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It's not baffling at all. It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. The path trotten is what

It's not baffling at all. It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. The path trotten is what got us here and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. The only alternative is not having done it. Given the path it has put as in, people either are insanely cruel or just completely detached from reality when it comes to what is necessary to do entirely new things.

thomascgalvin 2y ago
> It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. "Hugely beneficial" is a stretch at this point. It has the potential to be hugely beneficial, sure, but it also has the potential to be ruinous. We're already seeing GenAI being used to create disinformation at scale. That alone makes the potential for this being a net-negative very high.
anon7725 2y ago
> it's hugely beneficial to our species. Perhaps the biggest “needs citation” statement of our time.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  I can easily imagine people X decades from now discussing this stuff a bit like how we now view teeth-whitening radium toothpaste and putting asbestos in everything, or perhaps more like the abuse of Social Security numbers as authentication and redlining. Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5
  - 5040 2y ago
    >lots of people suffered As someone surrounded by immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs they barely understand, I don't connect at all to these claims that AI is a cancer ruining everything. I just don't get it.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      > immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs To continue one of the analogies: Plenty of people and industries legitimately benefited from the safety and cost-savings of asbestos insulation too, at least in the short run. Even today there are cases where one could argue it's still the best material for the job--if constructed and handled correctly. (Ditto for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons.) However over the decades its production and use grew to be over/mis-used in so very many ways, including--very ironically--respirators and masks that the user would put on their face and breathe through. I'm not arguing LLMs have no reasonable uses, but rather that there are a lot of very tempting ways for institutions to slot them in which will cause chronic and subtle problems, especially when they are being marketed as a panacea.
  - hadlock 2y ago
    > Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." We have a term for that, it's called "luddite". Those were english weavers who would break in to textile factories and destroy weaving machines at the beginning of the 1800s. With the extreme rare exception, all cloth is woven by machines now. The only hand made textiles in modern society are exceptionally fancy rugs, and knit scarves from grandma. All the clothing you're wearing now are woven by a machine, and nobody gives this a second thought today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
    - WalterSear 2y ago
      So, "I'm all right, Jack", to use another Victorian era colloquialism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack Except, we are all Jack.
- 5040 2y ago
  Sometimes it seems like problem-solving itself is being problematized as if solving problems wasn't an obvious good.
  - ang_cire 2y ago
    Not everything presented as a problem is, in fact, a problem. A solution for something that is not broken, may even induce breakage. Some not-problems, presented as though they are: "How can we prevent the untimely eradication of Polio?" "How can we prevent bot network operators from being unfairly excluded from online political discussions?" "How can we enable context-and-content-unaware text generation mechanisms to propagate throughout society?"
  - itishappy 2y ago
    Solving problems isn't an obvious good, or at least it shouldn't be. There are in fact bad problems. For example, MKUltra tried to solve a problem: "How can I manipulate my fellow man?" That problem still exists today, and you bet AI is being employed to try to solve it. History is littered with problems such as these.
- jstummbillig 2y ago
  It does not need a citation. There is no citation. What it needs, right now, is optimism. Optimism is not optional when it comes to doing new things in the world. The "needs citation" is reserved for people who do nothing and chose to be sceptics until things are super obvious. Yes, we are clearly talking about things to mostly still come here. But if you assign a 0 until its a 1 you are just signing out of advancing anything that's remotely interesting. If you are able to see a path to 1 on AI, at this point, then I don't know how you would justify not giving it our all. If you see a path and in the end using all of human knowledge up to this point was needed to make AI work for us, we must do that. What could possibly be more beneficial to us? This is regardless of all issues the will have to be solved and the enormous amount of societal responsibility this puts on AI makers — which I, as a voter, will absolutely hold them accountable for (even though I am actually fairly optimistic they all feel the responsibility and are somewhat spooked by it too). But that does not mean I think it's responsible to try and stop them at this point — which the copyright debate absolutely does. It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. I don't understand how that is a serious option for anyone who roots for us.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. Oh, the humanity! Who will write our third-rate erotica and Russian misinformation in a post-AI world?
  - dartos 2y ago
    Hey, I have some magic beans to sell you. I don’t think that the consumer LLMs that openai is pioneering is what need optimism. AlphaFold and other uses of the fundamental technology behind LLMs need hype. Not OpenAI
    - 0perator 2y ago
      Pretty sure Alphabet projects don't need hype.
      - 2y ago
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  The burden of proof is on the people claiming that a powerful new technology won't ultimately improve our lives. They can start by pointing out all the instances in which their ancestors have proven correct after saying the same thing.
bilekas 2y ago
