It’s a confusing thing to grapple with, partly because of AI having become such a marketing term rather than a precise or practical one. If we included a washing machine’s process under the umbrella of AI, I think most would agree it’s fine. But then there is generative AI which is drawing a lot of the current AI hate and some of it for good reason. People understandably fear being replaced as artists or authors by AI. There are also concerns such as online marketplaces for these things being flooded by generated content and making them impossible to use for anyone. But in practice, the points are not all against AI. Some people have gotten back into creative writing more effectively because of AI assistance. Some people have gotten therapeutic benefit from chatbot AI or helped them with loneliness. And like, loneliness is not a problem we should have as such a pervasive thing, but while it is a problem, generative AI is stepping in to help with harm reduction.
So there are nuances to it and it’s one of these things where spending time around people who use it can be very important to understand how it is being used and what benefits and drawbacks are in practice, not just in theory. I have seen this somewhat through personal observation. I’ve also encountered a lot of variation in how people feel about generative AI, even among those who use it. Some people, for example, are okay with text generation, but dislike image generation; which is somewhat understandable, as text generation is designed as something that goes back and forth, and image generation is more a thing where you put in a prompt and get the result and that’s it unless you edit it further.
I agree with your concluding statement, with the add-on that I think we need to evaluate to the best of our ability at each step what the benefits and drawbacks are, and how to integrate the tech in a way that has overall benefit. In other words, not just absence of profit motive, but presence of thinking about it as “how can it help?” not just “is it scientifically possible to make it do this?” Of course, in a country like the US, that is mostly hypothetical without having the levers of power. But if we are speaking to how to approach AI, given conditions where we can make collective decisions about it.
It’s a confusing thing to grapple with, partly because of AI having become such a marketing term rather than a precise or practical one. If we included a washing machine’s process under the umbrella of AI, I think most would agree it’s fine. But then there is generative AI which is drawing a lot of the current AI hate and some of it for good reason. People understandably fear being replaced as artists or authors by AI. There are also concerns such as online marketplaces for these things being flooded by generated content and making them impossible to use for anyone. But in practice, the points are not all against AI. Some people have gotten back into creative writing more effectively because of AI assistance. Some people have gotten therapeutic benefit from chatbot AI or helped them with loneliness. And like, loneliness is not a problem we should have as such a pervasive thing, but while it is a problem, generative AI is stepping in to help with harm reduction.
So there are nuances to it and it’s one of these things where spending time around people who use it can be very important to understand how it is being used and what benefits and drawbacks are in practice, not just in theory. I have seen this somewhat through personal observation. I’ve also encountered a lot of variation in how people feel about generative AI, even among those who use it. Some people, for example, are okay with text generation, but dislike image generation; which is somewhat understandable, as text generation is designed as something that goes back and forth, and image generation is more a thing where you put in a prompt and get the result and that’s it unless you edit it further.
I agree with your concluding statement, with the add-on that I think we need to evaluate to the best of our ability at each step what the benefits and drawbacks are, and how to integrate the tech in a way that has overall benefit. In other words, not just absence of profit motive, but presence of thinking about it as “how can it help?” not just “is it scientifically possible to make it do this?” Of course, in a country like the US, that is mostly hypothetical without having the levers of power. But if we are speaking to how to approach AI, given conditions where we can make collective decisions about it.