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The Cult of AI. How one writer's trip to an annual tech conference left him with a sinking feeling about the future (www.rollingstone.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 10 points 2 years ago (14 children)

I've seen a lot of reaction to AI that smacks of some kind of species-level narcissism, IMO. Lots of people have grown up being told how special humans were and how there were certain classes of things that were "uniquely human" that no machine could ever do, and now they're being confronted with the notion that that's just not the case. The psychological impact of AI could be just as distressing as the economic impact, it's going to be some interesting times ahead.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    None of the AI technology we have now even comes close to human intelligence

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    And yet it's writing poetry and painting pictures. That makes it worse, doesn't it? Turns out you don't have to be very intelligent to do those things.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    I’m not sure how you get this from the article, though. Evans has no doubt it’s possible; like anyone with any knowledge of the state of AI he also knows that’s really fucking far away and just science fiction today. On the other hand, if you’re going to reduce things to the absurd level comment chain OP did, I suppose the future is now because judicial AI is just as racist as cops.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (6 children)

    "What we call AI lacks agency, the ability to make dynamic decisions of its own accord, choices that are “not purely reactive, not entirely determined by environmental conditions.” "

    That's from the article and I referred to that.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (5 children)

    So are you suggesting that humans “[lack] agency [and] the ability to make dynamic decisions?” Your point is that humans are just AI and, if we’re going from this quote, we can’t have agency if we are the same.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'm not saying that humans are just AI, I'm just saying that there's no fundamental difference in the sense that we also respond to stimuli.. we don't have free will.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    That’s fair. With that line of logic, the author had to say what he said so there’s no value behind criticizing him. Granted you had to criticize him because you have no free will either. The conversation is completely meaningless because all of this is just preprogrammed action.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Depends on how you define meaning. I find meaning in experiencing the life. It may be predetermined or have random elements in it but the experience is unique to me.

    Anyway, given all we know about us and the universe I haven't heard a coherent proposal of how free will could work. So, until there's good evidence to convince me otherwise .. I can't help but believe it doesn't exist.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Right! Without free will the only meaning you have is whatever you were preordained to have. Even your sense of meaning is just a predefined firing of neurons set into motion when it all began. This conversation, my response to you, your response to me, it’s all just something we have no control over unless our brains were wired back when to believe that infinitely small sub(infinite)atomic particles colliding is any form of meaning.

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