Rise of the Machines

[TV and credit cards]

This position has been terminated.

In a speech this week, former Google CEO ‌Eric Schmidt told graduating University of Arizona students that the impact of AI would be "larger, faster, and more consequential" than anything before.
"It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person, and every relationship you have," he said as boos rang out even as he addressed anxieties about job security and an uncertain future.

Eric referred to Gen Z's fear as "rational", so don't tell me Eric Schmidt is devoid of empathy.

Schmidt's frosty reception followed other recent shows of anger at AI. At the University of Central Florida on May 8, a real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was similarly heckled and booed over a commencement speech on ⁠AI.
"The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution," she said as boos rang out, catching her off guard. "What happened?

• Standard Chartered announced on Tuesday that it will cut over 7,000 jobs and replace "lower-value human capital" with AI.
• Meta is planning to lay off 10% of its workforce globally starting this month.
• Amazon.com has axed some 30,000 corporate jobs in recent months as it pushes AI and efficiency.

Look at the bright side, the trades will see a flood of new entrepreneurs, undeterred and ambitious twenty-somethings with the tools of their trade in storage spaces, garages, pole barns, etc., wherever they can manage storage. Honest and hard working, they will provide a good service at a fair price. That is until private equity swoops in, prices them out of business using first generation immigrants we all champion, gets state laws changed to make it more difficult for these entrepreneurs to start a business, and ultimately employs these same people at near subsistence wages. You know, the American Dream.

We will suffer the American Dream until we won't, until we can't. Millennials will burn through any inheritance from the Baby Boomers and Generation X. Gen Z and Gen Alpha on the other hand will get gówno (pron. guv-naw, meaning shit) and be brought to the point of suffering that will bring violence.

 

[James Chapman]

Alexandra Petri in The Atlantic (gift link)...
"Greetings, Class of 2026! Have you heard about AI? Wait, why are you booing?"

 

[Tigers!]

When will AI create a half decent CEO?

 

[barbos]

When will AI create a half decent CEO?

Half decent would a giant overkill it seems.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I think a lot of people don't understand that AI is already widely in use, has been for quite awhile now, and will only continue to grow in the future; and importantly, that everyone uses it and many enjoy it everyday without realizing it, but there does seem to be a visceral, emotional reaction that is largely uninformed of AI's ubiquity. Frankly, it seems trendy to despise it without having even the most cursory notion of what AI is. AI isn't one monolithic thing inevitably driving us to a dystopian sci-fi existence.

However, there does appear to be more questions than answers.

Will it be at lest somewhat analogous to rural populations migrating to cities during the industrial revolution?

What actual widespread impact will it have on jobs and what kind of portability of skills will allow a person to get a new job?

Will it make our day to day lives noticeably better or worse?

Just how legitimate are the most dire and most optimistic predictions?

Whatever the case, "Fuck AI!" isn't an argument. It's a sentiment vaguely based on the worst possible outcomes--the outrage de jour. The problem with such simplicity is that it fails to take into account the complexities and nuances of these issues, which in turn stifles any meaningful discussion.

There is a lot of interesting discussion to be had in with respect to problematic ethical and moral issues as to what kind of sentience may be possible for such technology to be achieved. For example, if a machine is determined by us to be sentient* what would humanity's obligation be to that machine? What if a machine was sentient but we didn't realize it? Hell, what does it mean to be sentient? But those are questions more appropriate to the philosophy forums.

 

[pood]

Yeah, AI. Decades ago I had a friend in college with whom I worked, and who did some very specific and rather impressive things. Her name, and the details, are not important.

I lost touch with her. A couple of years ago, out of curiosity, I began searching her name, with various keywords, online, and … nothing. It’s like she fell off the world, particularly surprising since in addition to her achievements she was a very flamboyant, expressive person. But there is no record of her beyond college, decades ago. Nothing at all.

So Google now has this thing called AI mode and I plugged in her name and key words about her into this “mode.”

OMFG.

Among other things, I learned she is now a man of a totally different possible age and a totally different name working in a totally different field.

AI also confused her with other people of the same name.

And bunged up so many other things that it is simply jaw-dropping.

It seems to me the main danger of AI is not that it will outthink us and replace us. It is that it will make us all even stupider than we already are.

 

[bilby]

The reason that AI has become ubiquitous is not that it is good for much, but that humans aren't good for much either, and AI doesn't demand wages, or lunch breaks, or vacation leave, and doesn't get headhunted, or pregnant, or too old to work, or bored, so it never leaves and never takes your company's secrets to your competitors.

AI is at this stage almost good enough to replace a bad worker, and there are tons of awful workers out there.

It's not reliable, but nor are humans. It's not intelligent, but many humans don't apply much intelligence to their work. It's articulate though. Unlike a human idiot, an AI idiot sounds plausible; It uses English in the way an actual expert does - because it is at heart a language modeller.

AI is the perfection of the bullshit woo-peddlars we all know and hate online. It is utterly ignorant of everything, but it has the patter; It speaks in technical language with the cadence of an actual expert, but there is no understanding behind the words, so it will tell you stuff that ain't so in a convincing and confident way.

And people love to be told that their prejudices are spot on, in a convincing and confident way; That's why priests and demagogues are a thing.

 

[Bronzeage]

There is a reason a PC with a data base and a spread sheet program replaced the abacus and the adding machine. It made a human more productive and was cost effective. Even more, it was actually able to calculate exactly how cost effective.

