is nothing cool about it either. Imagine a taxi driver facing his family knowing he…

Just because people are angry does not make it false.

> Why da f*#$ do they have to continue developing a technology which they think will replace droves of people by machines??

Because arms race.

Game dynamics and incentive structures don't cease to exist just because someone notices them.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#72

Post by greenavocado »

LPisGood wrote: post #65
greenavocado wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end goal is to mechanize and automate everything to "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." They are literally telling you this; it's written in stone. Once this is achieved, everyone else can turn into compost.

Are you talking about that rock art sculpture in the southern United States? I really think you’re giving the system too much credit if you believe there is such a grand plan

If you think the freemasons who erected it aren't serious, you aren't paying attention.

Look at your c-suite executive team and you'll find it stacked with them.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#74

Post by pelotron »

"AI promises to change the world for the better" - so far it's clear the world will be better for a few people. A promise that it will be better for everyone reads like "trust me, bro."

"Blockers need to be shown that their local area will benefit if they get out of the way." Benefit how? Will this be like when your city convinces you it's in everyone's interest to subsidize the latest billionaire-owned sports stadium?

"If America succumbs [to popular rage], it could cede the global ai frontier" ah here we go. The next generation of Too Big To Fail.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#75

Post by dofm »

dwa3592 wrote: post #64

People have been made to believe by very influential people (dario, sam, elon etc) that AI will replace them. As a result people are getting angry. Who did not see this coming? Why da f*#$ do they have to continue developing a technology which they think will replace droves of people by machines?? There is nothing sexy about it. There is nothing cool about it either. Imagine a taxi driver facing his family knowing he…

> People have been made to believe by very influential people (dario, sam, elon etc) that AI will replace them. As a result people are getting angry. Who did not see this coming?

Cal Newport calls this "Doom-Trolling" — there was an NYT article, he has talked about it on his youtube channel and there was an actually really great, long discussion with Ed Zitron about it where Ed covered a lot more topic ground than he has been focussed on lately.

He makes the case that this fear-based marketing is causing real harm and unnecessary anxiety and is basically despicable.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#77

Post by greenavocado »

watwut wrote: post #62
gruez wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The untold promise of [tractors] is to replace labor. [...] Mere tools would never justify this kind of investment. How's this any different than say, tractors, or the mechanical loom? After all, agricultural employment went from 90% in the past to 1% today.

I don't know how tractors were sold initially, but AI is sold with open goal of making majority of the people unemployable, "obsolete" and keep it that way. That is literal rhetoric of those companies. Tractors are tools to make hard boring labor easier.

Tractors at least grant some degree of agency to their operators.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#78

Post by HEmanZ »

baron816 wrote: post #54
vitorfblima wrote: post #19

The untold promise of IA is to replace labor. That's probably the only reason why some people are willing to spend trillions of dollars in pursuing this technology. Mere tools would never justify this kind of investment. It's no surprise that people are getting angry, even though many are using AI in their everyday life.

This is just how productivity works. If people spend less time building a unit of output, then you have more output. People aren’t going to stop wanting stuff. Right now, the world can’t come close to making all the stuff people want. As long as there’s a desire for further consumption, there will be work for people to do.

I don’t think the claim is that people will be less productive, the world will be far more productive.

The claim is that the value of most human labor will be at or near enough to 0 compared to deploying capital (robots, ai) to product the same goods. So humanity becomes owners living ludicrously well on highly productive capital and everyone else getting whatever “humanitarian” portion is assigned to them. And no way to move from “permanent underclass” to capital owning class, besides maybe winning the Beast Games.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#79

Post by jasperry »

eventinbox wrote: post #2

people conflate "AI is overhyped" with "AI is useless" and neither is quite right. the backlash is mostly against the hype cycle not the tech itself. give it 2 years

The proper backlash should be not about its capability level but how it's being used. AI is being adopted to deploy mass surveillance on an unprecedented scale, and to make decisions that affect people's lives without being evaluated by a human first. Those seem worthy of lashing back against.
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