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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

#111

Post by treis »

adamddev1 wrote: post #60
treis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think the government is like today? At least with LLMs you'd get your incorrect answer quickly and cheaply.

Human incompetence, or human-written algorithmic incompetence in code can still be identified, appealed to, and dealt with. With LLMs you get incompetence cut off from human embodiment and any chance of empathy, baked into opaque black-boxes, and automated and scaled. We should be arriving to build things that are correct, not saying "stuff sucks already, let's make more stuff that sucks."

There are theoretically appeals but for the most part they're illusionary. The original decision is given a lot of deference and the appeal is almost always denied. Plus it's gated beyond a lot of time and money. In adversarial proceedings that's a weapon for one side or the other.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#112

Post by AnimalMuppet »

greenavocado wrote: post #72
LPisGood wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you think that the freemasons who erected it are running the AI revolution, I think that you aren't serious.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#113

Post by justonepost2 »

yunwal wrote: post #100
justonepost2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case there is, by definition, no “medical and health services manager” or “data scientist” in the future. Nothing comes next.

> "by definition" Who's definition are we talking about here

The definition of AGI?

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#114

Post by beej71 »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #94
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…

> 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. This argument alone doesn't really work because literally billions of peoples jobs and livelihoods have been replaced throughout history from the explicit development of technology that replaces the need for human labor. The…

> The question should not be whether the technology replaces people by machines, it should be whether it provides a net benefit overall

I like this framing.

But I wish more people would acknowledge that genAI offloads thinking in ways that the printing press, the loom, the calculator, and the computer never did.

I find a net benefit to be extremely unlikely, but the devil's in the details. We'd have to define "benefit" and that's already a big kettle of worms.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#115

Post by martythemaniak »

The problem is not the technology but the size and dominance of the tech sector. Current AI is a promising new technology that can do a lot great stuff, just like the internet and smartphones. But in the 90s the tech sector was tiny, and even in the late 2000s the current behemoths were like 20x smaller than they are today.

Today the tech companies dominate people's lives and attention, everything people do goes through a few companies in one way or another. The google of 2007 was a plucky underdog who promised to Do No Evil. Today they are so huge, the size itself is scary. Instead of being happy you got 2GB free email, you're slightly anxious about accidentally getting flagged by some automated recourse-less system that'll lock you out of your data and disrupt your life significantly. AI startups don't offer a respite, they small but even more scammy and slight-of-hand-y. AI industry marketing is best summed up as "You're a worthless piece of shit NPC and we'll take your job, your personal data and your attention. Buy our shit"

That is to say, people probably understand (on vibe level mostly) that this great new tech will be leveraged to the max by bad rich people to make their lives worse. Nothing innate about the tech dictates this, but it is the way things are turning out. I expect more backlash in the future.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#116

Post by dofm »

yunwal wrote: post #95
vitorfblima wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about ALL labor.

AI is not cutting my hair anytime soon. AI is not making my meals anytime soon. It's not organizing events, or doing anything in the real world. It's not doing my open heart surgery. Robots are still doing this in 2026 https://www.news.com.au/sport/carnage-at-start-of-robot-mara... We might have to get off the computer, and we might have to rethink how we organize the world economically, but there is still work to be…

> AI is not cutting my hair anytime soon.

This is an absolutely bizarre pitch for labour replacement for the very obvious reason that the rate at which the world's hair grows is not going to increase and nor are we going to suddenly discover a great need for new high maintenance hair styles to increase the work available.

There are clearly at a first approximation enough barbers and hairdressers already to cut the world's hair at the rate it is growing.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#117

Post by justonepost2 »

BeetleB wrote: post #110
justonepost2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do people still conflate “sectoral changes in the labor market” with “humans become zoo animals”? The scale just seems fundamentally different.

> The scale just seems fundamentally different. Not at all. I doubt LLMs will result in a 90x drop in the overall labor workforce. The agricultural shift was likely greater than the shift due to LLMs will be.

So you don’t believe in AGI then?

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#118

Post by BeetleB »

fireflash38 wrote: post #91
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.

Do you think that happened bloodlessly with everyone very happy about it? The industrial revolution came along with massive production of goods that people need and desire. Even then, there was still a huge amount of pushback (it still echoes in a lot of communities today!). Do you see any differences compared to the AI revolution we're being sold?

> Do you think that happened bloodlessly with everyone very happy about it?

Do you not think the ultimate outcome was worth it?

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#119

Post by dofm »

gruez wrote: post #55
vitorfblima wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about ALL labor.

Do you think the average dirt farmer in the 1800 is going to be assuaged by the prospect of almost all farm work being mechanized, because he can be a "medical and health services manager" or "data scientist" instead? https://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm

What's a dirt farmer?

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#120

Post by estearum »

tengbretson wrote: post #103
estearum wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, here's a direct answer: Even after the mechanical loom was created, figuring out the next most important problem to work on was a job that humans did. Unless you believe there's some hard limit on AI intelligence that will constrain it below the intelligence of a particular earthbound hairless ape, then eventually AI will be perfectly sufficient and probably better at figuring out the next most important proble…

That assumes that a value-judgement can be optimally made with intelligence alone.

In every sense that economically matters (i.e. in every sense that will actually attract the resources required to realize such a determination), it can be.
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