The main obstacle of AI is proving it is cost effective. At this point, no one can calculate how much it costs to replace a human who has all the modern office conveniences under their control, with an AI.

Imagine a time when an accountant started the day with a fresh ledger sheet and two bottles of ink, one red and the other black. His work space was illuminated by an oil lamp, but mostly sunlight from the window. Someone comes to the owner of the counting house and wants to sell him electric lights. The work staff can start earlier and work later. The owner asks what this will cost and the salesman says, "You'll have to install them, turn them on and after a while I'll give you the bill.

The one thing AI can't do is tell the consumer how much it's going to cost.

 

[Tigers!]

There is a lot of interesting discussion to be had in with respect to problematic ethical and moral issues as to what kind of sentience may be possible for such technology to be achieved. For example, if a machine is determined by us to be sentient* what would humanity's obligation be to that machine?

What if a machine was sentient but we didn't realize it?

I often wonder about Barbos .....

 

[Colonel Sanders]

There is a lot of interesting discussion to be had in with respect to problematic ethical and moral issues as to what kind of sentience may be possible for such technology to be achieved. For example, if a machine is determined by us to be sentient* what would humanity's obligation be to that machine?

What if a machine was sentient but we didn't realize it?

I often wonder about Barbos .....

Oddly enough, I've come to be quite fond of Barbos. He trolls the hell out of this place and people are still willing to engage with him in detail while not seeming to understand he's just fucking with them. He'll even give you shit when you agree with him.

My favorite NFL team is the Raiders and there's a guy on a forum I frequent who just straight up says the weirdest shit and has the most bizarre takes on the game and, like here, people don't see how much fun he's having doing it. Coincidentally, he goes by a Russian name (Ivan) and has a picture/avatar of a goofy looking guy with Moscow in the background. Are Barbos and Ivan the same guy? It's not impossible.

 

[Elixir]

Oddly enough, I've come to be quite fond of Barbos.

More evidence of an algorithm!

My favorite NFL team is the Raiders

Mine too! (The 1976 Oakland Raiders)

 

[bilby]

 

[pood]

Out of curiosity, I plugged into Google AI mode the name of an old friend. He has had a pretty prestigious career and lots of online info. I learned, to my surprise, that he was not married to his wife, but to his own daughter!

Thanks, AI. Oh, and fuck off.

 

[pood]

Can you imagine potential employers using AI to research the background of job applicants? As it stands, I have become aware that many potential employers, lazy bastards, don’t look at submitted resumes anymore, but merely have their AI bots scan them for key words.

When I was young you could apply for a job in person or pick up the phone and get the boss on the line almost immediately. Now getting anyone on the line for anything involves an ordeal potentially of hours with bad recorded music and the occasional recorded reminder that “Your estimated time to speak to a [human] representative is one hour and 46 minutes.”

I am so glad I am not young in this horrid world!

 

[Elixir]

I am so glad I am not young in this horrid world!

Yup. Getting a grip on reality is such a steep hill to climb, even in the absence of screens and a/v media. Add AI to the mix, and not only is apparent reality skewed, but the cumulative effect on a young brain has to be detrimental to developmental progress and quality of life, by most measures.

 

[RVonse]

It seems to me the main danger of AI is not that it will outthink us and replace us. It is that it will make us all even stupider than we already are.

We will become stupider and lose important skills. But the biggest danger is lack of privacy, autonomy, and security.

The general lack of liberty to enjoy what was purchased and owned without renting or subscribing to a large corporation who does not give a shit about you. I have reached the point I do not want to buy a new car, not because I can not afford one, but only because of the electronics that force me to become a subscriber to the manufacturer. Cars as old as 2009 feature hardware not easily replaced from the junkyard because of proprietary software. And its not just the automobiles either because farmers can not work on their tractors anymore either. Software controlled hardware is hardware you don't really own even if you paid for it orignally.

Sooner or later they are going to make all of us renters. They will own everything and we will eat shit and bugs, own nothing, and be happy. Or at least that has always been the goal of Klaus Schwab which is rapidly coming true.

 

[Jarhyn]

My expectation is not that we will see a uniform stupification of the populace, but rather an uneven one, where some people learn the tools to survive and grow and find accurate information and understand it for themselves, and where the majority do as they have always done and consume the personalities, interests, and thoughts that society at large (and to be frank, mostly just the media) pushes on them and grooms them with.

Because the ownership interests behind the media benefit greatly from this arrangement, they will ever form their media so as to encourage people to oppress those who shun it and their presented method of "finding themselves", which is to say "letting other people define who they are".

AI will exacerbate this divide, and when the infrastructure for all the AI is taken away, which it fairly inevitably will be, it will expose the difference between people who consume the social Zeitgeist, and those who eschew it in favor of finding themselves.

 

[barbos]

Millennials will burn through any inheritance from the Baby Boomers and Generation X. Gen Z and Gen Alpha on the other hand will get gówno

I see you started learning russian. Good idea.

 

[bilby]

My expectation is not that we will see a uniform stupification of the populace,

Stupefaction, surely?

 

[TV and credit cards]

For better or worse a phenomenon called zero-click is causing informational website traffic to nosedive causing marketers to rethink where they spend their ad dollars. If everyone can get their answer from AI, why hunt through a website searching for that same information? Bloomberg and Forbes articles state that roughly 60% of searches now result in no clicks at all. Tentatively, I see this as a good thing, to see all the random ass clowns spewing unvetted information for the sake of clicks and ad revenue being burned out of existence. The survivors will be government research, charities, encyclopedias, archives, e-learning, etc.