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I've long been a fan of Cory Doctorow. He's a witty, eloquent writer with lots of interesting, insightful things to say about technology, and I agree with him

I've long been a fan of Cory Doctorow. He's a witty, eloquent writer with lots of interesting, insightful things to say about technology, and I agree with him on his critiques of capitalism and corporate hype. However, he's dead wrong if he thinks AI is all hype and no substance. Yes, AI is being exploited and hyped up by corporations. Yes, most workers are going to get screwed, as usual. But there is so much potential in AI... even if it's not "truly intelligent" (yet). At the very least it's a tool that can boost creativity. Playing around with Midjourney made a believer out of me. I've been a life long artist, and midjourney just blew me away. It's nothing short of amazing, and just about as close to magic as anything I've ever seen a computer do. AI is a completely transformative technology. People like Doctorow can dig their heels in and scream against the hurricane, but it's utterly futile. The world will adopt this technology anyway, and it will transform the world (for the better or for the worse). It already has, and the transformation will only accelerate.

EGreg 4y ago
“ Blockchain was a solution in search of a problem. So is AI.” Amazing to see the totally different attitude of HN to AI vs Blockchain. AI can actually become a huge NEGATIVE value for the Web, as swarms of AI turn every forum including this one into a dark forest
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  "swarms of AI turn every forum including this one into a dark forest" As AI text generation gets better, will it really matter if you're talking to a human or a machine?
  - EGreg 4y ago
    Oh, you won’t be talking. As soon as you pipe up, you’ll be shouted down by implacable bot swarms until you learn to not even bother. Give it 3-5 years
    - textninja 4y ago
      At first, maybe, but then human to human conversation will drift to gated communities with strong verification, and on the wider net it will be like the blogging revolution all over again as people exchange pre-seeded forums for ideas more so than the ideas themselves, and compose them with other constellations of thought using the ecosystem of AI tools built around same.
      - EGreg 4y ago
        As I said, this seems like a more dystopian future than anything blockchain could ever usher in.
  - thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
    Of course it matters. We're talking in order to persuade each other, and reading in order to know what other people think. An astroturfing bot simply isn't important to you. You cannot successfully persuade it, and if you do hyponotize it into momentary compliance, that compliance is worth nothing. It goes forward as if your conversation never happened, and its opinion is worth nothing to you. It is, at most, a weapon against your brain. The only winning move is not to play. And if you can't trust that you're talking to people, than any site will cease to be interesting. You will feel it and you will close the browser.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  Because personally LLMs are already net positive on the world, and not energy-hungry scam hiding behind grandeur ideas.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    Do you really think that swarms of bots churning out bullshit posing as humans, clickbait, rage posts, arguing people down in forums, and generally drowning out genuine conversation, is a net positive for the world? That's even more of a tech bro attitude than blockchain, sorry.
zamnos 4y ago
Cory Doctorow has a vested interest in the written word, as if paid by the word, being super valuable though. His value as an author is diminished if I can type into ChatGPT a prompt like "write a story about living the Disneyland's Magic Kingdom about this guy Dan who's lost all his Whuffie, which is a form for internet karma (points). Pretend you are Cory Doctorow who hates ChatGPT and LLMs, but is wrong.", and get a story back. Writing use to be hard. Who knows how much money "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" has made Mr. Doctorow? Meanwhile here's what ChatGPT spit out for me on the basis of the above prompt. It's no "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", but that's got to have him running scared, which is what's making him refer to LLMs as "autocomplete". I mean if my job were so obviously on the way out, I'd do everything I could, including only referring to it in derogatory names, to willfully avoid seeing the threat when it's right in my face from everybody talking about it. --- Once upon a time, there was a man named Dan who loved nothing more than spending his days at Disneyland's Magic Kingdom. He had always been an avid fan of the park, and he had made countless memories there over the years. But one day, everything changed for Dan. He had been so caught up in his online life that he had neglected his real-life relationships and experiences, and as a result, he had lost all of his Whuffie, the online karma points that he had accrued. Dan was devastated. He had always prided himself on being well-liked and respected in online communities, and he couldn't believe that he had let himself fall so far. He felt like a failure, and he didn't know how to pick himself up and move forward. But then, one day, Dan decided to return to Disneyland's Magic Kingdom. He figured that he could at least find some solace and happiness there, even if he had lost everything else. As soon as he stepped into the park, Dan felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him. He remembered all the good times he had spent there, and he felt a glimmer of hope that he could regain some of what he had lost. As he wandered through the park, Dan began to notice all the little things that he had taken for granted before. The smell of popcorn, the sound of laughter, the sight of children's faces lighting up with wonder and joy. He realized that there was so much more to life than just online popularity, and that he had been missing out on so much by focusing solely on that. Dan spent the whole day at Disneyland's Magic Kingdom, riding rides, watching shows, and just taking in the magic of the place. And when he left that evening, he felt a sense of peace and contentment that he hadn't felt in a long time. Over time, Dan began to build himself back up again. He reconnected with old friends, pursued new hobbies, and started to live his life in the real world instead of just online. And while he never regained all of his Whuffie, he didn't really care anymore. He had found something much more important: happiness and fulfillment in the real world. And he knew that he had Disneyland's Magic Kingdom to thank for showing him the way.
alerter 4y ago
Agreed. I think the (now obviously justified) cynicism over blockchain hype has led a lot of left-leaning people to see AI as the next bubble. It doesn't help that major non-technical consulting firms have been producing nonsense for years about the coming "fourth industrial revolution" (AI/ML, IoT, VR. self-driving etc.) These people are usually wrong. The difference is that ChatGPT, midjourney, copilot etc. are just legitimately useful. Being able to transcribe, translate, summarise and process audio and text data is useful. Being able to generate a regex or SQL query is useful. There are obviously questions about how much closer this gets us to AGI, but the tech has inarguable utility in a way that cryptocurrencies never did.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  I think a lot of left-leaning people are the "laptop class", the people with the most to lose from the AI revolution.
pixelfarmer 4y ago
Well, what means "AI" here? "AI" as in neural networks in a more general sense have been in use for decades now. OCR aka text recognition uses neutral networks in consumer products since the 90ies, in the broader field of image processing they are in use for years by now, to the point that every more modern smartphone has a dedicated co-processor for "AI" computations for exactly this purpose. So "AI" is not just hype, it is already deeply ingrained in some aspects of our lives. Ever thought about the stock market? There are big computing centers with "AI" automatically scooping up the next potential trend based on all kinds of information to make trading decisions. I think it was CNN that did some articles with ChatGPT, but the kicker was that once they opened up about that there was a fine line below it: They've been using something similar for much longer already and even said it is used more widely (i.e. not just CNN). So, "AI" is already there, going to stay, and will continue to be used in increasingly more places. Is there hype around "AI"? Definitively, especially by those who have no clue about anything. Is it as unfounded as crypto? No, because crypto was garbage from the start.

