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Reasons why I currently dislike AI: - it is not as accurate and good as advertised - being forced to use and care about it - it is bad for the environment at

by mawadev 2mo ago

Reasons why I currently dislike AI: - it is not as accurate and good as advertised - being forced to use and care about it - it is bad for the environment at the scale and competition that exists in this economy - it is a mirror, and augmentation and reveals really inhuman takes and thought processes from people who are on the longer lever in society - it is already in use for very unethical things (spying and war) - it makes people cognitively lazy - it lowers the quality of day to day life for regular people

s1artibartfast 2mo ago
I'm curious what bad experience is regular people have with AI. For me it basically makes everything better. I use it probably a hundred times a day and struggle to think about interaction where I walk away wishing it It wasn't involved. I listen to AI generated audiobooks on the way to work. It makes my job easier and find data or papers or emails for me. On the way home I can have a Back in forth conversation about history. At home at helps me with my personal projects or come up with recipes to make dinner. How are regular people using it that is so awful? A lot of people are spun up about it, but it almost always seems to be about distant concerns, not their personal experience.
- mawadev 2mo ago
  We are all tech people here, but the regular people meet AI when they try to take a picture with their phone and Gemini pops up instead, because a button has been repurposed to do that. Or simply calling an energy provider to clarify something makes them talk to a robot voice until enough effort and words have passed so a human finally comes around. These are very shallow and small things where it already creeps in and the fun part is that you cannot blame the AI for it, but what we do with it. If you use AI unironically, hallucinations can make you go down a wrong path and cost you time. Something that used to be a quick google search leads you to AI generated sites making stuff up, so even when you talk to AI directly, you practically get the same-y or slightly different answer. Reading documents starts to become a challenge as well. Bad translations or made up stuff can waste your time as well. Then you just want to take a walk to the river and the river has the lowest water level since forever (rhine river) and you think to yourself, hmm, this can't be right. Like what do you save all of this time and effort for? Is it truly balanced and sane what we are doing right now? Doesn't all the time saving show detrimental effects in areas we cannot point at currently because of plausible deniability or wishful thinking?
  - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
    Thanks for the candid response. Do you think that many of these examples were issues before, but now have become associated with AI? I can relate to many of them, but they seem to predate AI for me. I feel like Google search has been nearly useless for several years now, flooded with fake advertising results, even without AI. I'm happy that AI gives me an alternative to Google search, which is one of my top use cases. I remember spending hours navigating annoying automated phone menus or on hold 10 years ago. Perhaps the same frustration exists, but includes AI is the face of the current embodiment. I also agree AI can give bad advice, but the same was true for Reddit or a lazy Store employee or house contractor.
    - mawadev 2mo ago
      I see how you are trying to level the playing field and justifying that LLMs are not a product of the broader pattern and road we are going down to, but really, put the hand on your heart and pull up the same argument while recognizing how they belong to the same reality and purpose that produced all these dark patterns we are starting to have to work with these days
      - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
        I'm not sure I follow your comment, but I don't think that's what I was saying. I was suggesting that perhaps people feel so strongly about AI because it has become the lightning rod for and face of these pre-existing frustrations. Of course llms belong to the same reality that produced dark patterns that frustrate us. There's only one reality, the one we live in. Any improvement over existing frustrations will also come from that reality.
nylonstrung 2mo ago
I don't disagree but I don't think this one is a reason we should ever restrict or condemn a technology > it is a mirror, and augmentation and reveals really inhuman takes and thought processes from people who are on the longer lever in society When someone uses their keyboard to search for CSAM or write hate speech we can't blame the keyboard instead of the individual
- mawadev 2mo ago
  In times of industrial scale killing since ww2, this take is just insult to injury

by mawadev 2mo ago

s1artibartfast 2mo ago

I'm curious what bad experience is regular people have with AI. For me it basically makes everything better. I use it probably a hundred times a day and struggle to think about interaction where I walk away wishing it It wasn't involved. I listen to AI generated audiobooks on the way to work. It makes my job easier and find data or papers or emails for me. On the way home I can have a Back in forth conversation about history. At home at helps me with my personal projects or come up with recipes to make dinner. How are regular people using it that is so awful? A lot of people are spun up about it, but it almost always seems to be about distant concerns, not their personal experience.

mawadev 2mo ago
We are all tech people here, but the regular people meet AI when they try to take a picture with their phone and Gemini pops up instead, because a button has been repurposed to do that. Or simply calling an energy provider to clarify something makes them talk to a robot voice until enough effort and words have passed so a human finally comes around. These are very shallow and small things where it already creeps in and the fun part is that you cannot blame the AI for it, but what we do with it. If you use AI unironically, hallucinations can make you go down a wrong path and cost you time. Something that used to be a quick google search leads you to AI generated sites making stuff up, so even when you talk to AI directly, you practically get the same-y or slightly different answer. Reading documents starts to become a challenge as well. Bad translations or made up stuff can waste your time as well. Then you just want to take a walk to the river and the river has the lowest water level since forever (rhine river) and you think to yourself, hmm, this can't be right. Like what do you save all of this time and effort for? Is it truly balanced and sane what we are doing right now? Doesn't all the time saving show detrimental effects in areas we cannot point at currently because of plausible deniability or wishful thinking?
- s1artibartfast 2mo ago
  Thanks for the candid response. Do you think that many of these examples were issues before, but now have become associated with AI? I can relate to many of them, but they seem to predate AI for me. I feel like Google search has been nearly useless for several years now, flooded with fake advertising results, even without AI. I'm happy that AI gives me an alternative to Google search, which is one of my top use cases. I remember spending hours navigating annoying automated phone menus or on hold 10 years ago. Perhaps the same frustration exists, but includes AI is the face of the current embodiment. I also agree AI can give bad advice, but the same was true for Reddit or a lazy Store employee or house contractor.
  - mawadev 2mo ago
    I see how you are trying to level the playing field and justifying that LLMs are not a product of the broader pattern and road we are going down to, but really, put the hand on your heart and pull up the same argument while recognizing how they belong to the same reality and purpose that produced all these dark patterns we are starting to have to work with these days
    - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
      I'm not sure I follow your comment, but I don't think that's what I was saying. I was suggesting that perhaps people feel so strongly about AI because it has become the lightning rod for and face of these pre-existing frustrations. Of course llms belong to the same reality that produced dark patterns that frustrate us. There's only one reality, the one we live in. Any improvement over existing frustrations will also come from that reality.

nylonstrung 2mo ago

I don't disagree but I don't think this one is a reason we should ever restrict or condemn a technology > it is a mirror, and augmentation and reveals really inhuman takes and thought processes from people who are on the longer lever in society When someone uses their keyboard to search for CSAM or write hate speech we can't blame the keyboard instead of the individual

mawadev 2mo ago
In times of industrial scale killing since ww2, this take is just insult to injury