Thoughts on AI?

[CoolKid575]

Unless you've been under a rock for the past year; you've probably heard about how AI has been rapidly advancing and gaining the ability to do more and more things assumed to be human only. The trend doesn't seem to be slowing down either with talk of "AI PCs" and Windows 12 rumored to have heavy AI integration. I'm curious how this section feels about it. Personally, I find it both fascinating but also really scary. I checked out ChatGPT late last year and found it absolutely extraordinary; it felt like I could have a real conversation... with a computer! I didn't have to phrase things in weird ways or "work" it; I could just type what I wanted in natural language and it would generate a response that felt very close to what a real human might say. It was on a completely different level from other chatbots I had tried in the past that felt fake and gimmicky.

On the other hand; it's easy to see the possible negative effects. Disinformation is already spread far and wide over social media, just imagine the damage that could be done when convincing deepfakes can be made using AI. Those videos of US Presidents playing video games using AI generated voices are funny and all; but it's easy to imagine how videos could be made using CGI deepfakes and AI voices to spread even more convincing disinfo then before. That's not to mention how many jobs could be at risk of being straight up replaced by AI. How do you guys think AI should be handled? Is regulation the answer? Do we just need to let technology take its course? Can it even be meaningfully controlled now that the cat is out of the bag?

 

[Crustan]

With the recent situation that happened in my hostel with a group of boys generating nudes of their female classmates, I'd say that AI is definitely getting out of hand! That being said, it does have some good uses, sadly we as humans only know how to take advantage of things in a negative way rather than positive :(

 

[Tsutarja]

about the only positive i have with artificial intelligence is to expand on points and make something more presentable, like a cover letter or a formal letter when you don't have the time to craft one or you really want to sell yourself

that is to say after you've reviewed what it has written and changed some verbiage around

 

[Nah]

I can't say I really have favorable view of it right now. It's something that certainly can/could be fun and of great use to humanity, but what's going to be its most significant impact for the foreseeable future is a continuation of all the bad things we see with it right now. Not really any reason to believe that the situation will ever get better really.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Of all the stuff I've seen AI do, the primary use case appears to be for creating spam, plagiarism, and misinformation. I can't say I've seen any explanation about what AI is supposed to be for that makes up for the absolute deluge of ChatGPT-powered spambots, plagiarized AI art, etc. The current AI bots never cite their souces and, if asked for them, invariably get them completely wrong or outright make up nonexistent sources. It is possible AI could be used in useful, ethical ways in the future, but the current implementation used by companies like OpenAI is a dead end, and can't be fixed without removing the foundation of "literally feed the models the entire internet without verifying any of the training data or getting anyone's consent", and starting from scratch.

 

[Palamon]

I despise it. I hate ai art, I hate that chat gpt can write things for people, the plagiarism it's causing and so much more. Like it was funny at first (the ai presidents and stuff) but like it's all stealing at the end of the day, and I wish it didn't get to the point that it has. The only "ai" I don't hate is vocal synthesizers (like Vocaloid and etc) and like programmed ai in video games because that doesn't count, anyway.

 

[NipahRika]

Like it was funny at first (the ai presidents and stuff

I agree. The AI presidents stuff was funny and cute at first, then IMO got very annoying and old.

about the only positive i have with artificial intelligence is to expand on points and make something more presentable, like a cover letter or a formal letter when you don't have the time to craft one or you really want to sell yourself

Agree here. I've seen some use it to make a good CV or to help with resumes too.

 

[Megan]

To me it seems like AI is just "the thing that came after NFT". Basically, something that sounds interesting on paper. But in practice it's only going to be useful to some while every one else has to deal with the consequences. It's one of these things that may me especially useful to the "scam industry" because now they can just let the AI make the things that previously still required someone doing the scamming.

 

[NipahRika]

To me it seems like AI is just "the thing that came after NFT". Basically, something that sounds interesting on paper. But in practice it's only going to be useful to some while every one else has to deal with the consequences. It's one of these things that may me especially useful to the "scam industry" because now they can just let the AI make the things that previously still required someone doing the scamming.

I also have seen the argument that it is just a fad or a 'phase' thing like the NFT stuff too.

 

[miragespot]

I kinda hope it is a phase. I am concerned about privacy on the part of saved ChatGPT conversations, and because of that I stopped using it.

The thing about AI is it doesn't have human morals and ethics pre-programmed in, so I am concerned about what has been deemed "the singularity" (expected to happen during our lifetimes, around 2045) when AI is expected to overtake human intelligence. The Singularity is not a new problem - the term has been around since the mid-to-late 20th century, but it's a bigger concern now than it ever was then.

Bender, from the animated sci-fi show Futurama, is snarky but rarely purely evil. I'd be happier with AI along the lines of Bender. (I also like that robot rights on the show are a 31st century version of the civil rights movement in the 1960s).

 

[Incineroar]

I don't like it, and it's starting to become a huge buzzword that the entire industry is latching onto now. Some of the biggest issues I have with it is the ethics behind it - a lot of data is obtained without any user consent, and is fed into a model that could output basically anything we want it to. Artists are having their likeness stolen and used, in some cases for profit, writers are having their works put into what amounts to a blender and having things regurgitated, and even people's personal images are being fed in and used for unsavory purposes. It's a neat toy if it's used responsibly, however, there's very few people using it responsibly and that is the biggest problem.

