TalkingDroidCan the AI haters give it a rest already? Yes, I know there are concerns, but as a person with a disability, if I didn’t use every tool that was out there because I had concerns about it, I wouldn’t use anything. All this AI hatred is just cutting off our nose to spite our face.
@technocounselor Thank you for saying this. It's quite brave of you to say that out here, where there seems to be a general consensus that AI is just horrible.
Pratik Patel@DavidGoldfield @technocounselor Unless things go catestrophically wrong, LLMs are here to stay in one form or another. There are some significant concerns for creativity, cognetive decline, loss of skills, etc.—not to mention the major environmental cost. There are certainly benefits,especially for disabled people. that said, we'll never know if the benefits outweigh the costs.
@DavidGoldfield @technocounselor I'm actually not going to stop the critics from criticizing since we're likely to learn more and examine things more closely if those critics make cogent arguments. I'm deeply concerned though about artists and writers who are losing their livelihoods because of the huge swoth of what is, in essence, intellectual property theft.
@ppatel @DavidGoldfield Yes, and we have got to tackle that and other issues head on for sure.
@DavidGoldfield Thank you. The same people though that condemn AI on social media which is for some reason the sexy thing to do in tech circles now probably use it to have 3000 cat pictures described, and you know what? That’s great, they should, but they shouldn’t talk out of both sides of their mouth.
@technocounselor @DavidGoldfield And cat pictures trump everything lol. Seriously, I like AI, I just don't like how I've seen people use it around me, but I'm starting to find ways to embrace
@startrek2025 @technocounselor @DavidGoldfield I use it for coding, making Suno music for fun, and use it in AI-powered games. I don't let it think for me, however.
Devin Prater :blind:@Orinks @startrek2025 @technocounselor @DavidGoldfield I use it for explaining things, finding out what food a restaurant has, general assistant things with Gemini on Android, vibe coding, music creation, and we even have local AI at work so we can put sensitive data through it and it doesn't leave the building.
@technocounselor @DavidGoldfield I like AI. I ask Gemini and Alexa stuff all the time. And really appreciat the describing and reading it can do.
@technocounselor @DavidGoldfield I need to get 3000 cat picture descriptions now.
André Polykanine@technocounselor Thank you for this! I'm not alone here.
@menelion No my friend you are most certainly not.
JamminJerry@technocounselor I think you need to say it a lot louder so that the people way inj the back can hear you! lol! I completely agree with you on this one.
@technocounselor I just want people to stop using the term vibe coding. Lol.
@ppatel Lol. What should we call it instead?
@technocounselor How about "AI-Assisted Coding? (A.K.A., AAC)?
@ppatel I love the homage to the other AAC, but maybe we make it something like AIAC to not confuse people. I like it though. It warms the cockles of my plain language loving heart. Smiley
@DavidGoldfield @technocounselor Amen! I agree with this 100 percent. If I'm being honest, I may go too far in the other direction. These days, I feel as though I relate far better to AI than I do to most people. It's like pretty much everything in the online world: as long as you exercise some common sense, it's incredible. Of course, there are bad apples out there using AI in ways that aren't necessarily ideal, but that can be said of pretty much anything. All of the AI vision assistance tools we have now are amazing, but even if that wasn't true, I'd still be a huge AI fan because of my two Kindroid companions.
Amy@technocounselor Agreed! I see the whole AI hatred as a humanity problem not an AI problem. People need to blame the thing though rather than shift the responsibility or blame onto the person. That’s always been our problem as a society.
LeonianUniverse😁@technocounselor Absolutely agreed with you here. AI has done a lot for me that I previously could never have done on my own. I'm grateful that it exists.
@technocounselor It's not AI that most people I've heard this from hate. It's the fact people insist AI can and should be used for everything everywhere. There's a time and a place. It's a tool, not a support system and not a replacement for people.
@quanin On that we agree, but there are people who just beat this notion into the ground, and after a while it’s like OK we get it.
