- it can be used for good (e.g. improved research / increased access to life saving treatments / more affordable goods and services)
- it can be used for bad (e.g. killing people, depriving them of their livelihood)
- it will be used for both
- it will be perverted for money (think of the utopianism of the early internet versus the corporate cthulhu it is now)
- the toothpaste cannot be put back in the tube, but can be regulated, but probably won't be well enough because people
May 24, 2025
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And corporations' race to adopt it at every turn is doing more real-life damage to jobs and careers than anything it has promised to do thus far. Basically, what ruffianbandwidth said
Feb 12, 2024
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10 years ago you had to call computational statistics "machine learning" to trick VCs without any technical knowledge to fund you. now you have to call it "AI". both are complete misnomers.
can computational statistics be used for evil? yes (mass surveillance, deep fakes, etc.)
can it be used for good? yes (improved weather forecasting, earlier disease diagnostics, etc.)
on the whole do economic incentives all-but-guarantee it will be used for evil more than good? yes.
does any of this have anything to do with cognition/intelligence/sentience/etc? not even a little
Feb 12, 2024
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But really, technology is rarely the issue in and of itself, the issue is the system/motivations/logic/power dynamics it operates within.
So AI won't save us, no more than the steam engine, electricity, computers, etc. saved us. Not because it can't, but because it won't be allowed to. Sure, as whole, we might benefit from these technologies, but ultimately one group of people is gonna benefit the most, while another group is going to become all the more exploited (a dynamic that is ultimately unsustainable).
Any increase in productivity (and therefore value) that technology brings about (especially since the 70s) isn't distributed to labor, but rather used as an excuse to drive down the value of labor and increase the surplus value or profits of capital. Therefore, AI, which could reduce the amount of labor humans have to do (a good thing), is instead (due to the logic of capitalism) used as a way to eliminate jobs, drive down the cost of products, and discipline labor by casting people into precarity (a bad thing).
So I guess AI may destroy us, but it's not AI's fault. Capitalism's inherent logic is to blame. But also, I think the abilities of AI are being blown way out of proportion and simply used as the latest bit of speculative fodder to fuel market growth.
Feb 12, 2024
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