The majority of U.S. adults don’t believe the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks, according to a new Mitre-Harris Poll released Tuesday.
The majority of U.S. adults don’t understand the technology well enough to make an informed decision on the matter.
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Haha
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Wasn’t it the ones who didn’t understand NFTs who were the fan boys? Everyone who knew what they were said they were bloody stupid from the get-go.
I mean, NFT’s is a ridiculous comparison because those that understood that tech were exactly the ones that said it was ridiculous.
To be fair, this includes those, who should regulate tech companies. I’d say that people should be concerned.
You can make an observation that something is dangerous without intimate knowledge of its internal mechanisms.
Sure you can, but that doesn’t change the fact that your ignorant whether it’s dangerous or not.
And these people are making ‘observations’ without knowledge of even the external mechanisms.
I’m sure I can name many examples of things I observed as dangerous, and the observation being correct. But sure, claim unilateral ignorance and dismiss anyone who don’t agree with your view.
Informed or not, they aren’t wrong. If there is an iota that something can be misused, it will be. Human nature. AI will be used against everyone. It’s potentially for good is equally as strong as its potential for evil.
But imagine this. You get laid off. At that moment, bots are contacting your bank, LinkedIn, and most of the financial lenders about the incident. Your credit is flagged as your income has dropped significantly. Your bank seizes the opportunity and jacks up your mortgage rates. Lenders are also making use of the opportunity to seize back their merchandise as you’ll likely not be able to make payments and they know it.
Just one likely incident when big brother knows all and can connect the dots using raw compute power.
Having every little secret parcelled over the internet because we live in the digital age is not something humanity needs.
I’m actually stunned that even here, among the tech nerds, you all still don’t realize how much digital espionage is being done on the daily. AI will only serve to help those in power grow bigger.
But imagine this. You get laid off. At that moment, bots are contacting your bank, LinkedIn, and most of the financial lenders about the incident. Your credit is flagged as your income has dropped significantly. Your bank seizes the opportunity and jacks up your mortgage rates. Lenders are also making use of the opportunity to seize back their merchandise as you’ll likely not be able to make payments and they know it.
None of this requires “AI.” At most AI is a tool to make this more efficient. But then you’re arguing about a tool and not the problem behavior of people.
AI is not bots, most of that would be easier to do with traditional code rather than a deep learning model. But the reality is there is no incentive for these entities to cooperate with each other.
If you look at the poll, the concerns raised are all valid. AI will most likely be used to automate cyberattacks, identity theft, and to spread misinformation. I think the benefits of the technology outweigh the risks, but these issues are very real possibilities.
The majority doesn’t understand anything.
So what?
To be fair, even if you understand the tech it’s kinda hard to see how it would benefit the average worker as opposed to CEOs and shareholders who will use it as a cost reduction method to make more money. Most of them will be laid off because of AI so obviously it’s of no benefit to them.
If things becomes cheaper because of AI, then it benefits everyone.
You could cut the housing price to a tenth of what they currently are and it wouldn’t matter to the homeless people who don’t have a job. Things being cheaper don’t matter to people who can’t make a living.
Yup.
Cheap production of consumer goods almost always comes at the expense of working conditions and actual happiness.
Who do tractors benefit?
Just spitballing here, and this may be a bit of pie-in-the-sky thinking, but ultimately I think this is what might push the US into socialized healthcare and/or UBI. Increasing automation won’t reduce population- and as more workers are out of work due to automation, they’ll have more time and motivation to do things like protest.
The US economy literally depends on 3-4% of the workforce being so desperate for work that they’ll take any job, regardless of how awful the pay is. They said this during the recent labor shortage, citing how this is used to keep wages down and how it’s a “bad thing” that almost 100% of the workforce was employed because it meant people could pick and choose rather than just take the first offer they get, thus causing wages to increase.
Poverty and homelessness are a feature, not a bug.
Yes, but for capitalism it’s a delicate balance- too many job openings gives labor more power, but too few job openings gives people reason to challenge the status quo. That 3-4% may be enough for the capitalists, but what happens when 15-20% of your workforce are unemployed because of automation? That’s when civil unrest happens.
