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At one side, people are unhappy about AI, at the other side, who of those same people will stop using ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments for th

At one side, people are unhappy about AI, at the other side, who of those same people will stop using ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments for them. It looks like the "car problem" in yet another form. Many people will agree that our cities have become too car-centric and that cars take way too much public space, but few will give up their own personal car.

agentultra 11mo ago
That’s largely because the built environment is designed for cars and there are no sufficient alternatives. When you design the built environment for humans people drive less and own fewer personal vehicles.
- lisper 11mo ago
  It's much worse than "designed for cars." It's more like "not survivable without a car." It's the same with apps on my phone. I don't want to use them, but sometimes there simply is no alternative in today's world. We may end up building a world where AI is similarly necessary. The AI companies would certainly like that. But at the moment we still have a choice. The more people exercise their agency now the more likely we are to retain that agency in the future.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  I lived in Prague, whose center is medieval and the neighbourhoods around it pre-1900, and even though what you say is true (fewer people drove everywhere), the streets were still saturated to their capacity. It seemed to me that regardless of the city, many people will drive until the point where traffic jams and parking become a nightmare, and only then consider the alternatives. This point of pain is much lower in old European cities that weren't built as car-centric and much higher in the US, but the pattern seems to repeat itself.
  - ljlolel 11mo ago
    Helsinki made a major push to reduce cars to get to Vision Zero and succeeded in no car fatalities in 2024. It’s now hard to get a taxi and you’re expected to walk / other transport it’s a little bit annoying but worth it
- gdulli 11mo ago
  The comment explicitly mentioned "cities". Of course rural and suburban areas don't make it practical to be without a car, but many people in cities could use public transportation but handwave it as beneath them or dangerous or unreliable. When in reality it works just fine. Car travel has its own tradeoffs that can be just as easily exaggerated.
lisper 11mo ago
> who of those same people will stop using ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments for them Me. I never use AI to write content that I put my name to. I use AI in the same way that I use a search engine. In fact, that is pretty much what AI is -- a search engine on steroids.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Good. I can believe that a few people are principled enough, but principled people tend to be in a minority, regardless of the topic. I am also a bit afraid of a future where the workload will be adjusted to heavy AI use, to the degree that a human working with his own head won't be able to satisfy the demands. This happened around the 'car problem' too: how many jobs are in a walkable / bikeable distance now vs. 1925?
  - ronsor 11mo ago
    > how many jobs are in a walkable / bikeable distance now vs. 1925? Probably the same amount. The only difference is that people are willing to commute farther for a job than someone would've in 1925.
    - inglor_cz 11mo ago
      Nope, we have a lot more sprawl. Look at the old maps of cities and compare them to the current ones. In Ostrava, where I live, worker's colonies were located right next to the factories or mines, within walking distance, precisely to facilitate easy access. It came with a lot of other problems (pollution), but "commute" wasn't really a thing. Even streetcars were fairly expensive, and most people would think twice before paying the fare twice a day. Nowadays, there are still industrial zones around, but they tend to be located 5-10 km from the residential areas, far too far to walk. Even leaving industry aside, how many kids you know walk to school, because it is in a walking distance from them?
  - lisper 11mo ago
    I don't think AI is comparable to cars. The problem with cars is that they necessarily use the commons. The more roads you build, the less space you have for trains, parks, housing, etc. AI isn't like that. I can continue to think for myself and look for ways to add value as a human even if everyone around me is using AI. And if that fails, if I can't find a way to compete with AI, if AI really is capable of doing everything that I can do as well as I can do it, why would I not want to use it?
everdrive 11mo ago
I never use AI to write an email, and if I ever found out a coworker was using AI to sent emails to me I would never read those emails. It would be a tacit admission that the coworker in question did not have anything worth actually reading.
- QuercusMax 11mo ago
  I started at a new job a few months back and I got an obviously AI-written reply to my manager's "welcome" email from some contractor type person who got CC'd on it. Fortunately I don't have to interact with the bozo in question, but it was really offputting.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  I am a fairly prolific writer, having published ten books since 2018 and averaging some three articles per week, all of that next to my programming work. But I understood quite early that I am a fluke of nature and many other people, including smart ones, really struggle when putting their words on paper or into Word/LibreWriter. A cardiologist who saved my wife's life is one of them. He is a great surgeon, but calling his writing mediocre would be charitable. Such people will resort to AI if only to save time and energy.
