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My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

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Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#111

Post by crote »

jltsiren wrote: post #90
yogthos wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find interesting is the contrast between the West and China here. Most people in the West expect that AI will make their lives worse in some way. Meanwhile, 84% of Chinese are excited about this tech, and expect that it will be used to make their lives better. it's a really vivid contrast between the way new technology becomes integrated into each type of society. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-0…

The same probably holds without AI. China is still in the stage of development, where people reasonably expect that the future will be better. The West has not really been optimistic about the future since the 90s. There is always something around the corner threatening to make the future worse. Maybe it's the economy, maybe it's climate change, maybe immigration, or terrorism, or war, or whatever.

Don't forget the completely unaccountable megacorps who are increasingly invading our day-to-day lives, and the politicians whose main priority seems to be competing for their bribes.

The depressing part isn't that we are facing hard challenges and declining as a society. The depressing part is that it is a deliberate action.

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#112

Post by akoboldfrying »

vkou wrote: post #104
akoboldfrying wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric motors empower you, and are available to almost anyone. AI is much more available to people than motors of any kind. Long-press your Android phone's power button: There's Gemini.

> AI is much more available to people than motors of any kind Vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, automobiles of all shapes and sizes (private and shared), power tools are all examples of electric motors that you own and can do useful things with. What electric motors do is give you power over your environment. --- You don't own Gemini. You are allowed to use Gemini as long as your eco…

The home appliances you list all cost money; Gemini (or ChatGPT, etc.) are all available for free, even on devices you already owned before they were even invented. They could not be any cheaper.

> You don't own Gemini.

That distinction is academic here -- just as a car that I rent instead of owning offers me no difference in "power". I don't care at all who owns the thing that answers my "What is autorotation?" question about a clip I just saw on Reddit.

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#113

Post by crote »

BluSyn wrote: post #91
japhyr wrote: post #2

Of course everyone hates AI. For most people, it's actively making their lives worse, not better. AI is a really effective technology when used with restraint, in appropriate places. But it's rarely being used with restraint, and it's being inserted just about everywhere. If you're trying to work in AI on a product related to education, you've got a really high bar to clear to prove that you're actually helping stude…

It's made my life way better. I love it, it's incredible boost on my ability to learn and produce. Don't know anyone who's life was made worse by it, and I strongly doubt you do either. Remember when people said open-sourcing GPT2 would cause world destruction? They keep saying this with every new model release? And it keeps not happening? Hmm. This is all FUD. All evidence suggests more AI is better, and all claims…

> Don't know anyone who's life was made worse by it, and I strongly doubt you do either.

Have you tried using a search engine lately, or visiting a social media platform, or buying a computer/smartphone?

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#114

Post by rf15 »

palmotea wrote: post #107
jrockway wrote: post #25

Relatable. AI is something I only bring up to the most trusted of trusted friends. Politics is more approachable these days. I think a lot of people have formed opinions without having used it, and honestly, they probably can't afford to use it. I use Claude a lot at work because it's something my employer provides, and I'm always impressed with the results. It saves a lot of time and lets me get more done. But it ai…

> But it ain't cheap. So people really don't get to try out AI and form their own opinions.... > I also think people are mad at the world. Times are tough for many. Hearing about a job-killing machine doesn't exactly inspire joy. So I kind of understand the pushback on datacenters and AI and that sort of thing. I don't find it particularly logical; datacenters have existed forever and most money poured into computer…

> Then you need to quit confusing simplistic pattern matching for logic. Details matter, as do degree and scale.

But that's the core problem of AI fanatics, isn't it. They cannot comprehend how people who saw and used the same thing they did, and came away with "this smells like fancy autocomplete" instead of "this is genuine intelligence!"

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#115

Post by crote »

manux wrote: post #48
jrockway wrote: post #25

Relatable. AI is something I only bring up to the most trusted of trusted friends. Politics is more approachable these days. I think a lot of people have formed opinions without having used it, and honestly, they probably can't afford to use it. I use Claude a lot at work because it's something my employer provides, and I'm always impressed with the results. It saves a lot of time and lets me get more done. But it ai…

This is a very relatable comment. I think it's demoralizing to see common objections to AI, it feels to me like we failed and haven't done our communication job. I'm always temped to go, "Yes, but there's worse!"

No, the communication has been pretty clear. A lot of people just don't like the Torment Nexus.

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#116

Post by HexPhantom »

I agree with most of the diagnosis but I am less convinced that better UX around AI solves the underlying problem. Every product starts out saying "human in the loop" and "augment, don't replace" but the economic incentive is almost always to remove more of the human over time…

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#117

Post by crote »

Legend2440 wrote: post #84
crmd wrote: post #18

Ordinary people were generally marvelous of the electric motor because it was obvious how it would make life better. Their great grandchildren, with the same common sense, are extremely cynical about LLMs and other knowledge work robots. What changed?

I don't think your premise is true. Remember John Henry, worried that the steam engine would put him out of a job drilling holes in rocks? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore) Ludditism has a long history, and they made the exact same arguments about job loss in the 1800s as today.

You should look up the history of what actually happened with the Luddites. They weren't opposed to the machines (many were even machine operators!), they were opposed to the manufacturers circumventing labour rights. Turns out people don't like routinely seeing 12-year-old children getting scalped by a weaving machine!

They targeted the machines because it was the most convenient way to sabotage a factory, not because they hated the machine itself.

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#118

Post by HexPhantom »

japhyr wrote: post #2

Of course everyone hates AI. For most people, it's actively making their lives worse, not better. AI is a really effective technology when used with restraint, in appropriate places. But it's rarely being used with restraint, and it's being inserted just about everywhere. If you're trying to work in AI on a product related to education, you've got a really high bar to clear to prove that you're actually helping stude…

The bar should probably be even higher in education than elsewhere. If an AI tool saves a student 30 minutes but also removes the 30 minutes where they would have struggled with the material, it may look like a productivity win while being an educational loss

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#119

Post by crote »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #112
vkou wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI is much more available to people than motors of any kind Vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, automobiles of all shapes and sizes (private and shared), power tools are all examples of electric motors that you own and can do useful things with. What electric motors do is give you power over your environment. --- You don't own Gemini. You are allowed to use Gemini as long as your eco…

The home appliances you list all cost money; Gemini (or ChatGPT, etc.) are all available for free, even on devices you already owned before they were even invented. They could not be any cheaper. > You don't own Gemini. That distinction is academic here -- just as a car that I rent instead of owning offers me no difference in "power". I don't care at all who owns the thing that answers my "What is autorotation?" ques…

What a clever question! You are absolutely right to be curious about that. Autorotation is a critical part of daily life, after all. If you would like me to expand on this, please drink another Google Gemini - Powered By Red Bull: It Gives You Wings! verification can.

Re: My friends all hate AI; I just joined an AI startup

#120

Post by HexPhantom »

pier25 wrote: post #79
japhyr wrote: post #2

Of course everyone hates AI. For most people, it's actively making their lives worse, not better. AI is a really effective technology when used with restraint, in appropriate places. But it's rarely being used with restraint, and it's being inserted just about everywhere. If you're trying to work in AI on a product related to education, you've got a really high bar to clear to prove that you're actually helping stude…

> you've got a really high bar to clear to prove that you're actually helping students learn better, and teachers teach better Absolutely. In fact the data from the past 10-15 years clearly shows the best education technology is still pen and paper, books, and good pedagogy.

Yep... pen, paper, books and a good teacher are annoyingly hard to beat because they force the student to actually do the cognitive work
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