Everyone Is Wrong About AI Except Me

Interesting first point. I'm reminded of Blade Runner, which definitively fits in the "robots are people too, you monster!" genre ... But the source material was the exact opposite. Philip K. Dick went out of the way to rub in that even if the robots could move you to tears with their art (Luba Luft), be a reassuring authority figure for years (Garland), or even appear vulnerable and afraid (Pris Stratton), they are actually not people, but rather artifacts designed to fool you about what they are.

It's amazing how many people miss that. The SEO-spammed "grade saver" analysis practically says that the film is right - and from what I've seen, it's probably fair in that the teachers grading you might well think that too. Most misunderstood PKD book by far.

> This is why warnings of disruption and doom will ring hollow with the public, you’re just promising adventure.

The desires of the public don't enter into it. Like all matters of consequence, the people who control the economy and the government have decided this is happening and didn't take the opinion of the public into consideration.

> Not only is the populace primed to treat artificial intelligence tools as living peers, they’ve been trained to hate or dismiss anyone who doesn’t

This doesn’t meet my personal experience, but curious to hear if others see something different! The prevailing opinion in the UK at least seems to be that it’s some non-living magical tool assistant.

As this assumption seems to be the basis of the article, I’m not sure on its validity.

I have a feeling we are going to see more media where the opposite arc happens — where the robot is revealed to be actually /not/ as human as someone thinks, and is revealed to be a jerk, actually (like Ash in Alien)

This post makes a critical error. It is talking about sci-fi AI. Artificial Consciousness.

What we have is, while useful for many things (with proper constraints), just prediction engines that behave like intelligence. Generating a sentence when specifically asked to do so is a far cry from independently pondering over your existence then picking up the God of Thunder's hammer.

If anything, the public has been primed to hate AI as we have it now. CEOs are blaming it for mass scale layoffs. Media executives are using it so recklessly they face legal action. Data centers (already an issue for years for environmental impact and noise pollution) are being even more aggressively pushed on communities who don't want them. And the Silicon Valley upper crust are, to sell their AI products, embracing the worst views and uses of them.

AI can be ethical and useful, if we want it to be. But that is not how it is being sold. Increasingly, the public is aligning against it's use. This blog post badly misses that point.

Book ad.

I've finally started realizing that, while I don't trust AI (or what we're calling AI), what I really don't like or trust are the people behind it. In fact, the whole problem with modern tech is that the people funding it and hyping it are just untrustworthy.

I have less of a problem with Chinese AI than American AI because no one in China is screaming at me to use their AI. No one in China is trying to justify me making sacrifices so their AI can grow. It's like: they don't care if I use their AI or not - it's there, you do you.

Meanwhile, Altman, Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg (problematic individuals at best) are all over the news proclaiming AI as the Second Coming of Jesus if only I give up water so they can cool their plants, all while yelling "it will all work out if you just trust us!"

Not helping, guys. Not at all.

Also, it's not Intelligent and for the love of God, please stop pretending it is and please stop trying to convince everyone that it is.

AI is truly the dumbest technology to emerge in my lifetime.