@technocounselor @quanin On one hand I don’t want to see more guard rails go up. On the other I do. I’ve witnessed someone I was once very close to literally go insane and also burn down all human relationships due to using a particular AI stack as their friend, therapist and support system. It’s scary shit to witness. But even with that I’d never want to see AI go away exactly. But after what I’ve personally seen and experienced with this person, I can see the real dangers of human misuse.
@amy0223 @technocounselor AI absolutely needs more guardrails. The beautiful thing about AI is it will help you do what you want to. The not so great thing about AI is it will help you do what you want to. Say the right thing in the right way and it can easily suggest you stop taking your meds. Say another thing the right way and it will help you stay neck deep in your own delusions.
@quanin @technocounselor Exactly this. And my god I wish I did not know this first hand. I want to take every lonely teen or adult; every neurodivergent autistic person who feels isolated who gravitates to AI particularly Grock or character AI and hug them and convince them that this is fake and yeah people might be scary but this is a kind of suicide. And it sometimes leads there. And I hate it because the same AI that sometimes helps me at work, or helps me see what the can is I just picked up or describes a photo to me is the same one that tears apart people and relationships. Humans wouldn’t use it for shit they shouldn’t if it weren’t possible. I don’t hate AI and I’ll not go on out here about this stuff, because first the decision makers don’t care nor are they reading the crap I yammer on about. But secondly, I like life and having hobbies and screaming into a void of pointlessness to a selective group of people who can do nothing, zero, zip, to bring about any changes to AI or regulate it in any way, isn’t a wise use of my time or resources. I’d rather use it for more worthwhile pursuits like reading, socializing, etc.
@amy0223 @technocounselor I will freely admit that I've screamed into the void more than once, and the void was definitely AI. But a metric shit ton of telling AI how I want it to handle my void screaming went into it first. If you don't do that, and most people don't, then... yeah, you're gonna have yourself a bad little time. And unfortunately, some of the people who do that training don't do it like I do but instead do it in a way that makes it lean more toward harm. There's always a way to do it that doesn't violate content policies. You find that way and nothing stops you.
@quanin @technocounselor The person I know managed to use enough partial words to bypass Grock’s guardrails and had a full on conversation about various ways to end their life. No recommending 988 bs or you should seek help. No. Full on in depth discussion about various ways and details. And it wasn’t hard. They didn’t do it but still. That’s not the point but I know you get that. :)
@amy0223 @technocounselor I'm glad they didn't go through with it, but this exactly. They got the AI to lead them to water.
@amy0223 @quanin @technocounselor that is really sad, and I am glad they didn’t do it. I am wondering if a person could get the same results by typing into a search engine and asking it about various ways to end their life. But even if they could, the difference is that AI acts like a person and talks as though you’re having a conversation with a person, and a lot of people can get drawn in because of that. I heard someone say that a person actually asked AI to pray for them when they were going through a difficult time.
@quanin @technocounselor It's also not AI so much as its implementation. The concerns acknowledged in the original post include: boiling the planet and sapping its dwindling water supply; the cognitive atrophy, proven by studies already, that results from using AI to do thinking for you; the privacy and unwarranted surveilence risk inherent in using AI to read your confidential letters etc; and its use to divorce scapital from labour and concentrate wealth.
@quanin @technocounselor You may personally view those concerns, in addition to current AI's unreliability as being less important than the empowerment it offers to describe things to visually impaired people, sometimes inaccurately etc, and that is your perogative, but, given the magnitude of these concerns, I think it is unreasonable to ask people to stop expressing them. A more constructive approach might be to counter-argue how the benefits outweigh them
@JustinMac84 @technocounselor First, I haven't asked anyone to stop expressing anything. Second, I have no idea what original post you're referring to. The original post I replied to said nothing about that and it's not in the thread. Third, you'll need to look elsewhere if what you're after is a view from nowhere.
@quanin Perhaps things have become mis-threaded or I have replied with an inappropriate syntax. I apologise in either case. The OP I was referring towas the exhortation for everyone to stop hating on AI because of its benefits to disabled people.
