| ▲ | 93po 3 days ago |
| This is confusing. We've never had a ChatGPT-like innovation before to compare to. Yes, there have been AI hype cycles for decades, but the difference is that we now have permanent invaluable and society-changing tools out of the current AI cycle, combined with hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown at it in a level of investment we've never seen before. Unless you're on the bleeding edge of AI research yourself, or one of the people investing billions of dollars, it is really unclear to me how anyone can have confidence of where AI is not going |
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| ▲ | unsui 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Because the hype will always outdistance the utility, on average. Yes, you'll get peaks where innovation takes everyone by surprise. Then the salesbots will pivot, catch up, and ingest the innovation into the pitch machine as per usual. So yes, there is genuine innovation and surprise. That's not what is being discussed. It's the hype that inevitably overwhelms the innovation, and also inevitably pollutes the pool with increasing noise. That's just human nature, trying to make a quick buck from the new-hotness. |
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| ▲ | vunderba 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I don't agree with this. There's a big difference between something that benefits productivity versus something that benefits humanity. I think a good test for if it genuinely has changed society is if all gen AI were to disappear overnight. I would argue that nothing would really fundamentally change. Contrast that with the sudden disappearance of the internet, or the combustion engine. |
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| ▲ | NemoNobody 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Work doesn't benefit humanity, work is the chains that keep us living the same day over and over til we die. Your idea of benefit to humanity clearly doesn't involve the end of work, mine does. AI can end work for most of us but that has to be what we want, can't be limiting it all the time bc of stupid reasons and expect it to have all the answers as if it weren't limited, that's silly. If AI disappeared tonight so too would the future where nobody works in a call center or doing data entry or making button graphics to client exact specifications for a website nobody will ever see. This is the Old World we live in rn - I don't want it to stay. | | |
| ▲ | floydnoel 3 days ago | parent [-] | | work is what gives us purpose and meaning. or do you want to live in wall-e world? there is no long-term happiness without struggle and mastery. it sounds like what you want is an end of menial labor that is treated poorly. why confuse that with work? |
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| ▲ | nerdponx 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I would argue that nothing would really fundamentally change. I argue that there would be a huge collective sigh of relief from a large number of people. Not everybody, maybe not even a majority, but a large number nonetheless. So I think it has changed society -- but perhaps not for the better overall. | |
| ▲ | snapcaster 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It will take time though, if the internet had completely disappeared in the mid 90s nothing would have fundamentally changed | | |
| ▲ | NemoNobody 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Wow. Just the fact that the Internet existed at the library was enough for me to know I could know anything as a child - once we got that Internet in 95 and Win 95 PC, everything changed for me. I was quite natural to the online world by Win 98. MY entire worldview and daily life habits would have changed. You must be older than me. | | |
| ▲ | snapcaster 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't mean it would have no impact, it's just that we hadn't reorganized society around it yet |
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