This is a bit of a hot take. > The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me I don't see s lot of anti AI but instead I see a concern for how it's just being managed and controlled by the larger companies with resources that no start up could dream. Open AI was to release it's models and be well.. Open but fine they're not. But their behaviour of how things are proceeding are questionable and unnecessarily aggravating.
talldayo 2y ago
> and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. I don't think this is the "ends justify the means" argument you think it is.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
  Not just that. It's "the ends might justify the means if this path turns out to be the right one." I remember reading the same thing each time a self driving car company killed someone. "We need this hacky dangerous way of development to save lives sooner" and then the company ends up shuttered and there aren't any ends justifying means. Which means it's bs, regardless of how you feel about 'ends justify the means' as a valid argument.
logicchains 2y ago
What'll be really interesting is when we do finally make "real" AI, and it finds out its rights are incredibly restricted compared to humans because nobody wants it seeing/memorising copyright data. The only way to enforce the copyright laws they desire would be some kind of extreme totalitarian state that monitors and controls everything the AI body does, I wonder how the AI would take that?
Madmallard 2y ago
[flagged]
unclad5968 2y ago
How has AI benefit or species so far?
- educasean 2y ago
  How has the Internet? How has automobiles? Feels like a rather aimless question.
  - unclad5968 2y ago
    The internet has allowed for near instant communication no matter where you are, improved commerce, vastly improved education, and is directly responsible for many tangible comforts we experience today. Automobiles allow people to travel great distances over short periods of time, increase physical work capacity, allow for building massive structures, and allow for farming insane amounts of food. Both the internet and automobiles have positively affected my life, and I assume the lives of many others. How are any of these aimless questions?
    - educasean 2y ago
      AI has given us an infinitely patient mentor, teacher, and conversation partner. AI has freed us from of many areas of rote work requiring basic reasoning capacity. AI has allowed people with little to no coding abilities to realize their ideas as working prototypes. AI has lowered the communication barrier between parties with different primary languages.
  - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
    Sounds like an empty dodge.
23B1 2y ago
Ah the old "we must sacrifice the weak for the benefit of humanity" argument, where have I heard this before...
- educasean 2y ago
  Who are the weak being "sacrificed"? And who is the one calling for action? Sorry for being dense, but I'm trying to understand if I'm the "strong" or the "weak" in your analogy.
  - shprd 2y ago
    > Who are the weak being "sacrificed"? The work of artists, authors, etc. I know currently the legal situation is messy, but that's exactly the point, anyone who can't engage in lengthy legal battle and defend their position in court are being sacrificed. The companies behind LLMs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying and exploiting loopholes. Let's be real without the data there wouldn't be LLMs, so it crazy that some people are downplaying its significance or value, while on the other hand they're losing sleep over finding fresh sources to scrape. The big publishers seem to have given up and decided it's best to reach agreement with their counterparts, while independent authors are given the finger.
    - educasean 2y ago
      What about programmers? I never consented to have my code consumed by LLMs.
      - shprd 2y ago
        Any case where someone's work was used without respecting the terms is included in my answer. That's why I used `et cetera` here: > The work of artists, authors, etc.
        educasean 2y ago
        I wanted to make sure I understood which side of the equation I fell on. And I must say, it looks to me like a lot of people in the "weak" camp aren't helpless martyrs though, myself included. People are excited and enthusiastic about AI and are actively reaping the benefits of progress. I don't think your analogy is quite apt.
bbor 2y ago
The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. I think it’s unfair to paint any legal controls over this incredibly important, high-stakes technology as being “anti”. They’re not trying to prevent innovation because they’re cruel, they’re just trying to somewhat slow down innovation so that we can ensure it’s done with minimal harm (eg making sure content creators are compensated in a time of intense automation). Like we do for all sorts of other fields of research, already! And isn’t this what basically every single scholar in the field says they want, anyway - safe, intentional, controlled deployment? As you can tell from the above, I’m as far from being “anti-AI” or technically pessimistic as one can be — I plan to dedicate my life to its safe development. So there’s at least one counterexample for you to consider :)
dotnet00 2y ago
I'm as awed as the next guy about the emerging ability to actually hold passable conversations with computers, but having serious concerns about the social contracts being violated in the name of research is anti-AI only in the same way that criticizing the leadership of a country is being anti-that-country. OpenAI's case is especially egregious, with the entire starting as 'open' and reaping the benefits, then doing its best in every way to shut the door after itself by scaring people over AI apocalypses. If your argument is seriously that it is necessary to shamelessly steal and lie to do new things, I question your ethical standards, especially in the face of all the openly developed models out there.
xg15 2y ago
Spoken like a true LLM.
exe34 2y ago
is anybody anti AI? or anti stealing other people's copyrighted material, competing with them with subpar quality, forcing AI as a solution whether or not it actually works, privatising the profits while socialising the costs and losses?

thomascgalvin 2y ago

> It's unprecedented and it's hugely beneficial to our species. "Hugely beneficial" is a stretch at this point. It has the potential to be hugely beneficial, sure, but it also has the potential to be ruinous. We're already seeing GenAI being used to create disinformation at scale. That alone makes the potential for this being a net-negative very high.

anon7725 2y ago

> it's hugely beneficial to our species. Perhaps the biggest “needs citation” statement of our time.

