zlacker

>>tablet+(OP)
I’m an AI skeptic. I’m probably wrong. This article makes me feel kinda wrong. But I desperately want to be right.

Why? Because if I’m not right then I am convinced that AI is going to be a force for evil. It will power scams on an unimaginable scale. It will destabilize labor at a speed that will make the Industrial Revolution seem like a gentle breeze. It will concentrate immense power and wealth in the hands of people who I don’t trust. And it will do all of this while consuming truly shocking amounts of energy.

Not only do I think these things will happen, I think the Altmans of the world would eagerly agree that they will happen. They just think it will be interesting / profitable for them. It won’t be for us.

And we, the engineers, are in a unique position. Unlike people in any other industry, we can affect the trajectory of AI. My skepticism (and unwillingness to aid in the advancement of AI) might slow things down a billionth of a percent. Maybe if there are more of me, things will slow down enough that we can find some sort of effective safeguards on this stuff before it’s out of hand.

So I’ll keep being skeptical, until it’s over.

>>habosa+VM
The downsides you list aren’t specific to AI. Globalization and automation have destabilized labor markets. A small handful of billionaires control most major social media platforms and have a huge influence on politics. Other types of technology, particularly crypto, use large amounts of energy for far more dubious benefits.

AI is just the latest in a long list of disruptive technologies. We can only guess about the long term ramifications. But if history is any indicator, people in a few decades will probably see AI as totally normal and will be discussing the existential threat of something new.

>>broken+eP
There may be many disruptive technologies, but none come remotely close to AI when it comes to rate of change. Crypto has been around for a while, and hasn't really made a dent to the world

We had friends over for dinner a couple days back; between us we had two computer scientists, one psychologist, one radiologist, one doctor. Each of us were in turn astonished and somewhat afraid of the rapid pace of change. In a university setting, students are routinely using Claude and ChatGPT for everything from informal counseling to doing homework to generating presentations to doing 'creative' work (smh).

At the end of they day, we all agreed that we were grateful that we are at the tail end of our working life, and that we didn't have to deal with this level of uncertainty

>>sriram+LQ
AI feels particularly disruptive now because it’s new and we don’t know how it will affect society yet.

But people surely felt the same way about gunpowder, the steam engine, electricity, cars, phones, planes, nukes, etc.

Or look at specific professions that software has negatively affected in recent decades. Not a lot of people use travel agents anymore, for example.

I’m not saying that the negative effects are good. But that’s just the nature of technological advancement. It’s up to society to adapt and help out those who have been most negatively affected.