I see a few comments on here that read "why is everyone so ungrateful and hysterical about this exciting new technology?" And I don't understand why people are surprised by this. All a young person is going to hear is "We're disrupting the world, automating employment opportunities, automating art and other leisure, innovating misinformation vectors, and also we think this technology might doom humanity. I know we're from the same kinds of companies as the social media giants you already distrust, but still pls give billions of dollars thank"

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jbs789 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Silicon Valley has really screwed up here. They are so obsessed with their own importance (this kit is so powerful it can destroy the world!) they have failed to sell/inform the average joe.

It’s a tool. And the next generation probably benefits from learning how to use it effectively.

The hype has gotten in the way of reality.

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tdeck 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's a tool explicitly designed to deprofrssionalize and commodify "knowledge work" - i.e. the thing people go to college to learn to do.

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_heimdall 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A good start would have been them not calling this artificial intelligence at all. The hype is largely based on the term "AI" and if it really is simply a (very impressive) auto complete tool it isn't intelligence at all, though as you said can be a very useful tool.

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azan_ an hour ago | parent [-]

It's amazing that there are people who still believe in "it's just autocomplete". It hasn't been true for a long time, but currently it's position that reveals complete lack of awareness how good AI has become. It has solved Erdos problem using novel approach. Constant moving of goalpost is recurring theme when discussing AI, but it's really impossible to move it so far that you can frame this achievement as "impressive autocomplete".

	▲	_heimdall an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I would draw a distinction here. If its a tool (as the GP proposed), it is just fancy auto complete. If it isn't a tool and is instead solving problems in novel ways, inventing new things, etc then it is intelligence and not a tool. It can't be both in my opinion. To be a tool it needs to be controllable and predictable, intelligences are neither. See humans, and really all living things, for plenty of examples where they can't be completely controlled or predicted.

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Levitz an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Because the first three sound completely awesome and the latter two are basically propaganda. "innovating misinformation vectors" and "might doom humanity" are far better descriptors for about every social network out there, or even the internet. These same people would probably riot if social media was made to disappear.

As everything regarding college campuses opinion nowadays, it's down to politics. It's not about AI, it's about how this comes in a time in which Silicon Valley is aligning itself with a right-wing government.

This explains why when China shows up with progress the news are actually well received, why opposition to data centers aligns itself with left-wing ethos (environmental, minorities) even if it, on its face, has a ridiculous impact on either, why there's more concern for job losses the closer the industry align with the left (Anyone curious about what financial advisors think of AI? No?), why the technology is seemingly at the same time absolutely useless and the end of white collar jobs, and thus a disaster either way, etc etc.

There are a lot of real valid concerns, it's an incredibly serious matter, if anything it needs more political attention, but the current discourse is a complete flood of utter idiocy and doesn't deserve respect, nor attention.

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amanaplanacanal an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think to most people, "you won't have to work any more" sounds like a good thing, except in our current society, it means "oh by the way, you and your children will starve".

	▲	Levitz an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I absolutely agree, if you ask me Andrew Yang should be getting calls about every day now, and UBI should be getting mentioned far more, but none of that is happening. Opposing technology has a godawful track record and for some reason there's focus on that rather than tackling the actual problems. I bet that behind closed doors, directives are laughing at college students. Why, they are basically playing misdirection for them! It's fantastic for business.

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cryptopian an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> "innovating misinformation vectors" and "might doom humanity" are far better descriptors for about every social network out there, or even the internet

I agree. And now I'm to trust the same people with even more money and control over global data dissemination? No thanks