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Shunning AI is the human choice

thehandbasket.co

521–530 of 572 posts

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#521
post #13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI as a tech is fine. But disliking it and the social/economic effects around it is fine too, people should be allowed to feel however they want to feel about certain techs and situations. To recommend people to suck it up is not the answer I wish in the society I want to live in.

There's a normative argument in the parent that's reasonable to engage and rebut, but there's also a positive component that's less easy to take issue with. It really isn't going anywhere, no matter what world you want to live in. People were upset about databases in the 1980s (some still are).

The widespread criticism isn't based on "the tech not going away eventually". All of that is a red herring, a response to something nobody (mainstream) is talking about.

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally friends with good, sane, smart people. If they're all jumping from the bridge, there's almost certainly something to jump from, so yes I would. https://xkcd.com/1170/

If your friends all start to jump off a bridge, the rational thing to do is question their sanity, not to just jump. That xkcd is dead wrong.

Or you should wonder why they might jump instead of directly questioning their sanity. Then if you see the bridge is on fire and it's safe to jump into the water, then it makes sense, right?

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#526
post #195

Hating "AI" in the abstract is like hating public-key encryption. Ultimately it's just math. Once the math is out there, there's no going back. Instead of futilely demanding technology to go away, it would be better to focus on organizing together for better outcomes. https://opcraft.co/writing/2026/04/getting-the-good-ai-futur...

The people who hate "AI" are correctly understanding it as a political project, not simply a technology. Ali Alkhatib's definition here is clarifying in this regard: https://ali-alkhatib.com/blog/defining-ai

Exactly no one hates the ai algorithm finding cancer, or predicting protein folding or finding novel compounds for pharmaceuticals what they hate is the "we will slurp up all human knowledge violate everyone copyrights and give nothing back in return and get you fired and replaced by a shitty ai chatbot"

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a Google search away from fact checking me if you want to do that. I'm a DevOps engineer, not a C suite guy, but I tend to agree with you in general. I think there is a lot of smoke being blown into the hive around this technology but having used it extensively, and having witnessed its progression first hand in engineering, these tools are insanely useful and have made giant leaps forward in just ~4 years. Do…

No offense, but your post reads like LLM psychosis. Mostly because you failed to understand my post at all and rushed in to defend AI's honor. (Why? I don't think AI wants or needs your oaths of loyalty.)

>No offense

Uh huh..

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this attitude is part of the reason there's so much pushback. "it's here, it's staying, so shut up and like it". You're allowed to still hate something that ubiquitous. God knows a lot of people hate their jobs and have for a long time now! I think everyone should still be allowed to criticize AI. Criticism is good. Including for AI.

I feel about the same about both cars and AI. Cars are useful but they ruin places. AI is useful and it ruins at lot of what it touches, too. I own a car for occasional trips to the countryside and couldn't imagine using it anything like daily. I use AI plenty in my work and for finding information, and similarly don't want it in most of the rest of my life.

Good analogy. Car-dependency is bad for humans. LLM.. society? is probably also bad for humans.

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this attitude is part of the reason there's so much pushback. "it's here, it's staying, so shut up and like it". You're allowed to still hate something that ubiquitous. God knows a lot of people hate their jobs and have for a long time now! I think everyone should still be allowed to criticize AI. Criticism is good. Including for AI.

The same thing happened when we transitioned from horse carriages to cars. I'm sure a lot of people were quite outraged. But aren't we glad it happened? Sure, you're allowed to hate whatever you want. I never said they're not allowed to hate AI. I said they're gonna have a hard time in the future if they can't accept that the times are a-changing'.

Absolutely not happy it happened. It would have been way way better for everyone if we replaced horse carriages with subways, trams, walking and biking. The fact that we chose cars was an enormous mistake currently costing people health and happiness in large swaths of the country. Indeed, over 40k people literally die each year. Your change of dying in a car is 0.5% over your lifetime. Your chance of a serious injury is ~30%.

Re: Shunning AI is the human choice

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And I'm sure they're having a hard time. ^

It's so funny when technological progress guys encounter YIMBYs. They can't even perceive that somebody would have a criticism of the impact of a technology on one's lived environment. "But, history is one big game of Civilization, and we replaced the little horses with tanks? What do you mean you don't like it?" Whigs gonna whig I guess.

Technology-brain is confusing because it's usually pretty well-educated people who presumably read. There are so many examples of technological adoption that has made our lives worse. Cars and social media are easy and widely obvious examples.
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