  - everdrive 11mo ago
    I want to hear their real words. People don't need to be perfect writers. I just want to know what they really think.
    - inglor_cz 11mo ago
      If someone can express themselves well enough that their ideas are still clear, they are a competent writer. Bad writing starts in the "wtf was that meant to say" territory, which can cause unnecessary conflicts or prolong an otherwise routine communication. I don't like people using AI to communicate with other people either, but I understand where they come from.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
eesmith 11mo ago
Isn't that observation akin to the "We should improve society somewhat" ... "Yet you participate in society! Curious!" meme? We know from Paris that systemic change is required - it isn't simply individual choice.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  OK, what sort of systemic change you propose? Note that bans on anything digital are really hard to enforce without giving law enforcement draconian powers.
  - eesmith 11mo ago
    Yes, that's the meme. "We should improve society somewhat" doesn't mean the peasant has actionable proposals, only pointing out there's a problem. My comment was instead highlighting how your analogy to the "car problem" might be right, in that where we see big shifts to reduce the car problem, like in Paris, it comes from systemic changes from a car-centric form to a diverse transit form, rather than an individual choice model. My go-to these days is to heavily tax the rich, place a staggering tax on the the superrich, introduce meaningful UBI, put strict controls on housing rentals, etc. Why waste time using ChatGPT to write work email slop when you don't need to work? I presume the student is using ChatGPT for assignments in order to get the credentials (a degree) needed for a job - while companies off-load their training costs onto young people, who are then encourage to go into debt, resulting in a mild form of debt bondage. Reduce the need for a job, so the students who go to college are more likely to be those who want the personal education, rather than credentialism. But hey, I'm just a peasant programmer saying there are flaws, and we should do something about it. Talk to an actual expert, not me. Those experts (I hear them on podcasts) will also say things like having strong consumer protection laws so people aren't forced to deal with AI (and human!) sludge.
bryanlarsen 11mo ago
I think you have a good point, but are getting a lot of pushback because of your example. Most AI-hostile people won't use ChatGPT directly but are still happy to use a lot of modern AI features/products such as speech-to-text, recommendation engines, translation services, et cetera.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  This is a good correction, thank you.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
dentemple 11mo ago
> At one side, people are unhappy about AI, at the other side, who of those same people will stop using ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments for them. As Newsweek points out*, the people most unhappy about AI are the ones who CAN'T use ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments because they NO LONGER have access to those jobs. There are many of us who believe that the backlash against AI would never have gotten so strong if it hadn't come at the expense of the creators, the engineers, and the unskilled laborers first. AI agents are the new scabs, and the people haven't been fooled into believing that AI will be an improvement in their lives. --- *and goes deeper on in this article: https://www.newsweek.com/clanker-ai-slur-customer-service-jobs-star-wars-2106482* https://www.newsweek.com/clanker-ai-slur-customer-service-jo...
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Whenever you send an e-mail, you are a scab to a postman who once delivered paper letters. Does that make you feel bad?
graublau 11mo ago
These new urban systems are simply a way to cram as many people into a small boxes as possible and make citizens culturally flex with their bicycle life and not just seem like a poor peasant. Few give up their personal car because of decades of entrainment. I just think for better or worse, North America is always going to come out with the most selfish (for better or worse) system. It can be clean tech but we need it to be personal or else we feel like we are declining in standard of living. They don't struggle with these issues in Europe or Asia because Europe and Asia are fundamentally different societies. I don't really see any other way around this dilemma.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  "They don't struggle with these issues in Europe or Asia because Europe and Asia are fundamentally different societies." Which ones? I live in Europe and selfishness + feelings of decadence/downfall/"the good days are over forever" are absolutely rampant here.
red-iron-pine 11mo ago
> but few will give up their own personal car. blaming the individual instead of the system is a sign of shillbottery i'd give up my car tomorrow if we had better rapid transit in these parts. And they're working on it, but it takes billions and decades. And I need to drop my kids off at school tomorrow...

