> if you didn't know any better, might make you think that AI is a worthless technology.

"Worthless" is ambiguous in this sentence. I think people understand that AI isn't useless in that it at least to some degree does the things it is intended to do. At the same time, it might be valueless in that a world without it is preferable to some.

Landmines are not useless, but they are valueless. Opinions differ is to what degree generative AI is like landmines in terms of externalities.

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bigfudge 4 days ago | parent [-]

This hides a lot of local detail though. Something might be valueless by your definition because on aggregate it does enough harm to balance out the good, but still have great value in specific contexts. Even landmines might look quite useful in eastern Ukraine at the moment.

More important is to remember the impact of technology is not inevitable or predetermined. We can have (some) agency about how technologies are used. The impact of AI is likely to be much more negative than it could be because of he tech bro oligopoly emerging in the US. But that isn't because of 'human nature' or something inevitable or baked into the tech — it's because of local, historical factors in the US right now.

	▲	munificent 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree that externalities and complex, and situational, and that the value proposition of a piece of technology is most certainly not uniformly distributed. > The impact of AI is likely to be much more negative than it could be because of the tech bro oligopoly emerging in the US. There is circularity here because the tech bro oligarchy will certainly be empowered and enriched by AI as well.