I see generative AI on the web the same way I see forever chemicals in the real world. The effects may not be immediately apparent but they are poisoning mankind. Those who acquired knowledge and skills in the before era will be fine, but newer generations won't have the same reference points to tell reality from fiction. They will search for "baby peacock" on Google and have no reason to believe the actual birds look any different to what they're shown. I find that sad somehow.
I agree, AI can be an good thing though we can't forget about the human brain!
@harljo.uk Where have I said that AI can be a good thing? I don't think we agree.
@Gargron @harljo.uk IMHO talking about Generative AI I agree with you, but AI is also a good thing.
It is a powerful, useful and in some cases necessary tool IF used properly.
My opinion is that AI is great to deal with things, is a danger as you say when deal with people (the "generative" part).
I think the problem is the word "intelligent" after the artificial part.
AI is NOT intelligent, is a great tool to look for patterns and associations, but is not intelligent, it doesn't understand things.
@thefwguy @Gargron @harljo.uk ai is good for electricity vendors and oilmen that's for sure!
@wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk AI is way bigger and interesting than chatGPT.
Big LLM are the ones who use an insane amount of energy for something IMHO useless. But AI is not only that, teach yourself about edge AI for example and how AI is used other than the stupid chatGPT and similar.
AI for the masses is the problem, where too many use AI for "content", I hate that, content is for humans and should be created by humans.
AI has many more useful things that can do.

@thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk

The problem is the term 'AI'. It is way too vague. Whenever I bash genAI, some idiot pops up mentioning how it could advance medicine. As if doctors need all our music, writings, landscape photographs or cringe fan art to cure cancer... This is a confusion and hate that parasitic 'AI' devs with their buzzword PR can be thanked for.

@krautdragon @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk machine learning has been helping to advance medicine for tens of years. it would mischaracterize its contributions to claim otherwise
@feliks @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk OK too bad he didn't claim otherwise? I swear you smart caricatures must have some bad case of genAI defense tourette. We get it now - to advocate for human protection against bad AIs is lowest prio. It's much much more important to never ever insult the 'good AIs'. Good neither him nor I did that?
Or... good luck with adding big tiddy anime girls, cooking recipes, fantasy books, and furry art into your medicinical AIs? 
@krautdragon @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk "genAI" is included in advancing medicine. you should research the role of LLMs in e.g. drug design, molecular design, and retrosynthetic analysis. your final mischaracterization shows that you don't understand what you are talking about
@feliks @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk And those generate fake peacock babies? No. I think you are just too up your own butt to simply accept what this whole post actually and obviously addresses. Please go write to Midjourney and co about how they ruined the reputation of good genAIs and stained the term forever? That would still be better activism than this pedantic and redundant weird lecture-wanking you lot do whenever someone dares speak up against recent genAI toys.

@krautdragon @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk i was replying to your post addressing your mischaracterizations

the peacocks and all that follows is a clear problem already discussed by competent people. does the original poster's idea of children of the future being confused by the inability to discern between reality and generated content seem frightening? yes! does it seem plausible? not at all

@feliks @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk I legit simply don't give a rats ass if I'm mischaracterising the poor precious medical genAIs and I will keep using the term genAI in criticism. And I can assure you that the idiots telling me I must stop opposing Midjourney and co because it all leads to better medicine have less knowledge about AIs than I do. Now please wank your intelligence elsewhere.

@krautdragon @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk to be clear here it's not the term of genAI that was eliciting a response but rather this explicit passage:

> As if doctors need all our music, writings, landscape photographs or cringe fan art to cure cancer... This is a confusion and hate that parasitic 'AI' devs with their buzzword PR can be thanked for.

@feliks @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk What. That makes your response even worse, sorry.

Yes doctors do not need those silly things for their AI tools. And yes, it is the recent buzzword genAI toy market's fault that AI is now a dirty umbrella term.

Nothing of that was a mischaracterisation. Wtf 😭

@krautdragon @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk i was being imprecise. it includes also the sentence before that. because "genAI" is clearly advancing our understanding. ofc not by those models that most people interact with

@krautdragon @feliks @thefwguy @wonofone @Gargron @harljo.uk I've been on this platform for longer than a year atleast but this is honestly the first time I've seen this on fediverse

Devolving threads are common on xitter(the X is pronounced sh), and reddit, even coming across them in literal minutes after opening the respective platforms for the first time but I'm honestly proud of the Fediverse especially mastodon for throwing only self-respecting people my way so far.