Don't these sort of conflict with being "aggressively pro AI"?

> how awful everything is to read lately > flooded with AI generated content, all of it terrible > everything sounding identical and everything being a rambling unconcise mess.

I can see the benefits of AI and enjoy using the technology - but, like many have said, it's wreaking havoc on the "content" that's out there nowadays. Gotta take some bad with the good, I suppose.

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iLemming 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Gotta take some bad with the good, I suppose.

Well, it's quite simple if you think about it. Intelligence is all about awareness of the imminence of death and the finite amount of time given to any of us. So, we humans intrinsically evolved to make the most of it. The majority of the tools we create have the ultimate purpose - to save time. Even money is nothing but a way to cut some time. It's not really about time but experiences - we want to have as many and as rich as we can get, and we innately try to cut time somewhere else, so we can use what we saved for better experiences.

Therefore, inventing cars was an easily predictable event. There's not a single hypothetical timeline or dimension where humans don't end up with cars - to transport things and to travel faster. Similarly, it was always simply inevitable - we would have invented something like LLMs, sooner or later.

Cars required significant sacrifices - they are absolutely deadly machines, they kill thousands of people every single day, kill wildlife, endager our own existence, and we're kind of okay with that. I can absolutely assure you, if someone tomorrow invents a gravitational jump travel that allows moving things between continents in minutes, even with a success rate as low as 10%, we would still be using it.

So, yes. We can't un-invent cars and AI, the only way to move forward is to adjust to this new reality and extract the best possible experiences, preferably by not robbing other people of their - i.e., enjoy life while it lasts, it still remains finite.

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derefr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can be pro-"thinking AI is going to get really good and solve many problems" (i.e. be the sort of person who would "go long" on AI), while also being anti-"applying AI right now to domains outside of the few it's been specifically optimized for [e.g. coding]" (because in these other domains, AI is yet to approach, let alone surpass, "authentic quality" equivalent to that of a skilled junior professional.)

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soulofmischief 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can like the concept of the engine, and the leverage it provides, but I hate traffic and get anxious about having an accident on the freeway. And the people behind the industrial revolution have destroyed the climate.

I love computers and the internet, and the internet has ruined a lot of people and things around me.

It's possible to be interested in a new technology and enjoy its leverage while still being extremely apprehensive about how it intersects with game theory and politics. The race to the bottom of the barrel keeps coming for the jugular of every cool new thing.

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throwaway_7274 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve been starting to think that a lot of the variance in how people see the world can be explained by whether their attention is drawn to first-order localized effects, or nth-order distributed effects. This is not the same thing as optimism vs. pessimism, but it sure is correlated!

	▲	ctippett 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This sounds intriguing. Can you expand on what your thinking is or link to somewhere I could read more?
	▲	soulofmischief 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's a multi-mandate to focus on what's best for your yourself and society such as your mind, your body, your chosen family, your friends, your neighborhood/community, your city, state, country, the global population, and more abstract things such as the human condition, when evaluating things such as privilege or fairness or duty. You often have to make compromises somewhere in the hierarchy, especially in late-stage capitalism where even access to basic needs comes at a moral cost, and as such those compromises sometimes come with a moral duty. I am writing this via a computer built from limited natural resources, some of which have been obtained through what I see as slave labor. I don't eat meat and still have to acknowledge the harm that clearing and maintaining farmland does to wildlife, even if the result could theoretically be a net gain. When you start viewing situations through the lens of game theory, you realise some compromises are inevitable for the rational individual. But you must acknowledge the individual is not the only concern. As such, I use AI as part of my work, but I opposed the local buildout of a large data center in my community and tried in vain to make the person responsible for the deal understand the issues it could introduce. This isn't NIMBYism, we need a halt on all buildouts until fundamental environmental and accountability concerns are addressed. And many other aspects of my existence and quality of life, poor and underprivileged as I was growing up, have depended upon US imperialism. I have also produced a ton of waste just existing and owning pets. It's abhorrent. I continue to ask myself how I can fulfill the moral duty which I have accrued and reduce my dependence on exploitative economic systems, but I also recognize that AI is the new social leverage and we only have so much time to use it to our advantage before it becomes institutionalized and wielded against the people. I also might only find future income stability by evolving with my industry. Life is complicated.

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smcleod 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This resonates with me and I suspect a lot of others here. As always life is more nuanced that many would have argue.

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ballsac 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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