this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2026
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I'm not an AI techie and I'm not well educated on LLMs/AI in general. The issue I'm having is the dichotomy between how people talk about it. I've heard completely opposite ends of the spectrum. From AI is quickly becoming advanced enough to threaten human society, all the way to its a glorified dictionary/search engine that can't really do much of anything. I know Lemmy has a steep anti-AI slant. But, can someone talk about this in a way I can wrap my head around why the divide seems so big?

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[–] Zron@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

If you have a functioning brain, LLM’s are just a really fancy text generator that gets facts correct about 50% of the time and can be useful for writing emails if you spend the time to proofread the email before slapping the send button. It’s also fairly good at generating functional boilerplate for programming projects. Really handy for small projects. However, LLM code, in my rather limited experience, quickly becomes a trap on more complex projects because the LLM has no capacity to grasp the scope of a project and frequently leads to spaghetti code that is utterly unmanageable. This may be operator error on my part, or just because I’m using local models that are limited by my machine.

The rest of society view a computer as a magic box where their favorite TikTok’s live, and thus are terrified that a machine can imitate human language well, and are too brain rotted to bother proofreading or fact checking a goddamn thing, so they assume LLM’s can accurately and plainly articulate the whole of human knowledge to you at a whim.

I am at a point where if I hear anyone saying how smart “AI” is, I just assume they have a room temperature IQ and lack any critical thinking skills whatsoever. It’s not an AI, it lacks any intelligence whatsoever. An LLM simply generates sentences based on what was fed to it. It has no capacity to understand the words it’s saying. It just knows that based on these tokens, the next set of tokens should be X, Y, and Z. It’s a Chinese room, It’s fucking autocorrect on crack. It’s a waste of time and resources for 90% of things it’s used for.

[–] Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AI use is like drug-use. One of its effects is hopium. These people are effectively high on their own supply.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

and people are addicted to it.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Hell ya buddy im disabled and poor, and it has helped me replace all kinds of professionals in the last few years. It helps me accomplish more and saves me money.

[–] Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

„Computers are still computers are still computers and will only do what a human being programs them to do, and people are stupid. Stop assigning them agency. Say that "Microsoft created an automatic hacking program which was inadequately contained." Assign the blame CORRECTLY, because you cannot blame a computer, it's doing exactly what it's programmed to do.

OpenAI is a dead slab of metal and electrons arranged to mimic a human face and if you refuse to see that then you're as brain-dead as any chunk of silicon.“

https://chaosfem.tw/@theogrin/117299179832324445

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Thats kinda the point, they're talking about misaligned AI's. Im worried about the misaligned humans in charge of them. They're plenty dangerous because humans are operating them and creating them. Like a gun, not dangerous at all until someone picks it up with bad intentions, or lack of precautions.

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 17 points 1 day ago

Many are skeptical that there is a push by ai companies to make them appear more than they are due to their weak economic footing. From my experience with the llms I am not frightened they will become self aware. I am frightened that we are wasting energy and resources while polluting the planet further for little return and it will result in messing up our economies even more.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Were definitely in the worse timeline of dominant reactions to this story.

First, you are completely right to mistrust the bond villains and politicians for all prescription/solutions to this problem.

The experts and their bond villain bosses warning of a danger is something you should believe is a danger. Those telling to invest $Ts because there is no danger are the bigger liars. Still, the bond villains continue training full speed, and have $Bs in budgets to do harm with models 1 year ahead of public releases, and their "freedom loving angel government" will pay them $Ts to help oppress Americans, and kill/oppress rest of world.

It is outright suicidal to dismiss the power of these tools by comparing it to an AGI stawman status, and suicidal to think any publicly discussed solutions have any tangential relationship to diminishing the real dangers. Guardrails/killswitches on public released models is security theater relative to the real threats to us all.

Making the world a better place to live by making your nation a better place to live, that creates an arm race of prosperity and better governance is the only path to saving humanity, because LLMs/AI/automation are out of the bag and will continue their improvement. Governments that pursue geopolitical supremacy by throwing all of your money at them is them purposefully harming you. https://naturalfinance.blogspot.com/2026/09/a-global-prosperity-manifesto.html

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 137 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

The people claiming it’s humanity ending are all directly involved in the AI companies. One take is that they are the ones that know the most about it.

My take is they are financially incentivized in making sure their investments grow in value.

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 88 points 2 days ago (2 children)

A third take is that they are unhinged cult members who are high on their own supply. Although I expect it's a mix of both types (maybe within the same people).

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Cory Doctorow also thinks that it is a coalition of true believers high on their own supply, and cynical grifters collaborating with them. https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/17/porque-no-los-dos/#fascist-incoherence

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[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

'Sensationalist hooey, cooked by superstitious yokels seeing phantoms of their own imagining.'

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 41 points 2 days ago

Personally, this just feels like marketing and these big asshole companies trying to resurrect the 2025 level of hype in order to salvage their IPO's.

If they honestly believed this I can't imagine that their workers wouldn't do something more drastic.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Good job in helping with their guerilla marketing campaign.

When a corporation realises that working for government will be more profitable than working for consumers, they pivot to scaremongering, but always with the undercurrent of "and that's why you should PAY US so that you own the nukes, and not your enemies"

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[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago (14 children)

Here's an idea: don't use unsafe software where safety is needed.

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[–] dropdrip@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

There's blood on their hands. Either they keep the hype up or go to jail regardless of any of their statements being true or not.

[–] RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world 79 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (8 children)

The biggest risk I see is Idiocracy. Like, the movie.

Business workers become afraid to do or propose anything without AI signoff. Retail & service workers are told to do what the AI says, the way the AI says to do it, or get fired.

Technology innovator Marshall Brain (RIP) wrote a book in the early 2000s about an AI called "Manna" designed to replace fast food managers:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204080050/https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

The AI just talks in your ear all day: "Empty one bag of fries into the fryer. You have 6.5 minutes, switch to the sandwich station. Make one Big Burger: grab one patty from the 1/4 pound bin and place it on the griddle... ... The fries are ready, turn around and lift them into the drain hopper..."

All day, every day, exactly 8 hours plus mandatory breaks, employees on autopilot listening on ear buds.

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 70 points 2 days ago (10 children)

I knew a guy in high school that told girls they shouldn't date him because his dick was so big it would hurt them. You can wax philosophical on his motives if you'd like, but spoiler alert - his dick wasn't big.

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