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Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

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Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#331

Post by Barrin92 »

rayiner wrote: post #202
slg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only hope we have is that they're wrong, and their power to change things will be minimal. What even is the optimistic outcome if they are right? What are we all working towards? Like do people think that these AI companies will create some superintelligence, suck up all the financial benefits of that, and then just decide to share it with the rest of us out of kindness? Because I legitimately can't see a realis…

> Like do people think that these AI companies will create some superintelligence, suck up all the financial benefits of that, and then just decide to share it with the rest of us out of kindness? I don’t get this. It’s like worrying in 1960 that the companies that invented computers will hoard the benefits of computing. It doesn’t make any sense. There is no secret formula to any of this. The math underlying the mod…

>It’s like worrying in 1960 that the companies that invented computers will hoard the benefits of computing. It doesn’t make any sense.

Not only is that exactly what happened, they weren't satisfied with accumulating most of the wealth produced by it, they've also taken it upon themselves to take over democracy and media and act like a state within a state. You only need one statistic to understand America today, that working class Americans without college degrees have had their purchasing power stagnate since the 1970s(https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/)

People who used to have good jobs can now drive for Doordash and what the last wave of digitalization did over 30 years the AI gurus now promise to do in 10 again, and not just to the working class. The only reason to be optimistic is that they're snake oil salesmen.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#332

Post by boothby »

pydry wrote: post #309
boothby wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The math underlying the models is widely known, and there are tons of competitors, including foreign competitors. Foreign militaries investing in autonomous warfare does not assuage my concerns about my country investing in autonomous warfare. Also, have you been paying attention to median wages vs median CEO wages since the 1960s? The benefits of computing really have gone to the captains of industry.

Tech isn't special. The value of pretty much all productivity improvements since ~1979 have been captured either via the stock market (97% owned by the top 10% in wealth) or land rents.

If tech isn't special, why are nine of the ten richest Americans in tech?

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#333

Post by watwut »

hparadiz wrote: post #177
bix6 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does not printing directions save hundreds of millions of lives?

Oh man I can tell you're young. Those directions weren't always right. You couldn't just pull out your phone and find the nearest hospital if something happened during your trip. Or call 911 and have them find you by GPS. And that's just one casual convenience you take for granted. People used to drive around asking random people to use their phone in emergencies. Not exactly fast when seconds matter.

I mean, you make it sound like a horrible horror movie, but none of that was perceived as large issue at all

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#334

Post by graphime »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #172
svara wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm legit pretty excited about applying AI to accelerate biological and medical discovery. It's already happening right now, still in relatively mundane ways, but there's so much to do.

Superhuman abilities for the wealthy tech oligarchs, economic indentured servitude and slums for the rest of us. Tens of millions of people in the US alone cannot obtain basic healthcare today, how would this outcome change for them because AI solved it? The only solid paths are regulation or prying the machine from the hands of those who hold it. GLP-1s are only widely available globally affordably because the paten…

[dead]

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#335

Post by holistio »

armchairhacker wrote: post #194

Please link to the actual survey instead of this commission outlet, which didn't even link it themselves: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/americans-an... In the survey, 31% Americans believe AI will have an "equally positive and negative impact", and 13% are "not sure"; it's 16% pro 44% N/A 40% anti. I wish the survey also included non-Americans, because from a 2025 survey ( https://www.pewresearch.or…

> the results were better

They were worse.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#336

Post by ceejayoz »

derektank wrote: post #323
paytonjjones wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What regulations do you feel protected common folk from capitalism during the development of computing, and how have they weakened?

I was also struck by this. We are a far more regulated society today than in the 1960s. The total body of codified federal law, statutory plus regulatory, grew from roughly 78,000 pages in 1960 to roughly 246,000 pages by 2020. The content matters of course, but I’m skeptical that under-regulation is the problem.

More pages isn't necessarily the same as more regulated.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#337

Post by zuzululu »

vanuatu wrote: post #211
ori_b wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/01/nx-s1-5807131/tech-worker-chi...

an article on one person? cmon it seems like Chinese people have much more faith in their govt than Western countries, and subsequently trust them more in distributing the benefits of AI (in aggregate ofc)

> Chinese people have much more faith in their govt than Western countries,

but you know why that is right (really hoping you know the difference and where this comes from and its not culture)

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#338

Post by ben_w »

paytonjjones wrote: post #303
sylos wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system won't change until there is massive chaos and destruction. Why would it otherwise? The people with the means to gently and voluntarily change things are living like gods. They have no incentive to help. In fact, a sick and unhealthy society keeps competitors weak. No, I'm afraid to say there will be no fixing things.

How exactly are the superrich today living like gods? They use the same phones, have access to the same entertainment, same internet, same information. Most spend a lot more time stressed out and working. The poor today live better (or, at the very least more "preferenced") lives than ever in human history. Big houses, yachts, nice cars I guess?

> How exactly are the superrich today living like gods?

A lot of us are, not just the super-rich.

"We are close to gods, and on the far side", as Banks put it. Or, as I wrote a while ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40874779

I really ought to turn this into a youtube video.

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#339

Post by jondlm »

watwut wrote: post #314
jondlm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This... this... this! This resonates soooo deeply with me. The wild thing is that these tech "systems" (aka companies) are made up of ostensibly good people. It's often impossible to look at individual people and say, "they're the cause of this damage." I believe that some form of evil (this word feel inadequate) emerges amidst these large systems that is incredibly hard to pinpoint. It's why dissension is so fucking…

I think that CEOs of those companies are ethically challenged people, narcissists and sociopaths. They are not evil and there is no evil emerging in big systems. It is that in the above have advantage in winner takes all economy and use that advantage to gain more advantages. So they end up on top. And once they are high enough, law dont apply to them. Which makes them go even higher.

> I think that CEOs of those companies are ethically challenged people, narcissists and sociopaths.

Likely true in many cases!

> there is no evil emerging in big systems

That's a very definitive statement!

What brings you to the conclusion that there aren't forces at play that we don't yet have a good name for or don't yet have the scientific means to study?

Re: Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society

#340

Post by peab »

cjfd wrote: post #207
hparadiz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People just forget the before times. No one wants to go back to printing out driving directions or emailing photos. We take all these things for granted now but I am 100 certain the technology we have now has saved hundreds of millions of lives through downstream butterfly effects.

I am not so sure. The world of printing out driving directions or emailing photos sounds a lot more calm. Also, simply quite enjoyable. The current world is cramming too many events in too little time, it seems. Stress is quite bad for health so I am not so sure about these hundreds of millions of lives saved. It may also have costed quite a few.

nah, i distinctly remember family road trips as a kid. Driving was super stressful with my mom yelling about missing an exit as she reads the map, getting lost in a not so nice neighborhood, etc.

you're romanticizing the past

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