American attitudes about AI today mirror poll answers about the rise of the internet in the '90s
American attitudes about AI today mirror poll answers about the rise of the internet in the ’90s
Nothing like comparing a technology that took more than 10 years to get "released in the wild" and had several "killer apps" built using it very early on (email, instant messaging, web pages, online games) and many companies had no idea how to get money with it, vs. a "content generator" that is run almost entirely on promises of increased productivity and profit.
Search sucks now, LLMs are useful. Not as useful as tech companies claim it to be but yeah, most people will use it at some point.
That's because search engines have reached the stage of enshittification where they no longer need to be good. Instead, they want you to spend as much time there as possible.
LLMs are still being sold as "the better option" - including by the exact same search giants who intentionally ruined their own search results. And many of them are already prioritizing agreeableness over "truthfulness." And we're still in the LLM honeymoon phase, where companies are losing billions of dollars on a yearly basis and undercharging their users.
Exactly. It will be ruined eventually when the shareholders come knocking wanting profitability.
This is something I think the 'you have to use LLMs or you're falling behind' crowd are missing. Of course these companies want you to become dependent on their product, and unable to complete basic tasks without it, because then when they slap you with monthly fees and ads and tokens you won't have a choice but to pay.
Use them if they're useful, but don't out source your brain. You'll need it when the enshittification begins.
The two aren't equivalent. One of them is an actual proven technology that definitively exists, the other one is still to prove itself.
the internet is actually useful and serves a purpose.
ai isn't useful at all and has no purpose.
It is very useful, just only in very few circumstances. 99% of what people are shoving it into, it has no place being there, but there are some things that it legitimately just does better.
I like to use it to convert recipes to grams.
AI is very useful and powerful as a propaganda device and a system to generate and disseminate disinformation, misinformation and non-information very quickly and very efficiently.
It was thought that the internet would do the same but that system only goes at the speed of humans and the whole system is regulated by humans ... so as propaganda tool, it has worked better but not as well as predicted. Humans saw the the potential for abuse and fought back against it.
AI is like propaganda on cocaine ... and there is very little to stop it other than our awareness of it ... but the majority of everyone in the world don't care to understand what they are watching is real or not. What that means is that AI is set to reshape how everyone thinks and how we all see the world.
We already saw Grok being used for this, though rather clumsily by stuffing the prompt.
If an AI company were behind the scenes fine tuning on specific political sentiment you would never know.
In fact there’s some evidence that later ChatGPT models are more right wing biased than early models (which were accused of being left wing).
Also important to note how much social media gets fed into these things and how astroturfed modern social media is these days, so even if not explicitly biased the well has been poisoned.
I've used it to learn how to read sheet music and help learn other skills I normally wouldn't be able to.
That’s what they said about the internet in its infancy.
Are you not self aware at all? Who do you think the article is about?
Tech itself maybe. But the money, the copyright and the politics. AI is filthy.
money, the copyright and the politics
Of course, the things that haven't affected the internet or haven't been affected by it at all.
No it doesn't. Fuck this fake news from these genocidal scumbags.
One worked, though. 🤷♂️
Ah yes 1998, the last year before Matrix.
Huh I thought matrix was pretty new, and people used irc back then.
It's the same sentiment towards immigrants that's seen on the right.
The media have been running the exact same headlines. It feels weirdly like the corporate run media have an agenda to show us all the horrors of AI like they will take our jobs, they are going to collapse our society, they are a threat to our children, they contribute to organized crime. Same headlines every time.
I anticipate people here will be bothered by this statement just like if you say immigration isn't really a big problem in r/conservative. The media is insidious. But I really think it's a good opportunity to see how it shapes public opinion.
That’s intentional. They sensationalize to desensitize. Unlike the introduction of computers or the internet, AI will absolutely take far more jobs than it will create. Goldman Sachs predicts a 50% reduction in US jobs by 2045, and Republicans added a provision into the budget reconciliation that prohibits any regulation on AI for a decade, to ensure that prosperity goes to the corporations.
I would have no problem getting anyone at r/conservative to pull up similar data points and statistics to show immigrants are taking jobs, contributing to crime statistics or any other claim. It's very eerily similar to the emerging opinion on the left when compared to opinions on the right towards immigrants.
Regardless of validity of opinion. What I'm noticing is the role the media has played on shaping opinion and fed it.
this is about utilization so its basically about how much folks are accepting it in usage rather than just words.
Yeah, but internet was for the people for decades.
\ (And it didn't really cost nature as much. Or stolen from the people so much - even by current laws LLM companies do that illegally.)
"AIs" are getting their enshitification & monopolies pre-baked into their core bossiness models from the start.
Not to mention that AIs will definitely worsen inequalities all over the world (like assembly robots that replaced people but aren't owned by people, and people still need to work 8h/day for decades for some reason).
(This but AI. I'm not saying, there aren't/won't be other jobs, just pointing out how this reshapes & concentrates wealth that on the other hands allows for slave wages with no prospects for full time jobs.)
If AIs will affect the world as much as the internet (and do so with peoples data), then they should be seen as core infrastructure - and government or non-profit owned.
Monetisation of all the things is killing us.
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What is the difference between "hobby" and "work" if not what random people decide what is better monetised?
Both is labour & value added.
In a world where everyone gets enough money people could do what they actually want. So a CEO wouldn't be "stuck" being a CEO if they don't like that job & would rather be eg a baker. In the current system bcs of a huge pay divergence you get an unhappy CEO (who ofc won't quit) and an unhappy baker that just couldn't get a more suited paying job.
But we as a society would get a lot more out of life & cultural progression if people would be happy & satisfied at what they do (job=hobby).
Empirical evidence (even USA did extensive tests in the 60s) show that given a universal income (so basically no scarcity) basically nobody just sits around watching TV all day, everyone is productive (research, art, services, etc).
Imagine only having customer support or food industry workers that truly enjoy their job & want to do it.
\ How many prodigies are stuck at random dead end jobs with no prospects and life options?
Labour is what we all benefit from.
\ Work is what the employer/owner benefits from.
Okay let's do an experiment.
Get some annoying trust fund kid, take all their money away from them, and tell them that they now have to get a job but it's a good thing because now their life has meaning. Let's see how happy they are about it.
You're so right, how can I find meaning without making somebody else's money for them? Woe is me...
Also the AI could automate away that man's hobby...