To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks • Hacker News Board

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#161

Post by gobdovan » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

gobdovan wrote: post #108

nerdsniper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, “AI” was quake 2 bots, starcraft pathfinding algorithms, and chessbot personalities. I dont understand why the old definition of AI keeps being retconned.

IQ tests are restandardised from time to time. We could take the scores from 100 years ago and see that everybody would be gifted. Intelligence is usually defined as the skill in pursuing a goal, or speed of acquiring the ability for pursuing given goal. Given the goal-dependent nature, it's not that useful to use the same tests and measurements for intelligence over time, be it artificial or not.

[0] JR Flynn: The mean IQ of Americans: Massive gains 1932 to 1978.

[1] Legg, S., Hutter, M.: A collection of definitions of intelligence

[2] François Chollet, On the Measure of Intelligence

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#162

Post by adampunk » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #87

derac wrote: post #24

It's funny, I have the opposite experience of everyone around me hating AI. I'm not aggressively pro-AI around them at all but you aren't allowed to have any positive or nuanced opinion of the tech. I'm used to it though, I've been excited by the concept of AI since reading about Turing and such as a child 20 years ago. The idea has always been met with negativity, IMO because people want to feel that they have a par…

> you aren't allowed to have any positive or nuanced opinion of the tech. I'm finding this isn't unique to AI, it's as if our entire society has become black and white, overly tribal. There's little room for shades of gray now. Look at the issue of public drug use by the unhoused in PNW cities, as an example. If you state any opinion other than silent acceptance of the issue, you get called a far-right nutjob. Trying…

>Look at the issue of public drug use by the unhoused in PNW cities, as an example.

This is such a wild thing to bring up unprompted.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#163

Post by the13 » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

newaccountman2 wrote: post #151

beering wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not? You can talk to it in plain English and it can do things for you and respond back in a synthesized voice. I was reading an old Asimov short story about a guy who comes across a lost robot and has to trick it into staying put, and it felt weirdly prescient. (The story is “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”)

It's not really "intelligence" It's just the mimicry thereof. I probably fall into the "pro-AI" camp if we want to divide things along the binary, but it's pretty facile to consider this software to possess or represent "intelligence" IMO.

Agree, you're technically correct, and AI it's solving Erdos problems, even if we don't know exactly how or why. More mech interp & other research will help. https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2060451757818601808

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#164

Post by skeledrew » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

newaccountman2 wrote: post #151

beering wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not? You can talk to it in plain English and it can do things for you and respond back in a synthesized voice. I was reading an old Asimov short story about a guy who comes across a lost robot and has to trick it into staying put, and it felt weirdly prescient. (The story is “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”)

It's not really "intelligence" It's just the mimicry thereof. I probably fall into the "pro-AI" camp if we want to divide things along the binary, but it's pretty facile to consider this software to possess or represent "intelligence" IMO.

Yet it doesn't detract from the fact that 20 years ago this was purely sci-fi; nobody - or a least very few - then envisioned that we'd have the capability we have currently have. And of course we continue to have the same vision now that X won't be possible for a great many years, if ever. And we also continually carefully refine the generally accepted definition of "intelligence" so that it specifically excludes whatever the current capabilities are, so we can indefinitely continue to say "this isn't intelligence".

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#165

Post by johnwheeler » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

34asg wrote: post #142

johnwheeler wrote: post #56

> don't want to hang out with him any more because he'll have his phone with him and it's automatic for him now. This post sounds like selfishness/self-preservation masquerading as concern for humanity and the environment. You can be anti-AI all you want. You're wasting your breath and energy. I don't know if the quality of my life has gone up because I have these tools that help me build things in exchange for less…

Get in line and join the Hitler Youth! You have no say in the matter! Lead, follow or GTFO!

Wow, really?

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#166

Post by kartoffelsaft » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #35

ronbenton wrote: post #7

>This makes me an outcast. In tech, and out of it. In tech, maybe. Out of tech? No way. A bunch of surveys show that people are mostly negative on AI. For example: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/how-americans...

