1d ago

Your favorite science YouTubers are misleading you about AI — how to spot lies

A straightforward dismantling of AI fearmongering videos uploaded by Kyle "Science Thor" Hill, Sci "The Fault in our Research" Show, and Kurz "We're Sorry for Summarizing a Pop-Sci Book" Gesagt over the past few months. The author is a computer professional but their take is fully in line with what we normally post here.

I don't have any choice sneers. The author is too busy hunting for whoever is paying SciShow and Kurzgesagt for these videos. I do appreciate that they repeatedly point out that there is allegedly a lot of evidence of people harming themselves or others because of chatbots. Allegedly.

5 comments

My favorite science Youtubers? Nah, those channels are IFLScience-tier, their intended audience is literally children.
The author also proposes a framework for analyzing claims about generative AI. I don't know if I endorse it fully, but I agree that each of the four talking points represents a massive failure of understanding. Their LIES model is:
Lethality: the bots will kill us all
Inevitability: the bots are unstoppable and will definitely be created in the future
Exceptionalism: the bots are wholly unlike any past technology and we are unprepared to understand them
Superintelligent: the bots are better than people at thinking
I would add to this a Plausibility or Personhood or Personality: the incorrect claim that the bots are people. Maybe call it PILES.
- Call the last one A for Agency and turn the acronym into an AI history reference: ELISA.
  
  Hey while we’re here, I propose two more letters:
  S, standing for “stochastic parrot ignorance,”
  C, standing for “Chinese room does not constitute thought,”
  Now we can have ASS LICE
Kurz “We’re Sorry for Summarizing a Pop-Sci Book” Gesagt
Geshundheit