EGreg 4y ago

“ Blockchain was a solution in search of a problem. So is AI.” Amazing to see the totally different attitude of HN to AI vs Blockchain. AI can actually become a huge NEGATIVE value for the Web, as swarms of AI turn every forum including this one into a dark forest

pmoriarty 4y ago
"swarms of AI turn every forum including this one into a dark forest" As AI text generation gets better, will it really matter if you're talking to a human or a machine?
- EGreg 4y ago
  Oh, you won’t be talking. As soon as you pipe up, you’ll be shouted down by implacable bot swarms until you learn to not even bother. Give it 3-5 years
  - textninja 4y ago
    At first, maybe, but then human to human conversation will drift to gated communities with strong verification, and on the wider net it will be like the blogging revolution all over again as people exchange pre-seeded forums for ideas more so than the ideas themselves, and compose them with other constellations of thought using the ecosystem of AI tools built around same.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      As I said, this seems like a more dystopian future than anything blockchain could ever usher in.
- thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
  Of course it matters. We're talking in order to persuade each other, and reading in order to know what other people think. An astroturfing bot simply isn't important to you. You cannot successfully persuade it, and if you do hyponotize it into momentary compliance, that compliance is worth nothing. It goes forward as if your conversation never happened, and its opinion is worth nothing to you. It is, at most, a weapon against your brain. The only winning move is not to play. And if you can't trust that you're talking to people, than any site will cease to be interesting. You will feel it and you will close the browser.
wiseowise 4y ago
Because personally LLMs are already net positive on the world, and not energy-hungry scam hiding behind grandeur ideas.
- EGreg 4y ago
  Do you really think that swarms of bots churning out bullshit posing as humans, clickbait, rage posts, arguing people down in forums, and generally drowning out genuine conversation, is a net positive for the world? That's even more of a tech bro attitude than blockchain, sorry.