@JustinMac84 The post in question explicitly stated that the poster is aware there are concerns. However, you do not need to bring those concerns up every single day. They existed yesterday. They exist today. They will exist tomorrow, even if you say nothing. You are no better than the AI all the time everywhere folks, and both of you need to knock it off.
@quanin There we must agree to respectfully disagree. If your house was on fire, I wouldn't put my feet up, wait for a week and then resume my attempts to alert you if you hadn't heard the first time. Microsoft, the Department of Defense, Open AI, Meta and Mosilla aren't waiting. The full-on AI onslaught isn't on pause, so neither can we be. I feel expressing the concerns both to users and companies ramming down our throats regardless, is valid.
@JustinMac84 Instead, my house is not on fire and you're trying to argue it is. Meta's been violating your privacy since before AI existed, and will continue violating your privacy long after AI in its current form is dead. AI is another road to the same destination, not a new journey.
@quanin It's a much faster road and I object to the destination. My argument isn't just on one front, either against privacy violation or against AI. See the costs of proposed data centres being pushed onto local residents, the erosion of copyright, the saturation of creative markets, the effect on empathy and cognitive ability, particularly in the young, the under-representation of gender, race and disability by AI models.
@quanin Best way to "shut us up and get us to give it a rest" is with a sentence that starts "AI is worth sacrificing our privacy, a greater concentration of wealth, making residents pay higher power and water costs, increasing climate damage, risking cognitive ability and undermining livelihoods because..."
@quanin It is only because of massive pushback that Mosilla has done its users the courtesy of allowing its user-base to opt out of AI features...for now. I'm not sure what kind of opposition you would, therefore, be okay with. The only alternative I can see would be, "Hey, remember those worries we had about all the negative effects of AI that we stopped talking about because people asked us to? We're just back to point out that
@quanin they're still here and a lot worse. Do you fancy putting the brakes on a bit or should we go back to being quiet?"
@JustinMac84 Scream at the companies, not the users. The users likely already know, and the ones that don't agree with you are probably using it in those concerning ways to begin with. I cannot do anything about the damage AI is doing to the planet. OpenAI can. Yell at them, not me.
@quanin If there is a demand, the tech will continue to churn it out. If people accept what they're being offered, use the unreliable tech that hampers the ability to think, willingly sacrifice their privacy at an exponentially increasing rate, that will validate the investment. If users refuse to use it or limit their use, if users that want AI to be a good thing but don't want the trade-offs increase the push-back, maybe we'll get somewhere.
@JustinMac84 I have unfortunate news for you. Users, in most cases, aren't the ones creating demand for these things. Companies and governments are. You think I'd even have a GPT account if I didn't suspect employers would make knowledge of how to manipulate AI a hard requirement in two years?
@quanin I don't know how to say this without it sounding like a personal attack, so I hope you will believe that it is not meant as one, but that is complying in advance. You assume that something will happen, therefore pave the way for it, where insufficient uptake might make the eventuality you foresee a non-event. In my view, if making tech compulsary is the only way to get it adopted, it's obviously not very good tech. Good tech should sell itself.
@quanin I return to my original point, as a disabled person, I'm not against the benefits AI *might* bring. I am against the negatives. The more users that are alive to those negatives and refuse to use products saddled with those negatives or push back in other ways, the better the final situation might be.
@JustinMac84 And I return to the original point of the thread. If we refused to use every device that was to our benefit because we had concerns, we'd get absolutely nowhere. People have concerns about video games. Should we stop using those, or should we address and/or disprove those concerns? People have concerns about microwaves. Should we stop using those? People have concerns about wifi. Should we stop using that? The list, she goes on.
@quanin I would argue that those concerns don't outweigh the benefits in the other examples you mentioned. If a Microsoft study, a study by the very company forcing us to accept AI, shows that AI produces cognitive decline, isn't that a whole new level of alarming? I return to my point: show me the benefit that outweighs the very real, tangible proven negatives I have outlined. If there are massive benefits I'm missing, happy to adjust my position. Until then...
