Mallory's Musings & Mischief21h ago

How many studies do researchers need to do before the threat of LLMs is taken seriously? This technology *might* have some useful niche applications, but widespread deployment will be a disaster for humanity.

This shit is an existential hazard, and not in the way the AI companies love to talk about. It's not going to take over the world like Skynet, it's a cognitohazard that turns anyone that interacts with it into an idiot.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202603/adults-lose-skills-to-ai-children-never-build-them

Adults Lose Skills to AI. Children Never Build Them.

Discussions of cognitive offloading often miss a critical distinction: What AI does to a 45-year-old's brain is categorically different from what it does to a 14-year-old's.

Psychology Today
Show threadMallory's Musings & Mischief21h ago
Thinking about LLM-based "AI" chatbots as cognitohazards is apt. They are deceptive and subversive in an extremely subtle but systematic way. They warp your perception and cognition to make you _feel_ as if you're more capable while simultaneously degrading your skills.
Show threadMallory's Musings & Mischief20h ago
These chatbots are like an amulet cursed by dark magic. It grants the wearer an apparent intelligence boost, at the cost of stealing their soul over time and binding them to the object. After extensive use, taking the amulet off incapacitates the person. They can't live without it.
Show threadMallory's Musings & Mischief20h ago

I should stop talking about AI. Like so many other social issues, I'm only preaching to the converted. All it does is remind people of Yet Another Bad Thing You Have No Power To Change.

Or to put it a different way, whatever levers you have available to influence the situation are probably already being pushed. Me reminding you doesn't do anything other than make you feel worse.

Show threadHuntn0015h ago
@malcircuit It can be argued your mostly always preaching to the converted on Mastodon. 😉
However, regarding AI, I’m not against it as a principal, but I am against it when there are so many capitalist entities competing and consuming excess resources, it’s just not efficient.
And when it is used for profit to disenfranchise citizens, and the result is inadequate AI who can’t do the job a person can, but has displaced a worker who now has to scramble to find meaningful work. 1:2
Show threadHuntn00
@malcircuit Under Capitalism as it exists, this AI related disenfranchising economic trend will only worsen until the collapse of the economy and more and more citizens struggle to support themselves.
Additionally as it exists, AI phone assistance just sucks! 2:2
7:35pmWeb