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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

#11

Post by pixl97 »

shimman wrote: post #4
throwfaraway135 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is already too useful to discard, we could automate 90% bureaucracy and government jobs and no one would feel the difference. But of course fear/angst/rage sells.

AI is so useful they have to subsidize it with trillions of dollars while having no near term profit. AI is so useful that you have to threaten workers in order for them to use the tools. I'm sorry but all of this is to be determined but if the present is any indicator LLMs tend to make things distinctly worse, not better. Any areas of "potential" still rely on massive amounts of manual human labor, hardly a trillion…

Conflating useful and profitable is a strawman you've created yourself. There are plenty of issues with AI but that's a weird hill to stand on.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#12

Post by cryo32 »

josefritzishere wrote: post #10

Frankly, most AI is pretty meh, really only impressing AI enthusiasts, with their near religious fervor. There's a big delta there between power users and everyone else. It writes bad emails, messy code, incorrect metrics, dubious slide decks, ugly graphics... the consumer rejection of AI is only growing. At the same time, the product itself is sold wildly below cost. So it needs to be increase in price at the same t…

That’s roughly it.

I don’t really have a use for it myself that I can’t solve some other way cheaper or easier without the damage and uncertainty it does.

I’m not really that impressed.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#13

Post by adamddev1 »

throwfaraway135 wrote: post #3
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

AI is already too useful to discard, we could automate 90% bureaucracy and government jobs and no one would feel the difference. But of course fear/angst/rage sells.

People absolutely would feel the difference if AI models started making 90% of the decisions.

You were just denied an application because some LLM decided you fit a certain statistical pattern. Where did the LLM go wrong? What were the steps taken to make that decision? Who can you appeal to? Nobody. AI bureaucracy would just keep chugging along, making decisions based on prejudices and patterns it finds but doesn't feel.

Rainer Mühlhoff makes some compelling arguments in trying to warn people of the dangers of an AI bureaucracy/state.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#14

Post by hatefulheart »

shimman wrote: post #4
throwfaraway135 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is already too useful to discard, we could automate 90% bureaucracy and government jobs and no one would feel the difference. But of course fear/angst/rage sells.

AI is so useful they have to subsidize it with trillions of dollars while having no near term profit. AI is so useful that you have to threaten workers in order for them to use the tools. I'm sorry but all of this is to be determined but if the present is any indicator LLMs tend to make things distinctly worse, not better. Any areas of "potential" still rely on massive amounts of manual human labor, hardly a trillion…

Indeed it is so self evidently useful that you have to discover the correct way to use it.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#15

Post by frankie_t »

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

I think AI backlash has less to do with the tech itself and more with its broader impact on society in the current system, if it delivers a quarter of its promises. Those doing the backlashing feel that they are going to lose much more than they are going to gain.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#16

Post by sanderjd »

therobots927 wrote: post #6
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

I think a lot of it is actually the tech for a lot of reasons: 0. No one wants a datacenter in their backyard or hooked up to the grid while the electricity burden is carried by households. People are afraid of losing their property values and being unable to move away if a DC is built nearby - effectively being trapped there. People in Memphis are breathing in gas fumes from the XAI datacenter there. There are conce…

I don't think this article is about the backlash among software engineers, but rather society at large. What's going on among software engineers is interesting, but I think it's a different thing, not a microcosm of the mainstream backlash.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#17

Post by adamddev1 »

josefritzishere wrote: post #10

Frankly, most AI is pretty meh, really only impressing AI enthusiasts, with their near religious fervor. There's a big delta there between power users and everyone else. It writes bad emails, messy code, incorrect metrics, dubious slide decks, ugly graphics... the consumer rejection of AI is only growing. At the same time, the product itself is sold wildly below cost. So it needs to be increase in price at the same t…

It seems by definition "below par" of whatever human activity it's training on. How can we achieve greater and greater heights of intelligence if we're just creeping closer and closer to a sub-par copy of human creative activity.

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#18

Post by [deleted] »

sanderjd wrote: post #16
therobots927 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of it is actually the tech for a lot of reasons: 0. No one wants a datacenter in their backyard or hooked up to the grid while the electricity burden is carried by households. People are afraid of losing their property values and being unable to move away if a DC is built nearby - effectively being trapped there. People in Memphis are breathing in gas fumes from the XAI datacenter there. There are conce…

I don't think this article is about the backlash among software engineers, but rather society at large. What's going on among software engineers is interesting, but I think it's a different thing, not a microcosm of the mainstream backlash.

[deleted]

Re: The AI backlash is only getting started

#19

Post by vitorfblima »

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.
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