agentultra 11mo ago

That’s largely because the built environment is designed for cars and there are no sufficient alternatives. When you design the built environment for humans people drive less and own fewer personal vehicles.

lisper 11mo ago
It's much worse than "designed for cars." It's more like "not survivable without a car." It's the same with apps on my phone. I don't want to use them, but sometimes there simply is no alternative in today's world. We may end up building a world where AI is similarly necessary. The AI companies would certainly like that. But at the moment we still have a choice. The more people exercise their agency now the more likely we are to retain that agency in the future.
inglor_cz 11mo ago
I lived in Prague, whose center is medieval and the neighbourhoods around it pre-1900, and even though what you say is true (fewer people drove everywhere), the streets were still saturated to their capacity. It seemed to me that regardless of the city, many people will drive until the point where traffic jams and parking become a nightmare, and only then consider the alternatives. This point of pain is much lower in old European cities that weren't built as car-centric and much higher in the US, but the pattern seems to repeat itself.
- ljlolel 11mo ago
  Helsinki made a major push to reduce cars to get to Vision Zero and succeeded in no car fatalities in 2024. It’s now hard to get a taxi and you’re expected to walk / other transport it’s a little bit annoying but worth it
gdulli 11mo ago
The comment explicitly mentioned "cities". Of course rural and suburban areas don't make it practical to be without a car, but many people in cities could use public transportation but handwave it as beneath them or dangerous or unreliable. When in reality it works just fine. Car travel has its own tradeoffs that can be just as easily exaggerated.

lisper 11mo ago

> who of those same people will stop using ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments for them Me. I never use AI to write content that I put my name to. I use AI in the same way that I use a search engine. In fact, that is pretty much what AI is -- a search engine on steroids.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
Good. I can believe that a few people are principled enough, but principled people tend to be in a minority, regardless of the topic. I am also a bit afraid of a future where the workload will be adjusted to heavy AI use, to the degree that a human working with his own head won't be able to satisfy the demands. This happened around the 'car problem' too: how many jobs are in a walkable / bikeable distance now vs. 1925?
- ronsor 11mo ago
  > how many jobs are in a walkable / bikeable distance now vs. 1925? Probably the same amount. The only difference is that people are willing to commute farther for a job than someone would've in 1925.
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    Nope, we have a lot more sprawl. Look at the old maps of cities and compare them to the current ones. In Ostrava, where I live, worker's colonies were located right next to the factories or mines, within walking distance, precisely to facilitate easy access. It came with a lot of other problems (pollution), but "commute" wasn't really a thing. Even streetcars were fairly expensive, and most people would think twice before paying the fare twice a day. Nowadays, there are still industrial zones around, but they tend to be located 5-10 km from the residential areas, far too far to walk. Even leaving industry aside, how many kids you know walk to school, because it is in a walking distance from them?
- lisper 11mo ago
  I don't think AI is comparable to cars. The problem with cars is that they necessarily use the commons. The more roads you build, the less space you have for trains, parks, housing, etc. AI isn't like that. I can continue to think for myself and look for ways to add value as a human even if everyone around me is using AI. And if that fails, if I can't find a way to compete with AI, if AI really is capable of doing everything that I can do as well as I can do it, why would I not want to use it?

everdrive 11mo ago

I never use AI to write an email, and if I ever found out a coworker was using AI to sent emails to me I would never read those emails. It would be a tacit admission that the coworker in question did not have anything worth actually reading.