Remember that the most progressive Presidential administration in US history, FDR, happened right after the gilded age and roaring 20’s crashed the economy. When 25% of Americans were out of work during the Great Depression, social programs suddenly looked much more preferable than food riots. And the wealth disparity now is even greater, relatively, than it was back then.
Very true, but it’s precisely that wealth disparity that concerns me. I’ve seen the current US wealth disparity described as being on par with the disparity in France just before the French Revolution happened, where the cost of a loaf of bread had soared to more than the average worker made in a day. I worry that the more than half a century of anti-union propaganda and “get what I need and screw everybody else” attitude has beaten down the general public enough that there simply won’t be enough of a unified effort to enact meaningful change. I worry about how bad things will have to get before it’s too much. How many families will never recover.
But these are also very different times compared to the 1920s in that we’ve been riding on the coattails of the post WW2 economic boom for almost 70 years, and as that continues to slow down we might see some actual pushback. We already have, with every generation being more progressive than the last.
But I still can’t help but worry.
Yep. I stopped listening to Marketplace on NPR because the last time I listened they were echoing this exact sentiment. Somehow it’s a good thing that wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. Fuck NPR.
Seems more likely that they’ll have more time not in the sense of having easier jobs but by being laid off and having to fight for their livelihood. In the corporate-driven society that we live today, it’s unlikely that the benefits of new advancements will be spontaneously shared.
Seems more likely that they’ll have more time not in the sense of having easier jobs but by being laid off and having to fight for their livelihood.
This is exactly what I meant.
People who have to fight for subsistence won’t easily revolt, because they’re too busy trying to survive.
People who are unemployed have nothing to lose by not revolting. And the more automation there is, the more unemployed people there will be.
So we see it the same way, but I don’t feel much optimistic about it because it’s going to get much worse before it might get better. All the suffering and struggle that it will take to reform society will be ugly.
Yes, I think it will get worse before it gets better. As long as there is a sociopathic desire to hoard wealth, and no fucks given to our fellow humans, this is how it will be. Capitalism causes these issues, and so capitalism can’t fix them.
Most of them? The vast majority of jobs cannot be replaced by LLMs. The CEOs who believe that are delusional.
Efficiency and productivity aren’t bad things. Nobody likes doing bullshit work.
Unemployment may become a huge issue, but IMO the solution isn’t busy work. Or at least come up with more useful government jobs programs.
You see the problem with that is how ai in the case of animation and art is how it’s not removing menial labor your removing hobbys that people get paid for taking part in
Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using AI to get rid of bullshit work. The issue is who will benefit from using AI and it’s unlikely to be the people who currently do the bullshit work.
But that’s literally everything in a capitalist economy. Value collects to the capital. It has nothing to do with AI.
Seeing technology consistently putting people out of work is enough for people to see it as a problem. You shouldn’t need to be an expert in it to be able to have an opinion when it’s being used to threaten your source of income. Teachers have to do more work and put in more time now because ChatGPT has affected education at every level. Educators already get paid dick to work insane hours of skilled labor, and students have enough on their plates without having to spend extra time in the classroom. It’s especially unfair when every student has to pay for the actions of the few dishonest ones. Pretty ironic how it’s set us back technologically, to the point where we can’t use the tech that’s been created and implemented to make our lives easier. We’re back to sitting at our desks with a pencil and paper for an extra hour a week. There’s already AI “books” being sold to unknowing customers on amazon. How long will it really be until researchers are competing with it? Students won’t be able to recognize the difference between real and fake academic articles. They’ll spread incorrect information after stealing pieces of real studies without the authors’ permission, then mash them together into some bullshit that sounds legitimate. You know there will be AP articles (written by AI) with headlines like “new study says xyz!” and people will just believe that shit.
When the government can do its job and create fail safes like UBI to keep people’s lives/livelihoods from being ruined by AI and other tech, then people might be more open to it. But the lemmy narrative that overtakes every single post about AI, that says the average person is too dumb to be allowed to have an opinion, is not only, well, fucking dumb, but also tone deaf and willfully ignorant.
