[HN Gopher] The Public Is Rapidly Turning Against AI, Polling Shows
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       The Public Is Rapidly Turning Against AI, Polling Shows
        
       Author : evolve2k
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2024-03-08 20:51 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (futurism.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (futurism.com)
        
       | SillyUsername wrote:
       | Well of course it does. This is the industrial revolution and
       | Luddism all over again.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | Many of the Luddites' issues were taken up by Marx.
         | 
         | I wonder if, and how, the analogy would play out with AI.
         | 
         | Free software, even if not open sourced, is putting the means
         | (and memes) of production into the hands of the workers.
        
         | ElevenLathe wrote:
         | Power looms were just putting skilled weavers out of work. AI
         | is going to be used to decide if you can go to college or take
         | out a loan, what kinds of culture are produced, provide mass-
         | customized propaganda to everyone at the whim of anyone with a
         | nickel's worth of AWS credits, and it goes on.
         | 
         | They're fundamentally different. I'm in IT and don't think
         | there is much to be done about it "taking my job", but
         | certainly we need to keep it out of the path of important
         | society-defining decisions. It's important to separate these
         | two things, and AFAICT the public debate about this -- such as
         | it is -- is not.
        
         | yoyohello13 wrote:
         | I hate this comparison because the tone of it discounts the
         | real human suffering caused by these events. Yes, we are better
         | off now. But the transition through the industrial revolution
         | caused a lot of pain.
         | 
         | The rise of AI is going to cause real human suffering. Sure, we
         | will probably be better off in 100 years. But that's little
         | comfort the those that lose their jobs or the ones that get
         | crushed under the new AI powered Noble class.
        
         | dorkwood wrote:
         | I suppose I missed the part where the mechanised loom makers
         | harvested hundreds of millions of books and images without
         | permission in order to make their machines work.
        
       | evolve2k wrote:
       | I do think this is the blind spot in all of Altmans hyper
       | competitive moves.
       | 
       | As a public we've had years of cultural warnings that this tech
       | especially needs to be navigated with wisdom and ethical
       | consideration.
       | 
       | Trust can initially be quickly gained, but once lost, very hard
       | to regain.
       | 
       | I'm not sure about anyone else but I'm already cautious which
       | questions I ask Chat GPT and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
        
         | testacpwoek wrote:
         | I think the trust comment is the crux of it. When AI can
         | suddenly generate photorealistic images and answer any
         | question, people wonder what it will be able to do next.
         | Generate movies? TV shows? Video games even? And then a lawyer
         | gets disbarred because ChatGPT made up cases and people's
         | excitement starts to waver. And then people start using
         | existing AI to make deepfake porn and people's excitement
         | starts to waver. And then AI starts generating photorealistic
         | black Nazis, and people's excitement starts to waver again. If
         | the negative incidents keep happening but people's lives don't
         | get better at the same time thanks to the utility of AI, people
         | start asking "Are the downsides worth it?" and "Can we even
         | trust the people making this stuff?".
        
           | iwontberude wrote:
           | This is why I think RTO is inevitable. We don't know who
           | anyone is for sure unless we are in the same room. We don't
           | have any privacy for sure unless we are in the same room. I'm
           | buying commercial REITs while they are cheap.
        
       | jmathai wrote:
       | The article is light on details but it's important to
       | differentiate between two kinds of AI.
       | 
       | 1) Deeply integrated into the product. This is what we've mostly
       | seen to date. Google Search, Facebook's feed, Amazon results,
       | etc. I can see how people are getting tired of these applications
       | of AI. My wife asked me how she can search for something without
       | it following her around the Internet. I said, "you can't really".
       | 
       | 2) AI as the product. This new set of AI use cases feel quite
       | different (for now, read on). Users intentionally interact
       | knowing and wanting the AI related value they receive. As all
       | novel products, this type of AI will also get so commercialized
       | that it's not in the business of solving the user's needs. At
       | least not as it's first priority. And people will grow tired of
       | it too.
       | 
       | Rinse, repeat.
        
         | JustLurking2022 wrote:
         | I think you have it backwards - most people don't know what AI
         | as a product really accomplishes. They're probably more
         | accepting of products that use AI when it enhances an
         | experience they already understand and want.
        
       | Turing_Machine wrote:
       | "Shortened question text Throughout the report, question text has
       | been edited for readability."
       | 
       | Wait, what?
       | 
       | If it needs to be "shortened for readability" for the report, how
       | do we know it wasn't confusing to the respondents in its original
       | form?
       | 
       | I mean, maybe it's fine, but push polling is totally a thing.
       | 
       | I don't trust polls unless the writeup prominently features
       | details about a) exactly how the subjects were selected, b) the
       | exact text of the questions that were asked, and c) exactly how
       | the data was collected.
       | 
       | A U.S.-based example: a stranger calls someone on the phone and
       | asks them whether they own a firearm, or, alternatively, whether
       | they've ever had an abortion. In either case, it's not a safe bet
       | that the answer is going to be honest.
       | 
       | Another example: I see that they've collected data for this poll
       | in China. I can't believe that strangers cold-calling people in
       | China and asking them whether they trust the government is going
       | to produce data of any value at all.
        
       | inamberclad wrote:
       | I think there's a sense that our personal experiences are being
       | hijacked by algorithms. This has been going on for at least a
       | decade or two but they've been getting more and more devious and
       | extractive as the Internet, and our attention has been heavily
       | capitalized upon. Nothing is private. Everything is for sale.
       | Your worth is algorithmic, and AI is the biggest and most devious
       | algorithm there is.
        
         | reducesuffering wrote:
         | What's sad is there were early technologists warning about the
         | social media problems, but they were ignored by the 90%
         | builders of it and $. Same thing happening all over again,
         | except no one thinks Facebook is really helping people.
        
       | Imnimo wrote:
       | "Trust in AI is down globally from 61 percent in 2019 to just 53
       | percent, per the Edelman poll." I am having a hard time finding
       | exactly what this number means in the linked report. I see a "50"
       | for AI on page 13 - is that the number that used to be 61?
        
       | ab5tract wrote:
       | The truth is that _truths are contentious_. AI simply cannot
       | fully convey the discourse around any given topic without
       | angering or neglecting one group or another.
       | 
       | This means that the creators of a given AI will necessarily pick
       | and choose which "reality" it is going to convey.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | [dupe]
       | 
       | More discussion on the axios post here:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39616302
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-08 23:01 UTC)