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What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

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Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#41

Big changes in what content we trust and consume online. I predict that all content-driven sites (YouTube, News, Social Media, forums, reviews) will be dominated by AI-generated content in the near future. This content is directly monetizable via ads/followers/points/second-hand-accounts/etc, so it's a great opportunity for people, particularly those in developing countries, to abuse as long as it lasts. So far that'…

> It means that the current ad-based business models with open access no longer work No longer work for who? Viewers appear to be perfectly happy watching AI-generated content; advertisers are happy to have their brand appear next to it (so long as it's not objectionable material), google are happy to get advertising dollars and AI creators are happy to have a low-effort way to produce content. I think it'll suck the…

> Viewers appear to be perfectly happy watching AI-generated content

That's true now because it hasn't proliferated yet, but I don't think it will be true for much longer. I think there will be tipping point. When AI-generated content competes with AI generated-content to game the ranking algorithms driven by AI-generated user accounts that write AI-generated comments you end up with something that's not optimized for human end-users anymore.

> modern AI is not meaningfully better at generating low-effort posts than content farms are

It's not better, but potentially 100x cheaper. Not yet, but soon. That means a single developer in a 3rd world country can do the work of a content farm. Maybe you're right and that won't change anything, but I think it will.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#43
People always use the term 'second-order effect' to describe basically a knock-on consequence, in other words an effect, which I find slightly annoying. Especially here the example of video game streaming, this is not a second-order effect of high speed internet, this is just... people using high speed internet.

Even genuine knock-on effects don't seem right, ie. you build a road to Scotland, now Scotland has car traffic, next it has pollution, next it has sick children - these are all just consequences of the road.

In my view, a true second-order effect is one where the original effect starts being influenced by it's own consequences, which is much rarer. A good example for widespread ML in the form of stable diffusion models would be that the amount of images in the wild from stable diffusion grows so large that models start being trained more and more on their own outputs.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#44
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit I don't know much about Startrek, but from descriptions I've read of their society it sounds pretty good to me. A society where basic needs are taken care of, and beyond that–as long as you aren't hurting anyone or infringing on anyone else's liberty–freedom to do what you believe is most valuable.

>A society where basic needs are taken care of, and beyond that–as long as you aren't hurting anyone or infringing on anyone else's liberty–freedom to do what you believe is most valuable. Only plausible due to high energy reactors and magical boxes which fabricate things instantly using only electricity aka replicators.

Not really. We don't need replicators to provide basic needs. Ordinary volume manufacturing can cover that nicely, and more sustainable approaches can be used when we cease to program obsolescence.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#45

Not sure if that counts as a second order effect, but porn actors/actresses will soon be almost obsolete. Basically, they only need to work on the hands and sexual organs a bit more and get movies more stable, but this work is progressing rapidly. As far as I can see, porn will be almost completely AI-generated within the next few years. There will be insane amounts of lawsuits, since the content generated by AI is o…

> As far as I can see, porn will be almost completely AI-generated within the next few years How confident are you about that? I can see AI taking over a small subset, creating new categories etc, but I doubt the sheer breadth of porn available on the internet is going to get replaced. I would expect to hear that fake video avatars have completely taken over OnlyFans before AI is generating picture and audio perfect…

I think we’re still far from being able to generate long, coherent videos, but lots of progress is being made. One thing seems clear, all you need to make a good model is lots of data with lots of metadata like captions, and if there’s one thing the internet is full of, it’s porn videos with titles and captions and categories.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#46
post #14
post #9

Content-generation AI is advancing much faster than others. There's still little AI in the realm of, say, voice assistants. I can't say "Hey google, take me to the McDonald's that beside the Best Buy."

I find it hard to believe that google can't solve that query now

It wouldn't be technically hard to do but somebody at Google just doesn't care. I have to begin every navigation command with "take me to the closest-" because if I don't Google will ask me if I want the Pizza Hut that's four miles away or the one that's thirty-eight miles away.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#47

At some point someone will successfully create "AI" that can discern human-appreciable "quality", at which point this will collide with GPT3/etc resulting in dynamic, live generation of content of all forms ("Computer, show me a Byzantine period class-transcending romance with a strong musical score, where the main characters are mutant wereweasel-loving wombats in the style of 20th century anime"), which eventually…

>that can discern human-appreciable "quality",

humans can't discern human-appreciable "quality" with any sort of reliability - evidence: every media corporation and critic that has ever existed.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#49
post #3

Hopefully breaking the link between people's labour and their worth as a human. I hope that as more and more things become automated and fewer people need to work, that we restructure society so they don't have to do bullshit jobs or work if they don't want to. Unfortunately, people have been hoping for this for as long as there has been machinery which multiplied humans' labour and it's yet to materialise, but I rem…

>I hope that as more and more things become automated and fewer people need to work, that we restructure society so they don't have to do bullshit jobs or work if they don't want to.

so at the point where machines can be clever for us, cleverness will no longer be of value. I guess then it will definitely be how hot someone is.

Re: What will be the second order effects widespread AI?

#50
Lots of marginal value content, like the thousands of copycats from the imposter syndrome that are already out there. The same for stock photos, pictures, etc.

Deepfake and catfish on dating networks will be the norm, perhaps the same for many “data output” professions.

Higher life meaning crisis and depression, since most of industrialized and office jobs will be more and more automated, and in spite of not completely removing humans, their input will feel less important, error prone, more prescindible exchangeable and less empathetic towards colleagues.

Loss of meaning as society, since productivity will be the main variable to optimize, as some key business areas will smash much easier than ever their competitors by using “augmented workforce”. I don’t think leas humans will be needed, just some specialized teams will outperform the rest, increasing outsourcing areas to third companies who deal with such problems.

Devaluation of truly creative content since “locally new” is already good enough for most of ends.

Reinforcement or social biases according to current trends like image AIs only generating beautiful model alike human beings, and the only “deviations” are socially accepted stereotypes like some attributes from popular actors. That might have a direct impact on consumer’s psychology, depression, anorexia, etc.

Perhaps (I wish not), pop culture will be frozen on the largest dataset trends, and only, very really an actual creative person will handcraft something new, just to be copied by all the style imitation networks.

Human expertise in some key areas might be easier to access, to learn and transport, since a general knowledge in the area and guiding/fine tuning an AI system will make cheaper the formation and resolution of previously solved problems.

The raise of truly new wicked and complex problems. Non linear unpredictable problems will raise more than ever before since we will focus less and less on the linear ones.

Political speech might be guided in real-time based on spectators feelings, creating weaker democratic (partitocratic) systems and reinforcing the autocratic model which is currently having success in Asia.

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