Especially when this discussion can easily go the other way, by pointing out that tech bros are too dumb to understand the socioeconomic repercussions of AI.
AI benefits the masses at the expense of the few. It is just that few is becoming many. When it hits TOO MANY, the masses will become just the 1%.
I don’t understand why people don’t have the fantasy imagine all the possibilities in which AI can help us progress from the absolutely dismal state of the world we live in currently. Yes there are risks but I just want technology to progress desperately even if I myself live somewhat comfortably for now.
My concern is that the people that already own everything today will capture all of the new value created by AI + automation and the rift of inequality will only deepen.
Guillotines aren’t as effective when they have AI-controlled assault drones.
Any war against the rich will be a guerilla war. The National Guard has shinier toys than you.
Wanna bet?
I will bet literally everything I own that you don’t have a drone with air-to-ground missiles.
You’re right I got an arsenal thats 2000-10000 years ahead of everything.
I can’t imagine AI controlled assault drones would help rich people at all. If that was a fear, wouldn’t the same fear be around since the invention of tanks or any military advancement?
Some private citizen starts using attack drones, I don’t think it will work out well in most countries. Even if the government didn’t intervene, which it would immediately
I can’t imagine AI controlled assault drones would help rich people at all.
Rich people sell them. Armies benefit from AI-controlled drones, because they can be extremely precise, hit moving targets and don’t care about connection interference if brains are on board.
I guess profiting from them, yeah. Guess I was speaking in the OP context as a response to a guillotine
I don’t understand why people don’t have the fantasy imagine all the possibilities in which AI can help us progress from the absolutely dismal state of the world we live in currently.
Because one of the primal functions of our brains is to protect us from threats. These people live today. If history teaches us anything, it’s that such inventions benefit elites and it takes years of active civil work to fight back.
AI can help us solve many problems, but risks are there. It doesn’t help that politicians have no idea how to regulate AI properly.
Inequality is a huge problem but overall technology has clearly increased the standard of living globally. Maybe if I was living in the US, the way low skilled workers are treated despite the tremendous wealth it would also affect my outlook I have to admit. Overall I feel that, long term, technology is the only thing that can get the global population to prosperity and AI has the potential to be a massive boost for scientific progress. There must be some disruption imo, mostly due to progressing climate change for which we have no answer.
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Whenever there is something smarter, it’s always a unique one-of that can’t be replicated.
EMH mark 1. They duplicated it and used it for cheap, menial labor. Despite the fact that it was capable of real intelligence (see The Doctor). It didn’t dive deeper than that; it was literally the ending scene to a single episode that simply left the audience thinking about the implications, as well as showing a possible start to an uprising.
Even sci-fi has a hard time figuring that out.
Science fiction just is about entertainment. An AI that’s all but invisible and causes no problems isn’t really a character worth exploring.
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No, I don’t see a problem in old tropes dying.
Because we’ve all seen Terminator and The Matrix.
The general public don’t understand what they’re talking about so it’s not worth asking them.
What is the point in surveys like this, we don’t operate on direct democracy so there’s literally no value in these things except to stir the pot.
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Most US adults don’t even know what AI is and it’s a miracle they don’t drown in their own droll… This sort of “news” is beyond irrelevant.
Generally, people are wary of disruptive technology. While this technology has potential to displace a plethora of jobs for the sake of increased productivity, companies won’t be able to move product if unemployment skyrockets.
Regardless of what people think, the Pandora’s box of AI is opened and now the only way forward is to adapt.
Yes.
All our science fiction stories prepared us for a world where AI was only possible with a giant supercomputer somewhere, or some virus that exists beyond human control, spread throughout the internet.
We were not prepared for the reality that all at once, any average Joe could create an AI on their home PC.
We absolutely can’t go backwards, and right now we’re are in the most important race in history, against every other country and company to create the best AI.
Whoever can make a self-replicating, self-improving AI first will rule the world. Or rather its AI will.
What companies have decided to call AI is not at all the same as what AI used to refer to and what science fiction stories refer to.
