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The problem that will always remain with AI is speciesism. Till the time we stop thinking of AI and machines as "lower" than humans, their output will always be

The problem that will always remain with AI is speciesism. Till the time we stop thinking of AI and machines as "lower" than humans, their output will always be looked at with a frown, no wonder how good it gets.

candiodari 3y ago
The problem is that government and companies are using (REALLY) bad AI to not have to talk to people and to generally be unreachable. The problem is low-effort spam, and that every last actor in the economy is using that for "customer service".
- namaria 3y ago
  The problem is that the AI label is being pinned on all sorts of automatic systems that share nothing except the fact that they are software driven. There is no AI, we stretched the symbol beyond all meaning. We need to discuss what and why we're automating stuff, and if the underlying logic is sound, on a case-by-case basis. Facial recognition to enforce arbitrary social rules via point based systems that revoke civil liberties, for example, is bad. It has nothing to do with the inherent value of some poorly defined "AI" concept.
baremetal 3y ago
This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. What drives this need to deify AI?
- lowercased 3y ago
  > What drives this need to deify AI Humans seem to want to deify a lot of things. I think it's in our nature.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Conversely, what drives the need to other AI?
  - curiousllama 3y ago
    Bruh, it’s a rock
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      Except, it's not quite like a rock either.
      - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
        It's poisoned sand we taught to think!
        BanazirGalbasi 3y ago
        With lightning!
  - mrtranscendence 3y ago
    Why do we “other” notepads, coffee cups, and more traditional statistical models? Current AI is not sentient, does not have wants or desires, and cannot experience pain or joy. I don’t think I need to give GT-4 the same respect I’d give a human (or a non-human animal).
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      Is that simply "vibes"? In which way would one ground the category sentience? It almost sounds like an argument from consequences: - It's preposterous to treat GPT as if it were conscious. - Therefore it cannot be conscious. I'm not quite convinced this is a watertight argument. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your reasoning?
      - mrtranscendence 3y ago
        I wasn’t making an argument, I was making a statement. But no, I don’t believe GPT-4 is conscious, because we have no evidence that statistical models — even complicated ones — are the sorts of things that can be conscious. If there’s an argument that simply being a better, larger statistical model implies consciousness, I would love to hear it.
- golemotron 3y ago
  > This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. Once we can ask an AI to create another AI..
Simulacra 3y ago
I disagree, the problem with AI will always be the human element programing it. So long as there is an human making moral or value judgements it will never be true AI. It's just a bot.
klyrs 3y ago
Alternative proposal: the better their output becomes, the more we have to frown about.
yamtaddle 3y ago
Human output may merit some benefit-of-the-doubt if we don't initially understand it. Someone took time out of their life to create it, and presumably were attempting to convey some actual meaning. AI (at present) doesn't know what "meaning" even is. Generating mountains of output with it is cheap. Analyzing it is a trap—there's no other to try to understand and appreciate. It's an accident that happens to resemble something with intent behind it. I think that's part of why people react so poorly to it, and especially to trying to pass its output off as human-generated. (Spoilers for Watts' Blindsight) In Blindsight, the (intelligent but non-conscious) aliens think human communication is some kind of adversarial gibberish intended to mimic meaning in order to tie up opponents' resources with nonsense. Just chaff, basically. They're not able to understand the not-directly-and-strictly-business output of a consciousness as anything else, because they're used to a universe of intelligent but non-conscious actors. Today, that's what our AI tools actually do, as far as what they're capable of doing without extensive human adjustment and editing. They are, by far, at their most-efficient when used to generate noise. That noise may be useful for some purpose, but it's not any good purpose, because it's only useful at that kind of scale in cases where truth and meaning aren't valuable. [EDIT] For comparison, look at other forms of communication where humans go out of their way to avoid meaning. It's pretty much all reviled: marketing-speak, lawyer-speak, politician-speak, HR-speak, et c.
- mrtranscendence 3y ago
  I dispute that AI tools are not useful for any good purpose. I’ve had success with GPT-4 generating blocks of code where I’m not familiar with the relevant APIs. The code needs to be checked, of course, and doesn’t always work, but neither is it mere noise.
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    To quote myself: > without extensive human adjustment and editing Current AI tools are a bit helpful if you're using them for "good". They're immensely helpful if you're using them for "ill" (spamming, scamming, astroturfing, et c.)
JohnFen 3y ago
Well, since people are living and AI is not, I think it's entirely justified to think of machines and AI as not being in the same category as humans or any other living thing. It's not being "speciesist", though, because AI is not a species.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  And also people created AI.