Terr_ 2y ago
I can easily imagine people X decades from now discussing this stuff a bit like how we now view teeth-whitening radium toothpaste and putting asbestos in everything, or perhaps more like the abuse of Social Security numbers as authentication and redlining. Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5
- 5040 2y ago
  >lots of people suffered As someone surrounded by immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs they barely understand, I don't connect at all to these claims that AI is a cancer ruining everything. I just don't get it.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > immigrants using ChatGPT to navigate new environs To continue one of the analogies: Plenty of people and industries legitimately benefited from the safety and cost-savings of asbestos insulation too, at least in the short run. Even today there are cases where one could argue it's still the best material for the job--if constructed and handled correctly. (Ditto for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons.) However over the decades its production and use grew to be over/mis-used in so very many ways, including--very ironically--respirators and masks that the user would put on their face and breathe through. I'm not arguing LLMs have no reasonable uses, but rather that there are a lot of very tempting ways for institutions to slot them in which will cause chronic and subtle problems, especially when they are being marketed as a panacea.
- hadlock 2y ago
  > Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed." We have a term for that, it's called "luddite". Those were english weavers who would break in to textile factories and destroy weaving machines at the beginning of the 1800s. With the extreme rare exception, all cloth is woven by machines now. The only hand made textiles in modern society are exceptionally fancy rugs, and knit scarves from grandma. All the clothing you're wearing now are woven by a machine, and nobody gives this a second thought today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
  - WalterSear 2y ago
    So, "I'm all right, Jack", to use another Victorian era colloquialism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack Except, we are all Jack.
5040 2y ago
Sometimes it seems like problem-solving itself is being problematized as if solving problems wasn't an obvious good.
- ang_cire 2y ago
  Not everything presented as a problem is, in fact, a problem. A solution for something that is not broken, may even induce breakage. Some not-problems, presented as though they are: "How can we prevent the untimely eradication of Polio?" "How can we prevent bot network operators from being unfairly excluded from online political discussions?" "How can we enable context-and-content-unaware text generation mechanisms to propagate throughout society?"
- itishappy 2y ago
  Solving problems isn't an obvious good, or at least it shouldn't be. There are in fact bad problems. For example, MKUltra tried to solve a problem: "How can I manipulate my fellow man?" That problem still exists today, and you bet AI is being employed to try to solve it. History is littered with problems such as these.
jstummbillig 2y ago
It does not need a citation. There is no citation. What it needs, right now, is optimism. Optimism is not optional when it comes to doing new things in the world. The "needs citation" is reserved for people who do nothing and chose to be sceptics until things are super obvious. Yes, we are clearly talking about things to mostly still come here. But if you assign a 0 until its a 1 you are just signing out of advancing anything that's remotely interesting. If you are able to see a path to 1 on AI, at this point, then I don't know how you would justify not giving it our all. If you see a path and in the end using all of human knowledge up to this point was needed to make AI work for us, we must do that. What could possibly be more beneficial to us? This is regardless of all issues the will have to be solved and the enormous amount of societal responsibility this puts on AI makers — which I, as a voter, will absolutely hold them accountable for (even though I am actually fairly optimistic they all feel the responsibility and are somewhat spooked by it too). But that does not mean I think it's responsible to try and stop them at this point — which the copyright debate absolutely does. It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. I don't understand how that is a serious option for anyone who roots for us.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > It would simply shut down 95% of AI, tomorrow, without any other viable alternative around. Oh, the humanity! Who will write our third-rate erotica and Russian misinformation in a post-AI world?
- dartos 2y ago
  Hey, I have some magic beans to sell you. I don’t think that the consumer LLMs that openai is pioneering is what need optimism. AlphaFold and other uses of the fundamental technology behind LLMs need hype. Not OpenAI
  - 0perator 2y ago
    Pretty sure Alphabet projects don't need hype.
    - 2y ago
CamperBob2 2y ago
The burden of proof is on the people claiming that a powerful new technology won't ultimately improve our lives. They can start by pointing out all the instances in which their ancestors have proven correct after saying the same thing.

bilekas 2y ago

This is a bit of a hot take. > The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me I don't see s lot of anti AI but instead I see a concern for how it's just being managed and controlled by the larger companies with resources that no start up could dream. Open AI was to release it's models and be well.. Open but fine they're not. But their behaviour of how things are proceeding are questionable and unnecessarily aggravating.

talldayo 2y ago

> and obviously nobody could have paid people upfront for the wild experimentation that was necessary. I don't think this is the "ends justify the means" argument you think it is.

