Can the AI haters give it a rest already?
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@quanin On that we agree, but there are people who just beat this notion into the ground, and after a while it’s like OK we get it.
@technocounselor @quanin And the same is true with the AI preachers: yeah, we get it.
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@technocounselor @DavidGoldfield And cat pictures trump everything lol. Seriously, I like AI, I just don't like how I've seen people use it around me, but I'm starting to find ways to embrace
@startrek2025 @technocounselor @DavidGoldfield I use it for coding, making Suno music for fun, and use it in AI-powered games. I don't let it think for me, however.
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@technocounselor It's not AI that most people I've heard this from hate. It's the fact people insist AI can and should be used for everything everywhere. There's a time and a place. It's a tool, not a support system and not a replacement for people.
@quanin @technocounselor It's also not AI so much as its implementation. The concerns acknowledged in the original post include: boiling the planet and sapping its dwindling water supply; the cognitive atrophy, proven by studies already, that results from using AI to do thinking for you; the privacy and unwarranted surveilence risk inherent in using AI to read your confidential letters etc; and its use to divorce scapital from labour and concentrate wealth.
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@quanin @technocounselor It's also not AI so much as its implementation. The concerns acknowledged in the original post include: boiling the planet and sapping its dwindling water supply; the cognitive atrophy, proven by studies already, that results from using AI to do thinking for you; the privacy and unwarranted surveilence risk inherent in using AI to read your confidential letters etc; and its use to divorce scapital from labour and concentrate wealth.
@quanin @technocounselor You may personally view those concerns, in addition to current AI's unreliability as being less important than the empowerment it offers to describe things to visually impaired people, sometimes inaccurately etc, and that is your perogative, but, given the magnitude of these concerns, I think it is unreasonable to ask people to stop expressing them. A more constructive approach might be to counter-argue how the benefits outweigh them
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@quanin @technocounselor You may personally view those concerns, in addition to current AI's unreliability as being less important than the empowerment it offers to describe things to visually impaired people, sometimes inaccurately etc, and that is your perogative, but, given the magnitude of these concerns, I think it is unreasonable to ask people to stop expressing them. A more constructive approach might be to counter-argue how the benefits outweigh them
@JustinMac84 @technocounselor First, I haven't asked anyone to stop expressing anything. Second, I have no idea what original post you're referring to. The original post I replied to said nothing about that and it's not in the thread. Third, you'll need to look elsewhere if what you're after is a view from nowhere.
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@quanin @technocounselor The person I know managed to use enough partial words to bypass Grock’s guardrails and had a full on conversation about various ways to end their life. No recommending 988 bs or you should seek help. No. Full on in depth discussion about various ways and details. And it wasn’t hard. They didn’t do it but still. That’s not the point but I know you get that.

@amy0223 @quanin @technocounselor that is really sad, and I am glad they didn’t do it. I am wondering if a person could get the same results by typing into a search engine and asking it about various ways to end their life. But even if they could, the difference is that AI acts like a person and talks as though you’re having a conversation with a person, and a lot of people can get drawn in because of that. I heard someone say that a person actually asked AI to pray for them when they were going through a difficult time.
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@JustinMac84 @technocounselor First, I haven't asked anyone to stop expressing anything. Second, I have no idea what original post you're referring to. The original post I replied to said nothing about that and it's not in the thread. Third, you'll need to look elsewhere if what you're after is a view from nowhere.
@quanin Perhaps things have become mis-threaded or I have replied with an inappropriate syntax. I apologise in either case. The OP I was referring towas the exhortation for everyone to stop hating on AI because of its benefits to disabled people.
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@quanin Perhaps things have become mis-threaded or I have replied with an inappropriate syntax. I apologise in either case. The OP I was referring towas the exhortation for everyone to stop hating on AI because of its benefits to disabled people.
@JustinMac84 The post in question explicitly stated that the poster is aware there are concerns. However, you do not need to bring those concerns up every single day. They existed yesterday. They exist today. They will exist tomorrow, even if you say nothing. You are no better than the AI all the time everywhere folks, and both of you need to knock it off.
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@quanin Perhaps things have become mis-threaded or I have replied with an inappropriate syntax. I apologise in either case. The OP I was referring towas the exhortation for everyone to stop hating on AI because of its benefits to disabled people.
@quanin Yes, my client gives the originating post of this conversation as "Can the AI haters give it a rest already." I take that to be a request for people to stop expressing negative things about AI. I think, given the magnitude of those concerns, it is unreasonable to expect people to "give it a rest". So, to have you tagged first in the reply was my mistake, for which I apologies, but I was expanding on what you said to say that it's not AI as a concept I hate.
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@JustinMac84 The post in question explicitly stated that the poster is aware there are concerns. However, you do not need to bring those concerns up every single day. They existed yesterday. They exist today. They will exist tomorrow, even if you say nothing. You are no better than the AI all the time everywhere folks, and both of you need to knock it off.
@quanin There we must agree to respectfully disagree. If your house was on fire, I wouldn't put my feet up, wait for a week and then resume my attempts to alert you if you hadn't heard the first time. Microsoft, the Department of Defense, Open AI, Meta and Mosilla aren't waiting. The full-on AI onslaught isn't on pause, so neither can we be. I feel expressing the concerns both to users and companies ramming down our throats regardless, is valid.