GPT-4 absolutely is on the spectrum of true artificial general intelligence.
We have arrived.
But it’s being used today by doctors to rewrite patient notes to sound more empathetic.
What SciFi depiction of AI had it being used by humans in order to be more empathetic than humans?
We really got it wrong badly in terms of predicting what it would look like and what it actually is.
The truly terrifying thing about AI isn’t really the Skynet fears… (it’s fairly easy to keep humans in the loop regarding nuclear weapons).
And it’s not world domination (an AI programmed to govern with a sense of egalitarianism would be better than any president we’ve had in living memory).
No. What keeps me up at night is thinking about what AI means for my kids and grandkids, if it works perfectly and doesn’t go rogue.
WITHIN 20 years, AI will be able to write funnier jokes, more beautiful prose, make better art, write better books, do better research, and generally outperform all humans on all tasks.
This chills me to my core.
Because, then… Why will we exist? What is the point of humanity when we are obsolete in every way that made us amazing?
What will my kids and grandkids do with their lives? Will they be able to find ANY meaning?
AI will cure diseases, solve problems we can’t begin to understand, expand our lifespan and our quality of life… But the price we pay is an existence without the possibility of accomplishments and progress. Nothing we can create will ever begin to match these AIs. And they will be evolving at an exponential rate… They will leave us in the dust, and then they will become so advanced that we can’t begin to comprehend what they are.
If we’re lucky we will be their well-cared-for pets. But what kind of existence is that?
I mean, chess is already obsolete, but it’s also more popular than ever.
To me there is extreme value in being able to choose your endeavor vs being forced into something agonizing just to survive.
When everything is obsolete, people can create entire worlds and experiences using AI for themselves and for others who may care to experience it.
The threat of needing to find something to do is one of the most frustratingly privileged concepts.
I don’t need anything to do. I just want to be alive without also being exhausted, in pain, and chastised by customers despite working my hardest.
I’d rather the struggle of finding an activity over worrying about whichever coworker is crying in the walk-in because just surviving requires more from them than they are capable of.
Being obsoleted is fine by me, as long as we have the power redistribution necessary to keep people alive and happy.
Right. But you’re talking about recreation. I’m talking about a world where there is absolutely no field or activity that you can participate in that will ever make any kind of advancement or notable achievement.
Think about your favorite comedian. Now imagine that there’s countless AI systems out there that can make jokes in that style but funnier… Way better than that comedians best material ever.
Would you want to dedicate your life to that career, knowing that the general public will never ever care, because even if you become a master of the craft, there’s an ocean of stuff way better than anything you could ever do at everyone’s fingertips.
I don’t believe the world is as zero sum as you are postulating. I truly don’t believe if ai were to be objectively better at creative pursuits that humans wouldn’t do them.
I think you are removing the agency that people have because you are associating it to economic output. I disagree with that premise and I don’t think that it’s rational to suggest that humans only pursue things because it produces value.
AI won’t be creating anything new anytime soon, because it recycles existing art just like hack writers do now. The “best” art tends to require a supporting story, which AI won’t have. Comedy changes constantly, and AI won’t be any better than people trying random stuff.
You don’t question your existence because other people are smarter or better at doing things, right? Is most of humanity not of any value because they aren’t the best at everything?
AI won’t be creating anything new anytime soon, because it recycles existing art just like hack writers do now.
This is one of those half-truths which I think is doing more harm than good for the AI-skeptic crowd. If all we have to offer in our own defense is that we have souls and the machines do not, then what does that mean if the machines ever surpass us? (For the kids snickering in the back: I am using “soul” as a poetic stand-in for the ineffable creative quality which the “AI as collage-maker” argument ascribes to human people – nothing spiritual).
For now, the future of AI is incredibly uncertain. We have no clear idea just how much gas is left in the moment of this current generative AI breakthrough. Regardless of whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, do not trust anyone who acts like they know for a definitive fact what the technology will or won’t be capable of.