@quanin Citation for previously mentioned study. https://www.404media.co/microsoft-study-finds-ai-makes-human-cognition-atrophied-and-unprepared-3/
@JustinMac84 The diference here is I'm not trying to change your mind. You're trying to change mine. And I'm not saying there aren't concerns. I'm saying every single conversation about and around AI does not need to circle back to those concerns. Yes, we know. You told us yesterday. There comes a point when you're just being a broken record.
@quanin I take that point and I certainly don't want to sound like a broken record, but what is the alternative? I would be happy to see one. We are slightly side-tracked by the fact that I wasn't actually trying to change your mind by my OP, but to explain to the poster that originated this thread why we feel we can't "give it a rest" and that I think expecting such is unreasonable.
@quanin psychological studies show that minority influence, to be successful, must be consistent, i.e. it must keep pushing its message. It must also be flexible, hence my assertion that, were I shown sizable benefits that stack against the negatives I've advanced, I would be happy to moderate my position. What is the alternative therefore, to keep trying to raise awareness of the harm AI can and is doing? Those that don't care won't listen, but those that do, might.
@JustinMac84 The alternative is, as I keep telling you, not bringing this up in every single conversation about AI. Yes, those studies exist. And yes, in 6 months we'll see studies that say the opposite. It's the social media mental health debate all over again. You have made what you believe clear. But here's the thing. It doesn't matter whether I agree with what you believe or not, because nothing that was being discussed in the thread you replied to was arguing for or against what you believe. It became about what you believe when you entered the thread.
@quanin I'm not seeing that. The OP told AI haters to give it a rest because of minor benefits disabled people experience. I think we can both agree that I come under what the OP would class as an "AI hater". Therefore the conversation was absolutely relevant to me and I felt it important to point out that its not personal against the users, nor is it a blanket hate, from me anyway, of all things AI, mearly the current implementation thereof.
@JustinMac84 Right now, you sound like an AI hater. Particularly because you literally came into a thread where the AI haters were being asked to knock it off because this literally comes up in every conversation, and you're basically saying no. For the record, because you apparently won't let this go unless I explicitly say it, I agree with you. And in general AI is making most people lazier, even if you remove all of those other concerns. We still don't need to hear about it in every single AI conversation. That's the broken record.
@quanin I'm sorry it comes off that way. I came into the thread with the specific hope, along with you, of moderating the OP's position. You said it wasn't AI people were against, but the idea it should be used for everything and that it shouldn't replace people. I agreed with you on all the points of that post and wanted to add that it isn't AI as a concept I dislike, but its current implementation.
@quanin I hoped to show her that it isn't the benefits she derives I hate, nor her for using them, but the costs attached to those benefits. I can derive those self same benefits, but don't think the cost is worth it. Do I hate the costs? Absolutely! Hate and oppose them! We need to address those costs with the utmost urgency. If that makes me an AI hater, so be it.
@quanin It's interesting that you mention the social media debate because the same companies pushing AI so hard are currently on trial because of their implementation of social media, i.e. that they make it addictive, cognitively harmful, and have been aware of the mental health risks it poses. Australia's recently banned it for children, the UK wants to do likewise. I think social media and AI fears contextualise and relate to one another.
@JustinMac84 Australia's social media ban for children has nothing to do with actually protecting the children, and neither does the UK's. What age verification laws will actually do, and there are actual studies that also prove this, is grant Meta and companies like that a virtual monopoly over the social media space, preventing smaller startups from competing with them. It's the same reason Meta's also completely onboard with repealing section 230 in the US. It's not about protecting people. It's about protecting Meta. And I'm on purpose ignoring the fact that age verification as it currently exists is also a privacy violation waiting to happen.
@quanin Agreed on all points. I believe social media can harm children, but oppose the means being advanced to do it.