People Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Make Daily Life Worse::A Pew survey finds that a majority of Americans are more concerned than excited about the impact of artificial intelligence—adding weight to calls for more regulation.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Exactly, AI is only scary if you need a job to survive.

      If AI takes work from us, we should be freed by not having to work, not doomed to starvation.

      The current economic status quo is entirely unequipped to deal with the next couple of decades, and the options for progressive change are dwindling.

      I’m absolutely not calling for revolution right now, but the glacial rate we’re evolving our economy is going to make it inevitable or else we’ll be left with some kind of Mad Max hellscape before the century is out.

      • streetfestival@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I also find AI taking other people’s jobs depressing. Whenever I purchase something or need customer service, I’d always rather interact with a human than AI

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Specifically capitalism paired with zero sum game mentality.

      If someone is convinced the only way for themselves to win is to make other people (including me) lose, that’s where the biggest problems happen.

    • gornar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Exactly, let’s worry about the horrible people fucking over the planet first! AI is such an amazing opportunity for distraction, capitalists are gonna capitalize on that for sure!

    • Fades@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They don’t want to look at the big picture, they’d rather focus on rage bait articles

        • Estiar@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Remember how Soviet workers would smuggle parts out of their jobs to reuse themselves? There was a job field filled by babushkas that would inspect workers before they left. Is that the fault of capitalism? I know the people at the top do it much worse, but humans naturally compete with each other.

          • treefrog@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            People are capable of both competition and cooperation.

            Capitalism goes out of the way to make the former a value.

            Yes, greed is in our nature. But so is altruism. And the idea that people are just greedy by nature, and that all altruism has ulterior motivation, is something capitalists have actively encouraged to justify their values.

            So yes, when it comes to greed in the West and how it’s become a value rather than a sin (Jesus eye if the needle parable), I blame capitalism. Of course, if humans didn’t have the capacity for greed capitalism wouldn’t exist.

            But to dismiss capitalism as a non-factor at this point in history because humans are greedy by nature, well, it’s propaganda and not based on a modern scientific understanding of human nature.

            • Estiar@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yeah that’s fair. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. We shouldn’t rely on greed to make a system nor altruism alone. The difficult part is actually making a system that works.

              • treefrog@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                The Buddhist economy is essentially a gift economy that has survived for 2500 years.

                Shit, our genealogy is also basically a gift economy, and one much more ancient than Buddhism.

                Which is my way of saying I think the system is in our nature. If we can learn to embrace life and stop being so terrified of our individual deaths.

                The best systems happen organically after all. And without coercion.

  • Plibbert@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, cruel fact about humanity. All these great technologies could give us luxury space communism in 100 years or so, but that won’t happen. Shitty people will be shitty and these technologies will be used for shitty purposes or intentionally stunted.

  • Lexam@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Go to any McDonald’s drive thru with the automated ordering. You will realize it is already making life worse.

  • DrQuint@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    There’s a issue with this title, and it’s not the word “AI”.

    It’s the word “Will”.

    It already did.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I came here to say this. We’ve had threats of “AI” for a while, and initially, it should have been better, but it wasn’t. Look at the latest voice assistant from your favorite large corporation spy gadget, like an echo dot. The voice assistant sucks. It constantly misunderstands you, half the time you get feedback like “I don’t understand” despite asking for something you’ve asked for before, in the same way you’ve asked before, and had it do something before, but now, no, fuck you.

      Responses are repetitious and boring, like “playing (song) by (artist) on (streaming service)” or “turning on x lights”… Always the same, always boring. Ask about almost anything beyond a function, and usually you get a quote snippet from a webpage you’ve never heard of, which only mentions whatever you asked for and doesn’t provide any actual information 90% of the time. It would be more useful for it to respond with “I found this on the web” followed by the sounds of hippos farting.

      This is the “AI” we had until now, and it’s the AI we constantly interact with. None of the star trek computer level intelligence where you can ask your assistant to increase the illumination, and have it do something because it understands the intent behind what you’re saying, not just running a select statement on your literal words… And that’s even if it understands at all. You don’t see Will Riker standing there arguing with the computer like “no, I asked for a coffee” while the replicator is populated by a cookie.

