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AI execs push the message of how dangerous and powerful AI is because who doesn't want to invest in the next most powerful thing? But AI is not dangerous becau

AI execs push the message of how dangerous and powerful AI is because who doesn't want to invest in the next most powerful thing? But AI is not dangerous because of the potential for sentience, but because it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. It gives those with resources more advantage. It's dangerous because it gives individuals the power to provide answers when people ask questions out of curioity they don't know the answer to, which is when they are most able to be influenced.

ivape 1y ago
It's dangerous for psychological reasons. We already saw how the internet was able to organically form into bubbles that escaped into the real world and fully influenced how people identify and conduct themselves. AI now lets people sub divide into further groups based on entirely arbitrary criteria which they feed into AI and AI feeds back their bubble. Think Manson, think cults, suicide pacts, tidepod eating cult, and of course, political parties. The kids will at some point worship a prompt-engineered God (not the developer, the actual AI agent), and there will be nothing society will be able to do about it. Nobody verbalizes that Gen Z moves entirely like a cult, trend after trend is entirely cult-like behavior. The generation that is going to get raised by AI (Gen Zs kids) are going to be batshit crazy.
- hansvm 1y ago
  > The kids will at some point worship a prompt-engineered God The way some people talk about LLM coding I don't know that we're far off.
- frollogaston 1y ago
  I'm on the older side of Gen Z, I think the older people move more like cults. And the younger ones are addicted to phones from a young age since their Millennial parents thought it'd be a great idea, though that's finally starting to change.
guywithahat 1y ago
> because it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer This is a terrible take. Whenever there is a massive technical shift it's the incumbents who struggle to adapt. We've already seen companies go from nothing to being worth tens of billions.
- esafak 1y ago
  The OP is likely referring to the technology's ability to replace certain workers, which naturally leaves them poorer. The net effect is one of increased wealth inequality, the minting of new AI entrepreneurs notwithstanding. Is the data on this out yet?
  - sgjohnson 1y ago
    We survived industrial revolution, we’ll survive AI.
    - throwaway09387 1y ago
      > We survived industrial revolution Did we? I mean, I guess we're surviving it for now, but climate change data doesn't tell the most optimistic story.
      - cloverich 1y ago
        TBF the worst outcome is famine and mass death of humans which... was somewhat the standard historically (low populations / intermittent famine). I have as much existential dread as you but that's also because I overvalue human life relative to what nature has historically thought about us.
    - croes 1y ago
      Survivorship bias. You always survive unless you don’t.
      - sgjohnson 1y ago
louwrentius 1y ago
Thank you, this is an excellent assessment
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
It gives the powerful more power to monitor and control the people. AI is despotism automated.
oezi 1y ago
As long as the stock market appreciates more than GDP grows, the rich will become richer quicker than the poor no matter what we do.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
dismalaf 1y ago
They push the danger factor so that governments will regulate the industry and prevent startups from competing. It's 100% about regulatory capture.
frollogaston 1y ago
Social media is a pretty new thing, even home internet is. People used to get info from each other or from a select few broadcast/paper news sources, the latter owned by powerful people of course. AI or not, we're probably going back to that because people realized you can't trust stuff from random places.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  People used to get info from each other or from a select few broadcast/paper news sources, the latter owned by powerful people of course. Except, back then the newspaper and TV stations and radio stations would fact-check one another. If one of them was lying, the others would call them out on it. That cost the people in power readers/viewers, and eventually money, so there was an incentive to tell the truth and develop a good reputation. Tech doesn't care about reputation because it "doesn't scale" or is "long tail" or some other excuse for laziness.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    ChatGPT and Gemini got a lot of attention for bad answers and have been tweaking things in response, at least so far. And unlike a news reporter, users can probe with any question they want.
SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
>It's dangerous because it gives individuals the power to provide answers when people ask questions out of curiosity they don't know the answer to, which is when they are most able to be influenced. Can you point to a time in history of written information this wasn't true though? - Was the Library of Alexandria open to everyone? My quick check says it was not. - The access to written information already precluded an education of some form. - Do you think Google has an internal search engine that is better than the one you see? I suspect the have an ad-less version that is better. - AI models are an easy one obviously. Big Players and others surely have hot versions of their models that would be considered too spicy for consumer access. One of the most memorable parts of ai 2027 for me was the idea that you might want to go high in government to get access to the super intelligence models, and use them to maintain your position. The point is, that last one isn't the first one.
rglover 1y ago
Every major technological invention is like this. The technology itself is never the problem, it's how well it does or doesn't enable negative human behavior. Social media, once you remove all of the window dressing, is just text and media in a glorified spreadsheet we call a database. It was human behavior that turned it into the menace it is today. AI (LLMs) is no different. It's a next token predictor. What tokens people ask it to predict next (and with what intention) is where things get messy. The internet? TV? Radio? All benign in their basic function but given to the wrong people can be turned into weapons.