Is this a case of people saying one thing and doing another?? Everyone's experience is different, but to me it seems most people love AI?! I see reports in the news about people not being able to do anything anymore without asking AI first, people dating AI boy/girlfriends, students using AI to do homework, teachers using AI to catch AI cheating by students, people writing emails via AI, improving their own writing w…

I keep seeing this argument in various places on HN that usage implies a positive opinion, when it very much does not. AI has put most people in prisoner's dilemma, and in prisoner's dilemma you can simultaneously play the game and hate the game. To go through a few of your examples:

> Students using AI to do homework

Either you don't use AI, where you have to spend a lot of time studying or graduate bottom of your class, or you do and get on with your life. You can acknowledge that the studying is the valuable part (most students do in my experience) yet skip it for whatever reason (procrastination / life issues / etc).

> Teachers using AI to catch AI cheating by students

We've added an extra step to their already overloaded schedules. If they don't do this they're basically encouraging students to cheat this way.

> Translations

You can now easily get a translation with much better accuracy than before (presumably, I'm a monolingual English speaker), but now you aren't talking to any other human beings for this information. This goes for a lot of other knowledge-value work / hobbies too where asking questions is valuable.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#167

Post by kentm » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

Silagi wrote: post #150

dd8601fn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are about ten billion relevant and reasonable ways to differentiate and choose priorities in all of that. Suggesting that nobody is entitled to opinions on one category sounds kinda silly.

I'm specifically saying "I'm entitled to displace people with automation built on previous work, but automation that affects me shouldn't be allowed" is a particularly hypocritical take. The implications of AI aren't as novel as tech circles would like to believe. The same trends in employment and automation have been happening across industries for decades in slightly different forms. This is just the first time it…

I very much agree with this position. And it didn’t even have to be AI.

It’s possible that sufficiently advanced “dumb” compilers and tooling could lower demand. Or that the supply of developers outstripped demand - that’s happened in other professions. We always joked about how we’re automating our own jobs. We just happened to live in a period of explosive demand growth for our skill set so it never mattered for us. But it was never guaranteed that growth would continue in perpetuity.

When mentoring a freshly minted dev, I always checked whether or not they were open to career and financial advice. And if they were, I would always make this point to them and tell them to think carefully how much of their massive tech salary they should be spending. I make it a point to keep abreast of what median salaries are for other job roles are viable and moderate my spending and saving accordingly, because there was always a possibility that the gravy train would stop.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#168

Post by dcrazy » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

newaccountman2 wrote: post #151

beering wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not? You can talk to it in plain English and it can do things for you and respond back in a synthesized voice. I was reading an old Asimov short story about a guy who comes across a lost robot and has to trick it into staying put, and it felt weirdly prescient. (The story is “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”)

It's not really "intelligence" It's just the mimicry thereof. I probably fall into the "pro-AI" camp if we want to divide things along the binary, but it's pretty facile to consider this software to possess or represent "intelligence" IMO.

I don’t think it’s any more facile to use the term “intelligence” to describe the synthesis engines that we call “AI” when we use the same word to describe the gradient-seeking behaviors of slime molds.

It’s not general intelligence, but it’s a system that’s able to produce novel outputs from its inputs in pursuit of a goal. The fact that the goal is always externally-provided is more related to consciousness than intelligence.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#169

Post by skeledrew » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

gobdovan wrote: post #108

nerdsniper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, “AI” was quake 2 bots, starcraft pathfinding algorithms, and chessbot personalities. I dont understand why the old definition of AI keeps being retconned.

IQ tests are restandardised from time to time. We could take the scores from 100 years ago and see that everybody would be gifted. Intelligence is usually defined as the skill in pursuing a goal, or speed of acquiring the ability for pursuing given goal. Given the goal-dependent nature, it's not that useful to use the same tests and measurements for intelligence over time, be it artificial or not.

So it's an ever-shifting goalpost, which makes it pretty useless as an objective.

Re: To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks

#170

Post by johnwheeler » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #157

johnwheeler wrote: post #56

> don't want to hang out with him any more because he'll have his phone with him and it's automatic for him now. This post sounds like selfishness/self-preservation masquerading as concern for humanity and the environment. You can be anti-AI all you want. You're wasting your breath and energy. I don't know if the quality of my life has gone up because I have these tools that help me build things in exchange for less…

> All I know is: it's not up to me, I don't get to choose, and I have to adapt to the situation. I don't bitch about it and condemn others for doing the same. That's how Russia got into current situation, btw.

But the difference is I actually like artificial intelligence and the capabilities it provides. No one can predict the future. I don't know if it's going to make my life better or worse. But if you think you're gonna start an uprising and change the world while this thing is in motion, you're deluding yourself. Might as well adapt and make the best of it. Much better than getting steamrolled and not getting anything out of it.