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> These insights pose a challenge for policymakers and educators. Efforts to boost AI literacy might unintentionally dampen people’s enthusiasm for using AI by

> These insights pose a challenge for policymakers and educators. Efforts to boost AI literacy might unintentionally dampen people’s enthusiasm for using AI by making it seem less magical. This creates a tricky balance between helping people understand AI and keeping them open to its adoption. To make the most of AI’s potential, businesses, educators and policymakers need to strike this balance. Why would we avoid educating people, in order to keep them willing to use AI? Why is getting people to use AI seen as a good in itself? Did AI write this article? (Don’t answer that.)

autobodie 2y ago
the profit motive
blibble 2y ago
> Why would we avoid educating people, in order to keep them willing to use AI? Why is getting people to use AI seen as a good in itself? because you can't extract a few tenths of a cent every time someone engages their brain
- LambdaComplex 2y ago
  > you can't extract a few tenths of a cent every time someone engages their brain Don't give the startups any ideas
voidhorse 2y ago
You're striking at the fundamental irrationality behind the current hype cycle. It is still, in the vast majority of cases, a solution looking for a real problem. Since there isn't an actual clear benefit or problem to solve yet, that justifies the high costs, people are trying to make their (silly) bets come true by brute force (get everyone to use this thing so I get my ROI, whether it makes any actual sense or not).
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  I’m sure it’s already a solution to a lot of things, that just aren’t sexy or justifiable for the current cost - for instance, if it was cheap enough, I would never have to use a keyboard again, which due to a disability I have, is becoming more difficult. That would help a lot of people almost certainly, but since it isn’t like, the next iphone, people turn their noses at it. Solutions like neuralink if they become mature could probably use some sort of llm powered translation layer to machine instructions (which neither tech is near being perfect with). Things like that, I think we can technically do already, it is a matter of refining - the magical stuff though, I’m less sure of.
  - CaptainFever 2y ago
    Have you tried dictation apps built on Whisper? They're pretty damn magic to me. Also they are often small enough to run locally.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      Due to quirks in how I speak most dictation apps fail me miserably and I don’t like giving apps a lot of microphone access. I think dictation would be great, but sometimes is hard to do so at the speed one can think and type - I am hopeful for more technologies in the future that help disabled people gain more technical use, whether that be sci fi stuff like neuralink, or more friendly web protocols towards screen readers and stuff. Seems like LLM’s slot in to some layers there, somewhere, to me. One of the only great uses I get out of it is it greatly saves on my typing with code complete + vim. Fewer keystrokes is good for anyone’s hands, and it seems good at predicting what you want to do rather than what it thinks you should do.
      - stouset 2y ago
        I would love to understand your thinking around not wanting to give apps microphone access while simultaneously being excited about the prospect of giving apps direct access to your literal brain.
        deleted 2y ago
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I don't understand how this facilitates or admits any discussion. If I tried to learn more about how you feel, anything I say that indicates any questioning of what you wrote, is to support something that is vapid, negative, worthless, that doesn't solve anything, a "solution" looking for a problem.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ADeerAppeared 2y ago
> (Don’t answer that.) It is nevertheless important to say out loud: > Why is getting people to use AI seen as a good in itself? Because user counts pump up the stock price. And that is all AI has. Whether you believe the claims that inference is profitable or not (and there are good reasons to distrust them), AI does not live up to the financial hype. AI cannot stand on it's own merits. It's not acceptable to let history run it's course and let the AI skeptics be shown wrong in due time. Because it'll dampen the hype, and perhaps these skeptics aren't so wrong. The people can't be educated into a healthy skepticism of AI, because they wouldn't use it enough. It's readily obvious that the emperor has no clothes. The actions of the companies and executives involved betray their statements about how great AI is. AI is forced into products, at deeply subsidized prices. You wouldn't do that if the tech is that big a deal. Apple charged premium prices for the iPhone. Benchmarks are aggressively cheated. OpenAI funding FrontierMath and only giving a verbal agreement after having already broken so many of those is a joke. If the systems actually worked as promised there is no reason for this mess, and every reason in the world to gather accurate data on the generality of the intelligence. And biggest of all: This entire mess has the implied framing of the Manhattan Project. That it's all a big race towards AGI, and whomever develops AGI will win capitalism forever. So important that they're getting support from the US government with their "Stargate" project. And until rather recently, everyone was making lots of noise about AI safety and the world-destroying dangers of letting someone else develop AGI. In 1942 Georgii Flyorov figured out the Manhattan Project's existance from the sudden silence in nuclear fission research. Today, despite stakes that are proclaimed to be even higher, all the big players will not shut up about their accomplishments. Everything is aggressively published and propagandized. Every single fart an AI model makes is spun into a research paper. You might as well mail the model weights directly to Beijing. Those are not the actions of companies trying to win an R&D race. Those are the actions of companies pushing up their stock price by any means necessary.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
  Thanks for the sober perspective. I really wonder what "losing the AI race" (typically meaning USA vs China) is supposed to indicate. They have a better LLM or something......and then what? A rogue chatbot takes over the world or something? We're like two plus years into being a few months away from LLMs taking every office jobs, and I'm still at a total loss as to where this is all supposed to go or what I'm even supposed to be sold on.
CaptainFever 2y ago
A non cynical answer: probably to try and encourage people to find new and useful ways to use AI, while learning about their limitations (e.g. hallucinations) and their strengths (e.g. rephrasing, autocomplete, concept art).
dralley 2y ago
Technological Manifest Destiny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k&t=2208s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k&t=2208s
- refulgentis 2y ago
  Titled: "Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?"