ivape 1y ago

It's dangerous for psychological reasons. We already saw how the internet was able to organically form into bubbles that escaped into the real world and fully influenced how people identify and conduct themselves. AI now lets people sub divide into further groups based on entirely arbitrary criteria which they feed into AI and AI feeds back their bubble. Think Manson, think cults, suicide pacts, tidepod eating cult, and of course, political parties. The kids will at some point worship a prompt-engineered God (not the developer, the actual AI agent), and there will be nothing society will be able to do about it. Nobody verbalizes that Gen Z moves entirely like a cult, trend after trend is entirely cult-like behavior. The generation that is going to get raised by AI (Gen Zs kids) are going to be batshit crazy.

hansvm 1y ago
> The kids will at some point worship a prompt-engineered God The way some people talk about LLM coding I don't know that we're far off.
frollogaston 1y ago
I'm on the older side of Gen Z, I think the older people move more like cults. And the younger ones are addicted to phones from a young age since their Millennial parents thought it'd be a great idea, though that's finally starting to change.

guywithahat 1y ago

> because it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer This is a terrible take. Whenever there is a massive technical shift it's the incumbents who struggle to adapt. We've already seen companies go from nothing to being worth tens of billions.

esafak 1y ago
The OP is likely referring to the technology's ability to replace certain workers, which naturally leaves them poorer. The net effect is one of increased wealth inequality, the minting of new AI entrepreneurs notwithstanding. Is the data on this out yet?
- sgjohnson 1y ago
  We survived industrial revolution, we’ll survive AI.
  - throwaway09387 1y ago
    > We survived industrial revolution Did we? I mean, I guess we're surviving it for now, but climate change data doesn't tell the most optimistic story.
    - cloverich 1y ago
      TBF the worst outcome is famine and mass death of humans which... was somewhat the standard historically (low populations / intermittent famine). I have as much existential dread as you but that's also because I overvalue human life relative to what nature has historically thought about us.
  - croes 1y ago
    Survivorship bias. You always survive unless you don’t.
    - sgjohnson 1y ago

louwrentius 1y ago

Thank you, this is an excellent assessment

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

It gives the powerful more power to monitor and control the people. AI is despotism automated.

oezi 1y ago

As long as the stock market appreciates more than GDP grows, the rich will become richer quicker than the poor no matter what we do.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

dismalaf 1y ago

They push the danger factor so that governments will regulate the industry and prevent startups from competing. It's 100% about regulatory capture.

frollogaston 1y ago

Social media is a pretty new thing, even home internet is. People used to get info from each other or from a select few broadcast/paper news sources, the latter owned by powerful people of course. AI or not, we're probably going back to that because people realized you can't trust stuff from random places.

reaperducer 1y ago
People used to get info from each other or from a select few broadcast/paper news sources, the latter owned by powerful people of course. Except, back then the newspaper and TV stations and radio stations would fact-check one another. If one of them was lying, the others would call them out on it. That cost the people in power readers/viewers, and eventually money, so there was an incentive to tell the truth and develop a good reputation. Tech doesn't care about reputation because it "doesn't scale" or is "long tail" or some other excuse for laziness.
- frollogaston 1y ago
  ChatGPT and Gemini got a lot of attention for bad answers and have been tweaking things in response, at least so far. And unlike a news reporter, users can probe with any question they want.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago

>It's dangerous because it gives individuals the power to provide answers when people ask questions out of curiosity they don't know the answer to, which is when they are most able to be influenced. Can you point to a time in history of written information this wasn't true though? - Was the Library of Alexandria open to everyone? My quick check says it was not. - The access to written information already precluded an education of some form. - Do you think Google has an internal search engine that is better than the one you see? I suspect the have an ad-less version that is better. - AI models are an easy one obviously. Big Players and others surely have hot versions of their models that would be considered too spicy for consumer access. One of the most memorable parts of ai 2027 for me was the idea that you might want to go high in government to get access to the super intelligence models, and use them to maintain your position. The point is, that last one isn't the first one.

rglover 1y ago

Every major technological invention is like this. The technology itself is never the problem, it's how well it does or doesn't enable negative human behavior. Social media, once you remove all of the window dressing, is just text and media in a glorified spreadsheet we call a database. It was human behavior that turned it into the menace it is today. AI (LLMs) is no different. It's a next token predictor. What tokens people ask it to predict next (and with what intention) is where things get messy. The internet? TV? Radio? All benign in their basic function but given to the wrong people can be turned into weapons.