zamnos 4y ago

Cory Doctorow has a vested interest in the written word, as if paid by the word, being super valuable though. His value as an author is diminished if I can type into ChatGPT a prompt like "write a story about living the Disneyland's Magic Kingdom about this guy Dan who's lost all his Whuffie, which is a form for internet karma (points). Pretend you are Cory Doctorow who hates ChatGPT and LLMs, but is wrong.", and get a story back. Writing use to be hard. Who knows how much money "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" has made Mr. Doctorow? Meanwhile here's what ChatGPT spit out for me on the basis of the above prompt. It's no "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", but that's got to have him running scared, which is what's making him refer to LLMs as "autocomplete". I mean if my job were so obviously on the way out, I'd do everything I could, including only referring to it in derogatory names, to willfully avoid seeing the threat when it's right in my face from everybody talking about it. --- Once upon a time, there was a man named Dan who loved nothing more than spending his days at Disneyland's Magic Kingdom. He had always been an avid fan of the park, and he had made countless memories there over the years. But one day, everything changed for Dan. He had been so caught up in his online life that he had neglected his real-life relationships and experiences, and as a result, he had lost all of his Whuffie, the online karma points that he had accrued. Dan was devastated. He had always prided himself on being well-liked and respected in online communities, and he couldn't believe that he had let himself fall so far. He felt like a failure, and he didn't know how to pick himself up and move forward. But then, one day, Dan decided to return to Disneyland's Magic Kingdom. He figured that he could at least find some solace and happiness there, even if he had lost everything else. As soon as he stepped into the park, Dan felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him. He remembered all the good times he had spent there, and he felt a glimmer of hope that he could regain some of what he had lost. As he wandered through the park, Dan began to notice all the little things that he had taken for granted before. The smell of popcorn, the sound of laughter, the sight of children's faces lighting up with wonder and joy. He realized that there was so much more to life than just online popularity, and that he had been missing out on so much by focusing solely on that. Dan spent the whole day at Disneyland's Magic Kingdom, riding rides, watching shows, and just taking in the magic of the place. And when he left that evening, he felt a sense of peace and contentment that he hadn't felt in a long time. Over time, Dan began to build himself back up again. He reconnected with old friends, pursued new hobbies, and started to live his life in the real world instead of just online. And while he never regained all of his Whuffie, he didn't really care anymore. He had found something much more important: happiness and fulfillment in the real world. And he knew that he had Disneyland's Magic Kingdom to thank for showing him the way.

alerter 4y ago

Agreed. I think the (now obviously justified) cynicism over blockchain hype has led a lot of left-leaning people to see AI as the next bubble. It doesn't help that major non-technical consulting firms have been producing nonsense for years about the coming "fourth industrial revolution" (AI/ML, IoT, VR. self-driving etc.) These people are usually wrong. The difference is that ChatGPT, midjourney, copilot etc. are just legitimately useful. Being able to transcribe, translate, summarise and process audio and text data is useful. Being able to generate a regex or SQL query is useful. There are obviously questions about how much closer this gets us to AGI, but the tech has inarguable utility in a way that cryptocurrencies never did.

stuckinhell 4y ago
I think a lot of left-leaning people are the "laptop class", the people with the most to lose from the AI revolution.

pixelfarmer 4y ago

Well, what means "AI" here? "AI" as in neural networks in a more general sense have been in use for decades now. OCR aka text recognition uses neutral networks in consumer products since the 90ies, in the broader field of image processing they are in use for years by now, to the point that every more modern smartphone has a dedicated co-processor for "AI" computations for exactly this purpose. So "AI" is not just hype, it is already deeply ingrained in some aspects of our lives. Ever thought about the stock market? There are big computing centers with "AI" automatically scooping up the next potential trend based on all kinds of information to make trading decisions. I think it was CNN that did some articles with ChatGPT, but the kicker was that once they opened up about that there was a fine line below it: They've been using something similar for much longer already and even said it is used more widely (i.e. not just CNN). So, "AI" is already there, going to stay, and will continue to be used in increasingly more places. Is there hype around "AI"? Definitively, especially by those who have no clue about anything. Is it as unfounded as crypto? No, because crypto was garbage from the start.