      Then LLMs go into widespread use and the system shits out stuff like chat GPT which most people can’t seem distinguish from talking to a person, and now we live in this hellscape. AI chatbots are now selling us shit, replying to our emails, posing as real people even…

      And I’m just talking about speech-based AI… Don’t get me started on the insanity of image AI.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You don’t have to look at things like that. Think of a different voice assistant. The one at every telephone system at every big corporation that’s now “intelligent.”

        That used to be a person.

        AI is already taking away jobs.

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Many of those jobs were already killed off by IVR systems.

          Any company that still has a live “operator” type job… Well, it’s usually piled onto another role, like receptionist. Many small to mid sized businesses basically hire a receptionist as a catch all for other jobs. Someone to accept deliveries, answer the phone, greet people coming in, do little odd jobs around the office.

          Reduction of the workforce by turning a once straight forward job like receptionist into an agglutination of smaller jobs that they don’t want to have to pay someone to do, is the norm. Eliminating positions and entire swarms of people with a single individual who both doesn’t really do a job, but does every job.

    • gornar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Your worse experience saves the company money! Why do you hate the economy, consumer?! /s

  • kemsat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m worried because AI is supposed to be sorting trash, cleaning sewers, and other laborious work. Instead we got AI trying to take the jobs of artists. 🤦🏽‍♂️

    • FMT99@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s just the most visible part because artists are constantly complaining about it in the news. In fact the news loves reporting doom scenarios for everything (because in the end that’s what the consumer clicks on.)

      But for laborious work you just need robots, not AI. Robots already took over a huge chuck of dangerous, laborious work and will continue to take more.

  • Gerula@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No, people are concerned other people are using AI for dirty shit that will end up making lives harder for 90% of us … you all know which 90% …

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This just in: people are gullible as fuck and will believe anything the media (and certain overzealous social media owning billionaires) tells them.

  • nutsack@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    every new technology makes life easier and more convenient and noisy and annoying and depressing and bad

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It is not shocking that people are worried about AI impacting their lives negatively when nearly all of the main stream coverage of it centers around all of the ways, both real and conspiratorial, that it will hurt them.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As always, the problem aren’t the tools. It’s the psychopath executives, marketers, venture capitalists, etc, that are going to bring us Boring Dystopia 2.0 by using these tools mostly for evil. It’s already happening. It’s going to speed up, and it’s going to permeate everything. Massive layoffs, intrusive surveillance, misinformation, etc.

    Combined with the Internet of Shit…it’s going to suck in brand new ways. And then people will be surprised and wonder how we got here.

  • _e____b@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The general sentiment towards AI in the comments is mixed. There are concerns about the potential negative impacts of AI, particularly on jobs and the economy, but also recognition of the benefits that AI can bring.

    Main Points Pro AI:

    1. AI can make life easier and more efficient, with examples given such as not needing to carry cash or visit a bank, and being able to read library books without going to the library.
    2. AI can potentially solve problems and provide more tools for problem-solving.
    3. Some people have jobs that wouldn’t exist without technology, including AI.
    4. AI can automate mundane and repetitive tasks, freeing up humans to do more creative and complex work.

    Main Points Against AI:

    1. AI can lead to job displacement, with concerns that it will be used to replace human workers, particularly by the wealthy and corporations.
    2. There are concerns about the potential for AI to be used to exploit the poor and increase wealth inequality.
    3. Some people have had negative experiences with AI, such as in customer service or automated ordering systems.
    4. There are fears that AI will be used by those in power to control and manipulate, rather than benefit, the average person.
    5. There is a concern that the current economic system is not equipped to handle the changes that AI will bring, potentially leading to social and economic instability.

    Main points against AI, specifically points #2 and #4, do appear similar. However, I believe these concerns can be alleviated if we, as average individuals, adapt AI into our own contexts. If our current roles could potentially be replaced by AI, we should strive to harness this technology to augment our work. We should take an active role and participate in the changes AI brings, rather than merely being subjects of these changes. While corporations may have access to AI on a larger scale, we too have access to this technology and can utilize it to our advantage. My frustration would stem from a lack of access to these tools, not from the changes they bring about.

    • SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I hear you, but aren’t pro-points 1 and 4 something we already have via good old automation? Can it even get any better on those points by using the-technology-currently-known-as-AI?

      Same for con-points 1, 2, 4, really. Thinking of automation for point 1 (human assembly lines vs robotic used in car manufacturing, for instance). And stuff like social media algorithms have been around and exploiting one class for the benefit of another for quite a bit now. Though, admittedly, point 4 can always get worse.

        • SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Hey now, LLMs have um… a presence… here, too.

          Though to be fair, it’s probably something I’d ask ChatGPT as well, just to see how it works.

          Honestly, I can’t tell anymore. Didn’t do any sort of work, just hit reply.

      • _e____b@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        AI, or any other tool, isn’t intrinsically bad or oppressive. In my opinion, in this context, it would be more valuable to concentrate efforts towards better work legislation, rather than solely focusing on regulating AI (which needs to be done regardless).

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I actually see it the other way around. We will not need the employers. I used to be an employee and now I am independent and doing the work that would normally require a team of people and big money backing it all up. I think this is going to become more and more apparent as time goes on as while yes, AI will benefit corporations, it also equally benefit individuals. Corporations are the ones who are most in trouble. Cute that they think they are going to be the winners here.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Independent work means no union and no health insurance. It also means you don’t get things like overtime or sick pay.

          No thank you.

          • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I have been independent for a long time and pay for all my own benefits and 100% control them versus discovering the reality that your employer has trimmed it over the years. I do not know your situation, but I urge you to start your own thing on the side as the corporate world and its employees is a thing of the former industrial age and. not the one we are heading into. Whatever your passion is, invest time in it and see where it goes.

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I am imagineering a highly detailed VR Theme Park inspired by parks like EPCOT, Disneyland, Universal, Efteling, and worlds fairs. A big part of this is coding and wow…Chat GPT 4 Pro with the code interpreter is saving me a lot of time. My output has speed up 5x over the last month or so. Back in May it would save me time as much as waste with hallucinations, but it has majorly improved with very few hallucinations these days. I can tell it what I want and it will spit out the code nearly perfect every time in seconds. The only down side is it cannot work on my larger scripts yet so I still have to write those myself, but it can help with smaller portions of it which still saves me time. Also it is utterly amazing at reading error logs. You know the massive ones with thousands of lines, most irrelevant. It can zero in on the lines I need to know about so fast that that alone is worth the $20 monthly fee. I am loving it. I cannot wait for it to get better as personally I rather not write any code and my core skill is in imagineering and the overall experience.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      Yup so far. It’s the beginning of the curve now when everything is new and awesome.

      Enjoy it while it lasts.

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Said the same above but will share here too. I actually see that curve another way. We will not need the employers. I used to be an employee and now I am independent and doing the work that would normally require a team of people and big money backing it all up. I think this is going to become more and more apparent as time goes on as while yes, AI will benefit corporations, it also equally benefit individuals. Corporations are the ones who are most in trouble. Cute that they think they are going to be the winners here.

        • 1984@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          I’ve been a contractor too so I know what you mean. But most people are not and don’t want to be. It’s more risky and most people just want safety.

          • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I agree but we really need to encourage those who think they are in a safe employee job that they are not safe and that they need to start investing in themselves. Something on the side to start, but something. Anything. Even if it fails as you still learn something. The age of employees is coming to an end and the more energy you put into holding on to that is less energy in adapting to the new world emerging. Follow a passion and develop new skills. You can love your work.

            • 1984@lemmy.today
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              1 year ago

              I have the same mindset as you and I agree, but I have almost never managed to convince someone else to go into contracting. They don’t want to risk that sweet stable income. :)

              Also some of them buy into the entire thing with colleagues being their friends etc etc.

              Some of them prioritize family in front of work and want their jobs to be as easy as possible so they can focus on their families instead.

              But yes, to me being an employee is the worst form of employment. You usually don’t learn much after the initial year, and you get lazy and stop learning. Your skills are therefore not growing anymore. Getting a new job is harder, and you are likely to accept the first offer once you want to switch.