Why does change the world have to be an obligation? Lot of intelligent people I know are interested in other things.

If you think AI is smarter than humans at "almost everything"...well, it might just be you.

On a side note, I really feel bad for Gen Z. Society has forced them to push AI as far as possible. They probably are the most aware of its limitations. Yet they are also the least able to criticize it without career repercussions.

I suspect this will change soon as more people come around to the fact that their chat bot is another tool just like Google search.

I used to think how wrong it was to compare an LLM to a search engine but have realized over time that despite being wrong, it's still a better mental model because it gets a fundamental detail right; LLMs are tools, they aren't agents, they aren't autonomous, they don't understand things, at least not in the way a human would understand them.

And this all ties back to the OP, that's the problem with calling them "smarter". Yes they can solve ancient math problems that humans failed at for many years and yet at the same time cannot be trusted to take a drive through order.

We need to stop seeing LLMs as a replacement for human cognition and instead appreciate what each form of "intelligence" brings to the table.

Personally, I don't think so. The so-call human imagination is not always good and fantastic. The criteria of GOOD is very subjective. In most cases, some people don't know before the art shows. There are also some blind test about picking out AI-generated video and crafted one. No evidence tells the difference. The worse part is AI is improved sooner and sooner while human beings not. I believe many will say they have no self-consciousness. What they generated are blind. But doesn't really make sense if human cannot distinguish the source?

I think it may be capital gatekeeping more than bottlenecked intelligence. It feels like there is too large a gap between where people see and feel real problems firsthand and who can get the capital to fix it from either private or public sources

Is taking advantage of Ai, related to financial gains? It is not the lack of imagination that stops people. They have to produce a product that is superior and market it and that requires capital and long term persistence. To top that off, more financially secure parties acquire patents and capital and monetize it. Zillions of people are looking for a way to capitalize on Ai and only a few get lucky.

I believe it is due to the huge inertia that is the product of human nature. AI is advancing incomprehensibly fast, people aren't.

Distrust is definitely part of it, "smarter than almost everyone" isn't quite an accurate statement (it is more widely knowledgeable for sure, but "understanding" is still under-defined sometimes).

Lack of imagination is also part of it I'm sure... looking at the silly things some people ask AI (tbh so do I though, out of curiosity) but failing to use it for what's truly important and where it can add value (this is what I try to pursue, mostly by just trying it a lot on anything, without stopping to think for myself).