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It's all aspirational isn't it? (discuss.online)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

Why are we assuming that if we acquire the knowledge of how to cure a disease that the cure will be made accessible to all?

We aren't. I was answering the point of the OP about why there is such a divergence in beliefs. Just illustrating what the other side thinks as I've seen it. To your question, though, I don't think it will. I think it'll be about the same distribution it currently is.

Why are we assuming anything positive would happen for the vast majority of humanity? Is our allegiance to the tech billionaire’s verbatim propaganda completely predicated on optimistic vibes?

Again we aren't. I know that I wouldn't trust the billionaire salesman's pitch. But I would argue that having zero access to a medication is worse than having some access to it, though. There's definitely room for a conversation about an unequal distribution of resources to be had, but I don't know if that can be blamed on AI, specifically.

All of which is to say, you are not immune to propaganda, regardless of being a phd researcher.

Couldn't agree more. Being educated doesn't preclude being stupid.

We had an absolute flood of reporting about “ai” breakthroughs across different fields of science. There have been countless examples of these stories being investigated, and it turns out the “breakthrough” was either unrelated to AI or blatantly fabricated...

I mean, these examples aren't really a mark against AI so much as the industry and the state of research, isn't it? Fabricating research, lying about AI use, or scamming is kinda just... people, right?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for skepticism. Most AI is just garbage and not useful, and even less of it is useful for actual research, but the idea that there is nothing good being developed at all, that it has zero benefit, strikes me as the inverse of the pure, unadulterated optimists have where they think that a total system collapse from 'the big breakthrough' wouldn't be absolutely catastrophic for a ton of people, too.

I just think it is more complex than the current discussion around AI. That's all.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Again we aren't

    I know friend, I’m addressing the people you are speaking for, regardless of who amongst us here agrees with them. I apologize for the confusion

    but the idea that there is nothing good being developed at all, that it has zero benefit, strikes me as the inverse

    This comes up a lot.

    Are you familiar with the story of The Lorax?

    To summarize briefly, a billionaire creates a comfortable scarf, made from felled trees. He aggressively markets this fashion item to the point where it becomes a worldwide sensation, and all the trees are felled in the pursuit of manufacturing more scarves. In the end, without any trees, there is no more fresh air to breathe. Ah but, worry not, the billionaire rises to the occasion, and graciously begins selling the populace canned air so they can survive.

    In this story, do you consider the many objectively good qualities of the scarf to be relevant in any way? How comfortable it is? How warm? How stylish? Would you dismiss the pleas of environmentalists for being too narrow minded in their denial of these many clear benefits?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    In this story, do you consider the many objectively good qualities of the scarf to be relevant in any way? How comfortable it is? How warm? How stylish? Would you dismiss the pleas of environmentalists for being too narrow minded in their denial of these many clear benefits?

    This comes across a bit condescendingly. I obviously think that destroying the environment is a bad thing.

    But I think you're misreading my point entirely. I'm not advocating for AI wholesale or saying the ends justify the means, so I don't see how the Lorax is relevant here.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    We’re currently in the beginning of the story, the alarm is sounding, and instead of firmly rejecting it, we find ourselves trying to balance the discussion by reminding ourselves of the many positive things people like about AI

    Everyone agrees destroying the environment is bad, just like everyone agrees Hitler was bad. But when we find ourselves in modern parallels of these situations it seems like decisive action is often derailed for the sake of nuance.

    I apologize for any condescending air, I am not accusing you of vehemently supporting the scarf industry. I think this discussion is just a bit tough to keep grounded as we shift between addressing each other, ideas in general, and the people we know who hold them. I appreciate your posts and bringing forward the perspectives you’ve encountered and your thoughts about them

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I think The Lorax comparison is warranted for LLMs, hyping the race for AGI, and AI as marketing/branding, but the AI umbrella includes a lot of Machine Learning that's just practical, applied statistics.

    A lot of ML applications aren't anymore resource intensive then using Lemmy. So I think the discussion about harms v. benefits of ai-- beyond hypers and doomers-- often diverges from conflating "AI" with these AI companies that are all-in on LLMs vs AI as a field that contains an over-hyped, over-invested, resource-intensive, subcategory bubble that needs to pop already as well as subcategories that make it easy and efficient to classify and cluster data.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    I agree, I think the conflation of machine learning, which has existed and benefited us for decades, with “AI” is an unfortunately effective marketing strategy. In fact most of the “benefits of AI” being discussed above are just classic machine learning applications being rebranded as AI purely for the sake of allowing the media to have headlines like “AI cures cancer!”

    Right like in this metaphor we’re now lumping scarves in with jackets (classic style, normal manufacturing and impact on the environment) and saying that jackets are good so we should be careful when addressing the field of clothing as a whole. I think the critical thing to understand is that clothing is not under the scarf umbrella, it’s the other way around. It’s not a condemnation of pants to oppose the scarf industry, regardless of how desperately the scarf industry wants to inherit the legacy of pants

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