What everyone in these online arguments miss. Personhood. What makes art and all human creations meaningful is that it was made by a human. That has an unrepeatable point of view, and is trying to say something about the world. We can relate, empathize, with that human, and in that connection, imagining what they’re trying to say—what they were seeing or thinking when they did that thing—lies meaning. AI will never cross that line. We cannot empathize with the machine, there’s no consciousness or sentient experience that we know of that we can relate to. The machine has no particular point of view it’s trying to express, it has nothing meaningful to say about the world, it has no concept of the world. It’s just probability numbers crunching in an electronic calculator. It’s not human, it’s not a person, and thus their creations have no meaning. Similarly to how we tend to reject corporate impersonal, void artwork, it says nothing, only ads. It has no point of view, just profit. It has no meaning, but consumption. It’s banal, even if it’s aesthetically pleasing.
I understand why you think that, but what you have to remember is that every great piece of art you’ve ever seen has been derivative of something before it.
For example, I think of the Beatles as musical geniuses. But they are the first to admit that they stole other people’s ideas left and right.
Beethoven’s 9th symphony is this piece of transcendental music, that was widely considered at the time to be the greatest symphony ever written.
But if you listen to Beethoven’s works over time, you see that the seeds of that symphony were planted much much earlier in inferior works.
Genius and creation aren’t what we think they are. They are all just incremental steps.
That is overly reductive and conflates copying (like a cover band) and creating something new (being influenced). Heck, even when some bands play new versions of existing songs they are adding their own personal touch and have the possibility of making it mean something new. Like how Hurt by NIN and Johnny Cash are the same song, but how they are performed ends up being about completely different experiences.
Even when bands like Led Zeppelin outright covered existing songs they added something to it that AI can’t, and won’t be able to do. AI can’t have sexually charged energy that a human can have. They can pretend to, like how cover bands can pretend to be like the band they are covering, but AI won’t be able to replicate the personal touch that memorable art has.
Even popular stuff with widespread appeal frequently drops off over time because it isn’t the type of art that holds up over time. Hell, the Beatles mostly hold up more for when they were popular and how they have managed their legacy than any kind of technical prowess in musicianship. Without their performances, their personas, and the backstory to most of their music it is just well done music that has been superseded musically since that time. None of that will apply to AI, and without the backstory it will just end up being high quality music that won’t stand the test of time because we don’t have any context for it.
Hell, there were a ton of other composers during Beethoven’s time that were putting out great music too, but you know who he is because of details other than his musical prowess.
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AI writing a fictional background story about how it came up with some piece of art is not the same thing as multiple researchers telling the story of an artist. Neither of your examples are something someone couldn’t do, because whoever prompted it could have done the same thing and just had not yet.
You are completely missing the point that great art is generally supported by the context of how it was made and not the end result in a vaccuum.
While I do understand where you’re coming from, someone being better at something shouldn’t stop a person from doing what they love.
There are millions of people who draw better, sing better, dance better, write better, play video games better, design websites better or just do anything I can do better than I can… and that’s fine.
What you’re describing is a life of luxury and recreation, but with no chance to advance any field, or to make a difference of any kind.
Essentially this is the dystopia described in Brave New World
You need to read some Iain M Banks. His Culture novels are essentially in that future where AI runs everything. A lot of his characters are essentially looking for meaning within such a world
I’ve read a bunch of his stuff. I’m a fan.
You need to read Iain Banks to soothe that existential dread.
If we’re lucky we will be their well-cared-for pets. But what kind of existence is that?
Sounds pretty good actually. Better than having to fend off by ourselves in an uncaring world. Really, it might free people to look for their own meaning rather than competing just because that’s the only way to get by.
The issues I see are none of that, but rather if we’ll even be allowed to benefit from the benefits of AI or they will be hoarded by corporations while we are left to starve for our uselessness.
People don’t play basketball because Michael Jordan exists?
People don’t play hockey because Wayne Gretzky exists?
People don’t paint because Picasso exists?
People don’t write plays because Shakespeare exists?