autobodie 2y ago

the profit motive

blibble 2y ago

> Why would we avoid educating people, in order to keep them willing to use AI? Why is getting people to use AI seen as a good in itself? because you can't extract a few tenths of a cent every time someone engages their brain

LambdaComplex 2y ago
> you can't extract a few tenths of a cent every time someone engages their brain Don't give the startups any ideas

voidhorse 2y ago

You're striking at the fundamental irrationality behind the current hype cycle. It is still, in the vast majority of cases, a solution looking for a real problem. Since there isn't an actual clear benefit or problem to solve yet, that justifies the high costs, people are trying to make their (silly) bets come true by brute force (get everyone to use this thing so I get my ROI, whether it makes any actual sense or not).

JohnMakin 2y ago
I’m sure it’s already a solution to a lot of things, that just aren’t sexy or justifiable for the current cost - for instance, if it was cheap enough, I would never have to use a keyboard again, which due to a disability I have, is becoming more difficult. That would help a lot of people almost certainly, but since it isn’t like, the next iphone, people turn their noses at it. Solutions like neuralink if they become mature could probably use some sort of llm powered translation layer to machine instructions (which neither tech is near being perfect with). Things like that, I think we can technically do already, it is a matter of refining - the magical stuff though, I’m less sure of.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  Have you tried dictation apps built on Whisper? They're pretty damn magic to me. Also they are often small enough to run locally.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Due to quirks in how I speak most dictation apps fail me miserably and I don’t like giving apps a lot of microphone access. I think dictation would be great, but sometimes is hard to do so at the speed one can think and type - I am hopeful for more technologies in the future that help disabled people gain more technical use, whether that be sci fi stuff like neuralink, or more friendly web protocols towards screen readers and stuff. Seems like LLM’s slot in to some layers there, somewhere, to me. One of the only great uses I get out of it is it greatly saves on my typing with code complete + vim. Fewer keystrokes is good for anyone’s hands, and it seems good at predicting what you want to do rather than what it thinks you should do.
    - stouset 2y ago
      I would love to understand your thinking around not wanting to give apps microphone access while simultaneously being excited about the prospect of giving apps direct access to your literal brain.
      - deleted 2y ago
refulgentis 2y ago
I don't understand how this facilitates or admits any discussion. If I tried to learn more about how you feel, anything I say that indicates any questioning of what you wrote, is to support something that is vapid, negative, worthless, that doesn't solve anything, a "solution" looking for a problem.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ADeerAppeared 2y ago

> (Don’t answer that.) It is nevertheless important to say out loud: > Why is getting people to use AI seen as a good in itself? Because user counts pump up the stock price. And that is all AI has. Whether you believe the claims that inference is profitable or not (and there are good reasons to distrust them), AI does not live up to the financial hype. AI cannot stand on it's own merits. It's not acceptable to let history run it's course and let the AI skeptics be shown wrong in due time. Because it'll dampen the hype, and perhaps these skeptics aren't so wrong. The people can't be educated into a healthy skepticism of AI, because they wouldn't use it enough. It's readily obvious that the emperor has no clothes. The actions of the companies and executives involved betray their statements about how great AI is. AI is forced into products, at deeply subsidized prices. You wouldn't do that if the tech is that big a deal. Apple charged premium prices for the iPhone. Benchmarks are aggressively cheated. OpenAI funding FrontierMath and only giving a verbal agreement after having already broken so many of those is a joke. If the systems actually worked as promised there is no reason for this mess, and every reason in the world to gather accurate data on the generality of the intelligence. And biggest of all: This entire mess has the implied framing of the Manhattan Project. That it's all a big race towards AGI, and whomever develops AGI will win capitalism forever. So important that they're getting support from the US government with their "Stargate" project. And until rather recently, everyone was making lots of noise about AI safety and the world-destroying dangers of letting someone else develop AGI. In 1942 Georgii Flyorov figured out the Manhattan Project's existance from the sudden silence in nuclear fission research. Today, despite stakes that are proclaimed to be even higher, all the big players will not shut up about their accomplishments. Everything is aggressively published and propagandized. Every single fart an AI model makes is spun into a research paper. You might as well mail the model weights directly to Beijing. Those are not the actions of companies trying to win an R&D race. Those are the actions of companies pushing up their stock price by any means necessary.

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
Thanks for the sober perspective. I really wonder what "losing the AI race" (typically meaning USA vs China) is supposed to indicate. They have a better LLM or something......and then what? A rogue chatbot takes over the world or something? We're like two plus years into being a few months away from LLMs taking every office jobs, and I'm still at a total loss as to where this is all supposed to go or what I'm even supposed to be sold on.

CaptainFever 2y ago

A non cynical answer: probably to try and encourage people to find new and useful ways to use AI, while learning about their limitations (e.g. hallucinations) and their strengths (e.g. rephrasing, autocomplete, concept art).

dralley 2y ago

Technological Manifest Destiny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k&t=2208s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k&t=2208s

refulgentis 2y ago
Titled: "Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?"