candiodari 3y ago

The problem is that government and companies are using (REALLY) bad AI to not have to talk to people and to generally be unreachable. The problem is low-effort spam, and that every last actor in the economy is using that for "customer service".

namaria 3y ago
The problem is that the AI label is being pinned on all sorts of automatic systems that share nothing except the fact that they are software driven. There is no AI, we stretched the symbol beyond all meaning. We need to discuss what and why we're automating stuff, and if the underlying logic is sound, on a case-by-case basis. Facial recognition to enforce arbitrary social rules via point based systems that revoke civil liberties, for example, is bad. It has nothing to do with the inherent value of some poorly defined "AI" concept.

baremetal 3y ago

This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. What drives this need to deify AI?

lowercased 3y ago
> What drives this need to deify AI Humans seem to want to deify a lot of things. I think it's in our nature.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Conversely, what drives the need to other AI?
- curiousllama 3y ago
  Bruh, it’s a rock
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Except, it's not quite like a rock either.
    - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
      It's poisoned sand we taught to think!
      - BanazirGalbasi 3y ago
        With lightning!
- mrtranscendence 3y ago
  Why do we “other” notepads, coffee cups, and more traditional statistical models? Current AI is not sentient, does not have wants or desires, and cannot experience pain or joy. I don’t think I need to give GT-4 the same respect I’d give a human (or a non-human animal).
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Is that simply "vibes"? In which way would one ground the category sentience? It almost sounds like an argument from consequences: - It's preposterous to treat GPT as if it were conscious. - Therefore it cannot be conscious. I'm not quite convinced this is a watertight argument. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your reasoning?
    - mrtranscendence 3y ago
      I wasn’t making an argument, I was making a statement. But no, I don’t believe GPT-4 is conscious, because we have no evidence that statistical models — even complicated ones — are the sorts of things that can be conscious. If there’s an argument that simply being a better, larger statistical model implies consciousness, I would love to hear it.
golemotron 3y ago
> This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. Once we can ask an AI to create another AI..

Simulacra 3y ago

I disagree, the problem with AI will always be the human element programing it. So long as there is an human making moral or value judgements it will never be true AI. It's just a bot.

klyrs 3y ago

Alternative proposal: the better their output becomes, the more we have to frown about.

yamtaddle 3y ago

Human output may merit some benefit-of-the-doubt if we don't initially understand it. Someone took time out of their life to create it, and presumably were attempting to convey some actual meaning. AI (at present) doesn't know what "meaning" even is. Generating mountains of output with it is cheap. Analyzing it is a trap—there's no other to try to understand and appreciate. It's an accident that happens to resemble something with intent behind it. I think that's part of why people react so poorly to it, and especially to trying to pass its output off as human-generated. (Spoilers for Watts' Blindsight) In Blindsight, the (intelligent but non-conscious) aliens think human communication is some kind of adversarial gibberish intended to mimic meaning in order to tie up opponents' resources with nonsense. Just chaff, basically. They're not able to understand the not-directly-and-strictly-business output of a consciousness as anything else, because they're used to a universe of intelligent but non-conscious actors. Today, that's what our AI tools actually do, as far as what they're capable of doing without extensive human adjustment and editing. They are, by far, at their most-efficient when used to generate noise. That noise may be useful for some purpose, but it's not any good purpose, because it's only useful at that kind of scale in cases where truth and meaning aren't valuable. [EDIT] For comparison, look at other forms of communication where humans go out of their way to avoid meaning. It's pretty much all reviled: marketing-speak, lawyer-speak, politician-speak, HR-speak, et c.

mrtranscendence 3y ago
I dispute that AI tools are not useful for any good purpose. I’ve had success with GPT-4 generating blocks of code where I’m not familiar with the relevant APIs. The code needs to be checked, of course, and doesn’t always work, but neither is it mere noise.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  To quote myself: > without extensive human adjustment and editing Current AI tools are a bit helpful if you're using them for "good". They're immensely helpful if you're using them for "ill" (spamming, scamming, astroturfing, et c.)

JohnFen 3y ago

Well, since people are living and AI is not, I think it's entirely justified to think of machines and AI as not being in the same category as humans or any other living thing. It's not being "speciesist", though, because AI is not a species.

hot_gril 3y ago
And also people created AI.