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@quanin There we must agree to respectfully disagree. If your house was on fire, I wouldn't put my feet up, wait for a week and then resume my attempts to alert you if you hadn't heard the first time. Microsoft, the Department of Defense, Open AI, Meta and Mosilla aren't waiting. The full-on AI onslaught isn't on pause, so neither can we be. I feel expressing the concerns both to users and companies ramming down our throats regardless, is valid.
@JustinMac84 Instead, my house is not on fire and you're trying to argue it is. Meta's been violating your privacy since before AI existed, and will continue violating your privacy long after AI in its current form is dead. AI is another road to the same destination, not a new journey.
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@JustinMac84 The post in question explicitly stated that the poster is aware there are concerns. However, you do not need to bring those concerns up every single day. They existed yesterday. They exist today. They will exist tomorrow, even if you say nothing. You are no better than the AI all the time everywhere folks, and both of you need to knock it off.
@quanin It is only because of massive pushback that Mosilla has done its users the courtesy of allowing its user-base to opt out of AI features...for now. I'm not sure what kind of opposition you would, therefore, be okay with. The only alternative I can see would be, "Hey, remember those worries we had about all the negative effects of AI that we stopped talking about because people asked us to? We're just back to point out that
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@quanin It is only because of massive pushback that Mosilla has done its users the courtesy of allowing its user-base to opt out of AI features...for now. I'm not sure what kind of opposition you would, therefore, be okay with. The only alternative I can see would be, "Hey, remember those worries we had about all the negative effects of AI that we stopped talking about because people asked us to? We're just back to point out that
@quanin they're still here and a lot worse. Do you fancy putting the brakes on a bit or should we go back to being quiet?"
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@quanin they're still here and a lot worse. Do you fancy putting the brakes on a bit or should we go back to being quiet?"
@JustinMac84 Scream at the companies, not the users. The users likely already know, and the ones that don't agree with you are probably using it in those concerning ways to begin with. I cannot do anything about the damage AI is doing to the planet. OpenAI can. Yell at them, not me.
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@JustinMac84 Instead, my house is not on fire and you're trying to argue it is. Meta's been violating your privacy since before AI existed, and will continue violating your privacy long after AI in its current form is dead. AI is another road to the same destination, not a new journey.
@quanin It's a much faster road and I object to the destination. My argument isn't just on one front, either against privacy violation or against AI. See the costs of proposed data centres being pushed onto local residents, the erosion of copyright, the saturation of creative markets, the effect on empathy and cognitive ability, particularly in the young, the under-representation of gender, race and disability by AI models.
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@JustinMac84 Instead, my house is not on fire and you're trying to argue it is. Meta's been violating your privacy since before AI existed, and will continue violating your privacy long after AI in its current form is dead. AI is another road to the same destination, not a new journey.
@quanin Best way to "shut us up and get us to give it a rest" is with a sentence that starts "AI is worth sacrificing our privacy, a greater concentration of wealth, making residents pay higher power and water costs, increasing climate damage, risking cognitive ability and undermining livelihoods because..."
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@JustinMac84 Scream at the companies, not the users. The users likely already know, and the ones that don't agree with you are probably using it in those concerning ways to begin with. I cannot do anything about the damage AI is doing to the planet. OpenAI can. Yell at them, not me.
@quanin If there is a demand, the tech will continue to churn it out. If people accept what they're being offered, use the unreliable tech that hampers the ability to think, willingly sacrifice their privacy at an exponentially increasing rate, that will validate the investment. If users refuse to use it or limit their use, if users that want AI to be a good thing but don't want the trade-offs increase the push-back, maybe we'll get somewhere.
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@JustinMac84 Scream at the companies, not the users. The users likely already know, and the ones that don't agree with you are probably using it in those concerning ways to begin with. I cannot do anything about the damage AI is doing to the planet. OpenAI can. Yell at them, not me.
@quanin I return to my original point, as a disabled person, I'm not against the benefits AI *might* bring. I am against the negatives. The more users that are alive to those negatives and refuse to use products saddled with those negatives or push back in other ways, the better the final situation might be.
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@quanin If there is a demand, the tech will continue to churn it out. If people accept what they're being offered, use the unreliable tech that hampers the ability to think, willingly sacrifice their privacy at an exponentially increasing rate, that will validate the investment. If users refuse to use it or limit their use, if users that want AI to be a good thing but don't want the trade-offs increase the push-back, maybe we'll get somewhere.
@JustinMac84 I have unfortunate news for you. Users, in most cases, aren't the ones creating demand for these things. Companies and governments are. You think I'd even have a GPT account if I didn't suspect employers would make knowledge of how to manipulate AI a hard requirement in two years?
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@JustinMac84 I have unfortunate news for you. Users, in most cases, aren't the ones creating demand for these things. Companies and governments are. You think I'd even have a GPT account if I didn't suspect employers would make knowledge of how to manipulate AI a hard requirement in two years?
@quanin I don't know how to say this without it sounding like a personal attack, so I hope you will believe that it is not meant as one, but that is complying in advance. You assume that something will happen, therefore pave the way for it, where insufficient uptake might make the eventuality you foresee a non-event. In my view, if making tech compulsary is the only way to get it adopted, it's obviously not very good tech. Good tech should sell itself.