Comment by aftbit

Comment by aftbit 2 days ago

4 replies

Wow there is so much vitriol both in this post and in the comments here. I understand that there are many ethical and practical problems with generative AI, but when did we stop being hopeful and start seeing the darkest side of everything? Is it just that the average HN reader is now past the age where a new technological development is an exciting opportunity and on to the age where it is a threat? Remember, the Luddites were not opposed to looms, they just wanted to own them.

aryonoco 2 days ago

When?

For some of us, it was 1994, the eternal September.

For some of us, it was when Aaron Swartz left us.

For some of us, it was when Google killed Google Reader (in hindsight, the turning point of Google becoming evil).

For some others, like the author of this post, it's when twitter and reddit closed their previously open APIs.

JohnFen 2 days ago

> when did we stop being hopeful and start seeing the darkest side of everything?

I think a decade or two ago, when most of the new tech being introduced (at least by our industry) started being unmistakably abusive and dehumanizing. When the recent past shows a strong trend, it's not unreasonable to expect the the near future will continue that trend. Particularly when it makes companies money.

slashdave 2 days ago

Give us examples of generative AI in challenging applications (biology, medicine, physical sciences), and you'll get a lot of optimism. The text LLM stuff is the brute force application of the same class of statistical modeling. It's commercial, and boring.