I get some of the surface level reasons, and those annoy me too. Cramming AI into everything is dumb and unnecessary.
However, I do feel that at a deeper level, it has a lot of useful applications that will absolutely change society and improve the efficiency and skills of those who use it. For example, if someone wants to learn to code, they could take a few different paths. There are the traditional paths, just read or go to school and learn to code that way. Or you could pay for a bootcamp or an online coding education platform. Or, you could just tell an AI chatbot you want to learn to code, and have them become your teacher, and correct any errors you make in real time. Another application is in generating ideas or quick mock ups. Say I'm playing a game of d&d with friends. I need a character avatar so I just provide a description to the AI and it makes it up quick. It might take a few prompts, but it usually does a pretty good job. Or if I have a scenario I need to make a few enemies for, I could just provide the description of those enemies and have a quick stat block made up for them.
I realize that there are underlying issues with regard to training the AI on others work, but as someone who is a musician myself, and a supporter of open source as often as possible, I feel that it's a bit hypocritical for people to get upset about AI "stealing" work with regard to code or other stuff that people willingly put out there for free for others to consume. Any artist or coder could "steal" the work of others for inspiration for their work, the same as an AI does, an AI is just much more efficient about it. I do think that most of the corporations that are pushing some new AI feature or promising the world or end of the labor force is full of shit, and that we are definitely in some sort of an AI bubble, but the technology itself is definitely useful in a lot of ways, and if it can be developed on a more localized and decentralized scale (community owned AI hubs anyone?), it could actually be a really powerful and beneficial technology for organizations and individuals looking to do more with less.
Here ya go.
I'll give you a quick summary. It turns out spending time thinking improves your ability to think and vice versa. When you rely on LLMs to do your thinking for you, you become less skilled at thinking.
It's important to remember that it doesn't really matter how you, personally, use their product or think it should be used, it matters how it is used by large swaths of society. Don't get fooled into promoting some billionaire's tool to shift wealth further upward and further denigrate the working class in your quest to get out of spending 15 minutes searching for the right D&D character picture.
Ok, that's one study. Here is a review of dozens of studies that shows a positive impact on education.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666920X25001699
I think it's genuinely too early to say definitively one way or another, but anecdotally, the people I see educated with LLMs are a lot less capable than people who aren't.
Only time will tell how badly we've allowed ourselves to get fucked over to benefit a few ultra rich companies.
Ok, so just to clarify you basing your hate off of anecdotal evidence and a fear of getting fucked over by corporations (which has been happening long before and completely unrelatedly to AI)?
I've watched people get stupider in the past few years using LLMs to replace thinking for themselves, so, yeah I guess so.
You can say it's just a problem with capitalism, and, yes, capitalism is a problem, but AI is the current tool de jure that capitalists are using to crush workers, so, yes, I oppose it.
It's pointless to argue about how it could be used in a post capitalist world, we don't live in that world, we live in a world where LLMs are actively being used to harm the working class. This applies to a myriad of things, of course.
You want to use and develop AI tools for use in a post-capitalist world? Alright, let's get to the post capitalist part first. Until then, I'll oppose tools used to harm the underprivileged.
Very illuminating. Hopefully you are consistent in your ethics and hate every other tool that capitalists use in our modern society to exploit workers and the environment. Definitely don't drive anywhere or work in a job that pays out by the hour.
Good luck, buddy. You're gonna need it.
🙄