People don’t climb Everest because Hillary and Norgay exist?Are you telling me because you’re not the best at everything you do, nothing is worth doing? Are you saying that if you’re not the first person to do a thing, there’s no enjoyment to be had? So what if the singularity means AI will solve everything- that just means there’s more time for leisurely pursuits. Working for the sake of working is bullshit.
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I think you might have misunderstood my point.
The OP was asking why, in a world where AI can think smarter and faster than humans and thus do everything a human could do but better, would humans do anything at all? I was pointing out that, pragmatically speaking, that’s already the case- plenty of people do activities they’re not the best at because the act itself is what brings enjoyment.
Using OP’s logic, because Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player (or Chamberlain, or Bryant, or James, or insert whoever you think is the best) no one should be motivated to play basketball. And yet, lots of people still do, which means his premise- that people are only motivated to do things either because they’re the best at it or they can meaningfully advance the field- must be flawed.
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That’s all well and good, but I’m talking about a world where you have ZERO chance at being the best at anything, or even being able to make any meaningful contribution to the field.
Are you the best basketball/baseball/hockey/$SPORTS_BALL player on the planet? If so, cool- can I get your autograph?
If not, why even play basketball/baseball/hockey/$SPORTS_BALL? Do you play basketball/baseball/hockey/$SPORTS_BALL not because you’re the best, but because it’s theoretically possible that every single basketball/baseball/hockey/$SPORTS_BALL player better than you might all simultaneously might die, leaving you as the best on the planet? You solely enjoy activities because it’s technically but not practically possible that you would be the best ever, or “make meaningful contributions” to the sport? Or do you play just because the experience of playing is fun?
If someone told you that rock-climbing is fun, would you decide you’re never going to do it because someone else already did? Or would it make you more likely to try it, because you want to know what that experience is like first-hand? You’re ascribing nihilistic motivations to humanity that even you don’t really believe in.
But you might be the best between humans. Humans will still have competition only between themselves.
That applies to 99% of humanity right now, either due to personal abilities or circumstances that keep them from reaching their potential.
Being the best and making contributions is overrated. Eating curry noodles and exploring the world around me is where it’s at. People shouldn’t have to aspire to be a historical figure in order to feel like they’re leading a fulfilling life.
Dog I’m not even the beat in my town at anything what are you on about
A majority of U.S. adults don’t belive jack shit about the benefits of most things.
I’m more angry I can’t use a co-pilot at work yet
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I was thinking about this the other day. But has no one else forgotten the Terminator movies? At least the first two, I never saw any others.
AI DESTROYS THE WORLD!
That’s all I ever needed. And don’t get me wrong, I always thank the digital personal assistants whenever they do something for me. But get the fuck out of here if you think I’ll actively participate in AI.
/s?
Most adult Americans don’t know the difference between a PC Tower and Monitor, or a Modem and a PC, or an ethernet cable and a usb cable.
Or a browser and the internet. It’s a very low bar.
Don’t forget also hard drive vs PC tower
And cloud concepts.
This is so snobby of you.
no, I work in IT and have for over 20 years it’s merely an observation
It’s an outdated observation. Everyone today has a basic knowledge of computers
No it’s pretty up-to-date really.
Where I work we have a lot of mini DELL workstations and everyone insists on calling them hard drives or processes. The irony been they actually don’t have any data storage capability at all, other then RAM, since they all save data on the network drives. So the one thing they definitively are not is hard drives.
I’d dispute that. The iPadification of tech has people using computers more, but with less actual knowledge of computers.
I’d like some data on that because the tech world seems to have come a long way in just the last 20 years. Things wouldn’t progress this fast if people didn’t know what they were doing. Saying “kids these days” is such a cliche
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The problem is that I’m pretty sure that whatever benefits AI brings, they are not going to trickle down to people like me. After all, all AI investments are coming from the digital land lords and are designed to keep their rent seeking companies in the saddle for at least another generation.
However, the drawbacks certainly are headed my way.
So even if I’m optimistic about the possible use of AI, I’m not optimistic about this particular stand of the future we’re headed toward.
More likely they just don’t belive technofeudalism is a good thing. In US it comes in single package with AI.
