Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#121

Post by microflash » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 3:57 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #112

microflash wrote: post #73

To me, “AI is just a tool” argument sounds so fake and hypocritical because that is not how the proponents of AI talk about it. Instead, it is marketed as “the tool” and in some cases, “the only tool”. This completely shifts the incentives, the balance of empowerment and narrative from the users to toolmakers. At that point, AI stops being “a” tool.

I don't care what "the proponents" say. If AI is "just a tool", then I wish to believe exactly that ( https://www.lesswrong.com/w/litany-of-tarski ). And right now, the evidence is strongly leading me in that direction. Marketers believing their own hype, leading to companies taking bad actions, is bad. But it is neither my problem, nor does it change what the truth is.

My problem is not with the marketing; they do their own thing all the time. It’s the people who drink the cool-aid and force “the tool” on others who are a problem.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#122

Post by jraph » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 6:58 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #110

jraph wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but making them work doesn't usually boil the planet, exhaust all the resources and risk causing an economical crisis while stealing anything that lies around on the internet.

To the extent that these claims actually pan out, responsibility should be assigned to the companies developing these systems, not to their product.

Users of these products are also responsible. They are the ones deciding to use them. To the extent, of course, that their knowledge is obviously limited. And to the extent that they are also subject to the competition.

The problem here is that nobody is accountable for the externalities in this economic system where you can do damage as long as you have enough money to throw away toward this damage. Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI and Google obviously don't care. Public powers mostly don't (regulate) neither. If their potential users don't, who is going to?

The sad state of affairs is that nobody relevant cares, as usual.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#123

Post by keiferski » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 8:31 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #119

keiferski wrote: post #59

One of the most salient examples of this attitude is how the sub-field of the philosophy of technology is basically ignored by all technologists. “Why should doers care what thinkers think,” you might wonder? Well, because they might have important insights that you, as a practitioner, aren’t immediately aware of. The medical profession pays a lot of attention to bioethics and cares what philosophers think about issu…

Just because thinkers think something doesn't make them right. Thinkers are expected to defend their thoughts with arguments and logic. If they can't convince the do-ers, maybe their thoughts just aren't very deep and should rightly be ignored.

Pretty hard to be convinced by something if you don’t even bother to read it.

Also – you are really suggesting that the entirety of philosophy of technology field is “not very deep” …?

I rest my case.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#124

Post by foxglacier » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

Quothling wrote: post #77

foxglacier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this fatalism comes from a feeling that the enormous power of AI must somehow come with some sort of proportional cost. There isn't really any clearly known cost so maybe that's why people talk up the water and global warming and social impact fears and all that. In comparison, does anybody say they're burning down a bit of rainforest when they go to the toilet (and flush it)? Or when they cook dinner at…

I think the fatalism comes from having done a lot in our personal lives to live more sustainable, voting for green politics (in Europe you can find those everywhere on the political spectrum). You'll even find a "if it's yellow let it mellow" sign in the bathroom of a lot of my coworkers homes. Yet seing little impact because of how we as a global society continue to burn the planet. I know my fatalism comes from thi…

You don't flush your wees down the toilet!!? Why on earth not? Is your country somehow unable to provide municipal water?