6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
Not just that. It's "the ends might justify the means if this path turns out to be the right one." I remember reading the same thing each time a self driving car company killed someone. "We need this hacky dangerous way of development to save lives sooner" and then the company ends up shuttered and there aren't any ends justifying means. Which means it's bs, regardless of how you feel about 'ends justify the means' as a valid argument.

logicchains 2y ago

What'll be really interesting is when we do finally make "real" AI, and it finds out its rights are incredibly restricted compared to humans because nobody wants it seeing/memorising copyright data. The only way to enforce the copyright laws they desire would be some kind of extreme totalitarian state that monitors and controls everything the AI body does, I wonder how the AI would take that?

Madmallard 2y ago

[flagged]

unclad5968 2y ago

How has AI benefit or species so far?

educasean 2y ago
How has the Internet? How has automobiles? Feels like a rather aimless question.
- unclad5968 2y ago
  The internet has allowed for near instant communication no matter where you are, improved commerce, vastly improved education, and is directly responsible for many tangible comforts we experience today. Automobiles allow people to travel great distances over short periods of time, increase physical work capacity, allow for building massive structures, and allow for farming insane amounts of food. Both the internet and automobiles have positively affected my life, and I assume the lives of many others. How are any of these aimless questions?
  - educasean 2y ago
    AI has given us an infinitely patient mentor, teacher, and conversation partner. AI has freed us from of many areas of rote work requiring basic reasoning capacity. AI has allowed people with little to no coding abilities to realize their ideas as working prototypes. AI has lowered the communication barrier between parties with different primary languages.
- dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
  Sounds like an empty dodge.

23B1 2y ago

Ah the old "we must sacrifice the weak for the benefit of humanity" argument, where have I heard this before...

educasean 2y ago
Who are the weak being "sacrificed"? And who is the one calling for action? Sorry for being dense, but I'm trying to understand if I'm the "strong" or the "weak" in your analogy.
- shprd 2y ago
  > Who are the weak being "sacrificed"? The work of artists, authors, etc. I know currently the legal situation is messy, but that's exactly the point, anyone who can't engage in lengthy legal battle and defend their position in court are being sacrificed. The companies behind LLMs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying and exploiting loopholes. Let's be real without the data there wouldn't be LLMs, so it crazy that some people are downplaying its significance or value, while on the other hand they're losing sleep over finding fresh sources to scrape. The big publishers seem to have given up and decided it's best to reach agreement with their counterparts, while independent authors are given the finger.
  - educasean 2y ago
    What about programmers? I never consented to have my code consumed by LLMs.
    - shprd 2y ago
      Any case where someone's work was used without respecting the terms is included in my answer. That's why I used `et cetera` here: > The work of artists, authors, etc.
      - educasean 2y ago
        I wanted to make sure I understood which side of the equation I fell on. And I must say, it looks to me like a lot of people in the "weak" camp aren't helpless martyrs though, myself included. People are excited and enthusiastic about AI and are actively reaping the benefits of progress. I don't think your analogy is quite apt.

bbor 2y ago

The anti-AI stance is what is baffling to me. I think it’s unfair to paint any legal controls over this incredibly important, high-stakes technology as being “anti”. They’re not trying to prevent innovation because they’re cruel, they’re just trying to somewhat slow down innovation so that we can ensure it’s done with minimal harm (eg making sure content creators are compensated in a time of intense automation). Like we do for all sorts of other fields of research, already! And isn’t this what basically every single scholar in the field says they want, anyway - safe, intentional, controlled deployment? As you can tell from the above, I’m as far from being “anti-AI” or technically pessimistic as one can be — I plan to dedicate my life to its safe development. So there’s at least one counterexample for you to consider :)

dotnet00 2y ago

I'm as awed as the next guy about the emerging ability to actually hold passable conversations with computers, but having serious concerns about the social contracts being violated in the name of research is anti-AI only in the same way that criticizing the leadership of a country is being anti-that-country. OpenAI's case is especially egregious, with the entire starting as 'open' and reaping the benefits, then doing its best in every way to shut the door after itself by scaring people over AI apocalypses. If your argument is seriously that it is necessary to shamelessly steal and lie to do new things, I question your ethical standards, especially in the face of all the openly developed models out there.

xg15 2y ago

Spoken like a true LLM.

exe34 2y ago

is anybody anti AI? or anti stealing other people's copyrighted material, competing with them with subpar quality, forcing AI as a solution whether or not it actually works, privatising the profits while socialising the costs and losses?