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The AI way of thinking is: AI is better than humans, and that it will replace our labor and our decisions. Therefore we must focus and invest in AI, as well as

by unabst 6y ago

The AI way of thinking is: AI is better than humans, and that it will replace our labor and our decisions. Therefore we must focus and invest in AI, as well as fear it, because it is taking over. The damage done is obvious. We discount human agency and human labor in the face of this idea. Products are being sold based on this idea. Foreign and domestic policy, security and privacy, and private and public funding are being redirected by this idea. If one were to simply replace "AI" with "machine learning", which is the name of the actual technology in most of these cases, in most of these contexts the hype and ideology would go away. And with it take away the attention and the money. We would then be able to focus on better things.

bonoboTP 6y ago
I wouldn't blame all that on the term "AI". There was quite a bit of hype before that under the label of "big data". In Germany it's trendy to talk about Industry 4.0 and "digitalization". You can generate quite a lot of buzz even without talking about "AI".
- unabst 6y ago
  Exactly. "AI" used by the media, by marketing, and by science fiction has created its own concept, and that concept having consequences beyond the technologies associated with the label is what the article is about.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    That's not what I meant. I mean that overusing the term "AI" is kinda bad and annoying but I think it's not doing the heavy lifting in the rapid adoption of these technologies and the buzz it creates. Even if we just talked about large-scale high-performance statistical data processing, or "algorithmic automation" (AA) it would still be used everywhere, it would just be more difficult for laypeople to come to grips with it. It's a bit as if people around 2000 were saying it's stupid to talk about "cyberspace", it's not some new space out there, it's just people sitting behind their computers connected by wires! But that term was not the reason for the hype. Now, sure the label AI does contribute its share to the hype, but this stuff is so good that whatever way you call it (as long as it's not too many syllables), it will become a buzzword just for that reason. It's like euphemism treadmills. You can rename the concept, but it will re-acquire the same meanings. I mean "convolutional" managed to become quite a buzzword itself (even though it's a well defined technical term), as it appeared so often alongside really sexy stories.

by unabst 6y ago

bonoboTP 6y ago

I wouldn't blame all that on the term "AI". There was quite a bit of hype before that under the label of "big data". In Germany it's trendy to talk about Industry 4.0 and "digitalization". You can generate quite a lot of buzz even without talking about "AI".

unabst 6y ago
Exactly. "AI" used by the media, by marketing, and by science fiction has created its own concept, and that concept having consequences beyond the technologies associated with the label is what the article is about.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  That's not what I meant. I mean that overusing the term "AI" is kinda bad and annoying but I think it's not doing the heavy lifting in the rapid adoption of these technologies and the buzz it creates. Even if we just talked about large-scale high-performance statistical data processing, or "algorithmic automation" (AA) it would still be used everywhere, it would just be more difficult for laypeople to come to grips with it. It's a bit as if people around 2000 were saying it's stupid to talk about "cyberspace", it's not some new space out there, it's just people sitting behind their computers connected by wires! But that term was not the reason for the hype. Now, sure the label AI does contribute its share to the hype, but this stuff is so good that whatever way you call it (as long as it's not too many syllables), it will become a buzzword just for that reason. It's like euphemism treadmills. You can rename the concept, but it will re-acquire the same meanings. I mean "convolutional" managed to become quite a buzzword itself (even though it's a well defined technical term), as it appeared so often alongside really sexy stories.