QuercusMax 11mo ago
I started at a new job a few months back and I got an obviously AI-written reply to my manager's "welcome" email from some contractor type person who got CC'd on it. Fortunately I don't have to interact with the bozo in question, but it was really offputting.
inglor_cz 11mo ago
I am a fairly prolific writer, having published ten books since 2018 and averaging some three articles per week, all of that next to my programming work. But I understood quite early that I am a fluke of nature and many other people, including smart ones, really struggle when putting their words on paper or into Word/LibreWriter. A cardiologist who saved my wife's life is one of them. He is a great surgeon, but calling his writing mediocre would be charitable. Such people will resort to AI if only to save time and energy.
- everdrive 11mo ago
  I want to hear their real words. People don't need to be perfect writers. I just want to know what they really think.
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    If someone can express themselves well enough that their ideas are still clear, they are a competent writer. Bad writing starts in the "wtf was that meant to say" territory, which can cause unnecessary conflicts or prolong an otherwise routine communication. I don't like people using AI to communicate with other people either, but I understand where they come from.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

eesmith 11mo ago

Isn't that observation akin to the "We should improve society somewhat" ... "Yet you participate in society! Curious!" meme? We know from Paris that systemic change is required - it isn't simply individual choice.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
OK, what sort of systemic change you propose? Note that bans on anything digital are really hard to enforce without giving law enforcement draconian powers.
- eesmith 11mo ago
  Yes, that's the meme. "We should improve society somewhat" doesn't mean the peasant has actionable proposals, only pointing out there's a problem. My comment was instead highlighting how your analogy to the "car problem" might be right, in that where we see big shifts to reduce the car problem, like in Paris, it comes from systemic changes from a car-centric form to a diverse transit form, rather than an individual choice model. My go-to these days is to heavily tax the rich, place a staggering tax on the the superrich, introduce meaningful UBI, put strict controls on housing rentals, etc. Why waste time using ChatGPT to write work email slop when you don't need to work? I presume the student is using ChatGPT for assignments in order to get the credentials (a degree) needed for a job - while companies off-load their training costs onto young people, who are then encourage to go into debt, resulting in a mild form of debt bondage. Reduce the need for a job, so the students who go to college are more likely to be those who want the personal education, rather than credentialism. But hey, I'm just a peasant programmer saying there are flaws, and we should do something about it. Talk to an actual expert, not me. Those experts (I hear them on podcasts) will also say things like having strong consumer protection laws so people aren't forced to deal with AI (and human!) sludge.

bryanlarsen 11mo ago

I think you have a good point, but are getting a lot of pushback because of your example. Most AI-hostile people won't use ChatGPT directly but are still happy to use a lot of modern AI features/products such as speech-to-text, recommendation engines, translation services, et cetera.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
This is a good correction, thank you.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

dentemple 11mo ago

> At one side, people are unhappy about AI, at the other side, who of those same people will stop using ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments for them. As Newsweek points out*, the people most unhappy about AI are the ones who CAN'T use ChatGPT to write their work e-mails and assignments because they NO LONGER have access to those jobs. There are many of us who believe that the backlash against AI would never have gotten so strong if it hadn't come at the expense of the creators, the engineers, and the unskilled laborers first. AI agents are the new scabs, and the people haven't been fooled into believing that AI will be an improvement in their lives. --- *and goes deeper on in this article: https://www.newsweek.com/clanker-ai-slur-customer-service-jobs-star-wars-2106482* https://www.newsweek.com/clanker-ai-slur-customer-service-jo...

inglor_cz 11mo ago
Whenever you send an e-mail, you are a scab to a postman who once delivered paper letters. Does that make you feel bad?

graublau 11mo ago

These new urban systems are simply a way to cram as many people into a small boxes as possible and make citizens culturally flex with their bicycle life and not just seem like a poor peasant. Few give up their personal car because of decades of entrainment. I just think for better or worse, North America is always going to come out with the most selfish (for better or worse) system. It can be clean tech but we need it to be personal or else we feel like we are declining in standard of living. They don't struggle with these issues in Europe or Asia because Europe and Asia are fundamentally different societies. I don't really see any other way around this dilemma.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
"They don't struggle with these issues in Europe or Asia because Europe and Asia are fundamentally different societies." Which ones? I live in Europe and selfishness + feelings of decadence/downfall/"the good days are over forever" are absolutely rampant here.

red-iron-pine 11mo ago

> but few will give up their own personal car. blaming the individual instead of the system is a sign of shillbottery i'd give up my car tomorrow if we had better rapid transit in these parts. And they're working on it, but it takes billions and decades. And I need to drop my kids off at school tomorrow...