I'm really hoping that it's just a phase, because it's also got significant other consequences - the computers running all this need to be cooled and a lot of fresh water is being used to cool these computers, and when we're dealing with water shortages, this just accelerates the problem even more, and on the ethics side, with people using it to generate images, it's going to cause lots of headache on the legal side of things, whether it's misrepresenting someone's likeness, or using it to fabricate evidence.

 

[Charcadet121]

My thoughts:

 

[GameBunnyAdvance]

The attitude to AI right now feels like a repeat of how the older generation felt (or still feel) about computers in general: it's new, there isn't much information about exactly what it's used for beyond a few mainstream examples, it's a little scary because of that, and therefore it is absolutely bad and needs to be outlawed before it leads to the ruination of human civilisation. Right now there is just a huge focus on the negative and/or novel uses, and the benefits haven't really been given the recognition that they need to offset that and change public perception. The whole thing feels like a misdirection to me. I mean, AI is just another tool. Shouldn't we be focusing on the people who abuse these tools, rather than the tools themselves? I don't think AI is inherently bad, but the uses that people are putting it to can be. It's like this every time we get new technology: the attention is always drawn to the way it exploits and inconveniences people, rather than the benefits that it can provide, and the whole thing is labelled as inherently bad and wrong without any real consideration.

I don't think regulation is really possible though. People have tried to regulate the internet, and look at how that turned out. At least outside of China anyway, and I guarantee that if any kind of censorship of that kind was attempted in the West you would have riots. You're not going to get the kind of regulation that would be needed to stamp out misuse of AI - or any technology for that matter - in a democratic society, and even then if people really wanted to do it, the law isn't going to stop them. I think that awareness is probably the best we can do: make sure people know what is going on in some places and how to avoid it, and make an example of bad actors who misuse the technology where possible. Damage control isn't an ideal answer to a growing issue, but I don't see any other viable alternative that doesn't result in further chaos.

 

[Tsutarja]

My thoughts:

View attachment 153332

would you mind expanding on your thoughts some please?

 

[Charcadet121]

would you mind expanding on your thoughts some please?

Destroy

 

[miragespot]

The attitude to AI right now feels like a repeat of how the older generation felt (or still feel) about computers in general: it's new, there isn't much information about exactly what it's used for beyond a few mainstream examples, it's a little scary because of that, and therefore it is absolutely bad and needs to be outlawed before it leads to the ruination of human civilisation. Right now there is just a huge focus on the negative and/or novel uses, and the benefits haven't really been given the recognition that they need to offset that and change public perception. The whole thing feels like a misdirection to me. I mean, AI is just another tool. Shouldn't we be focusing on the people who abuse these tools, rather than the tools themselves? I don't think AI is inherently bad, but the uses that people are putting it to can be. It's like this every time we get new technology: the attention is always drawn to the way it exploits and inconveniences people, rather than the benefits that it can provide, and the whole thing is labelled as inherently bad and wrong without any real consideration.

I don't think regulation is really possible though. People have tried to regulate the internet, and look at how that turned out. At least outside of China anyway, and I guarantee that if any kind of censorship of that kind was attempted in the West you would have riots. You're not going to get the kind of regulation that would be needed to stamp out misuse of AI - or any technology for that matter - in a democratic society, and even then if people really wanted to do it, the law isn't going to stop them. I think that awareness is probably the best we can do: make sure people know what is going on in some places and how to avoid it, and make an example of bad actors who misuse the technology where possible. Damage control isn't an ideal answer to a growing issue, but I don't see any other viable alternative that doesn't result in further chaos.

That's similar to what my partner says - she is a techie, younger than me, and isn't as concerned about AI misusage as I am.

 

[Sheep]

I am very concerned about its usage in art. Far too often do I see people using AI and trying to pass the creations off as something they actually drew themselves, and as an artist I'm saddened by how many people it trained off of without their consent. It's one thing to actually draw an image and a whole other to put prompts into a computer and have the work spat out for you.

 

[Tsutarja]

That's similar to what my partner says - she is a techie, younger than me, and isn't as concerned about AI misusage as I am.

as a techie myself i am kinda curious as to why your partner isn't concerned about ai misuse. i'm very much worried about the privacy invasion that could come with use of ai, including the collection of data and even things as simple as logged keystrokes and words (such as a google/bing search).

it's already bad enough that companies sell data without consent to the end-user, and ai would enable a huge amplification for this.

 

[Zeostar]

As it stands, A.I run customer service/support is horrible. False flagging or bans, then the inability to talk to a real person. This bothers me the most.

Disney Steamboat Willy is a good recent example. It's now public domain, but the A.I was still handing out copyright strikes to those uploading.

 

[Tsutarja]

Disney Steamboat Willy is a good recent example. It's now public domain, but the A.I was still handing out copyright strikes to those uploading.

it's actually an algorithm that detects copyrighted content and not artificial intelligence. algorithms are predefined while ai is not, and what the algorithm picks up on is an audio match and even a video content match.

that isn't to say both aren't prone to false positives, because they are.

disney did actually remove copyright claims of steamboat willie: https://mashable.com/article/disney-pulls-youtube-steamboat-willie-copyright-claim