This reminds me of Amara's law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

Just because it's slop doesn't mean it can't profoundly reshape society

I read a post in the last election cycle where somebody was horrified by the polarization of modern politics, but had a solution: Explain to everyone about the evils of high fructose corn syrup, and the people would join together and rise up to demand more comprehensive regulation, forming a nucleus of harmony that would cross issues and save the country.

There seems to be a similar narrative around AI, that the sheep will look around and realize how much it is lying to them, and combine to throw off the oppressor. I kind of wish I could recapture that kind of optimism.

Having lived through the Dot Com Bubble/Bomb, the AI situation feels eerily similar.

The hype and over promotion of AI, as well as polluting the commons with slop are "unfortunate"; but the power of what it can do and how it can transform how we live and work is also undeniable.

[Cope Intensifies]

> Computer scientist Louis Rosenberg

they have conveniently omitted he's also CEO of "UNANIMOUS AI"

I think theres many healthy reactions to the situations involving AI but I am concerned slightly over how gamed AI contrarianism is at times. A low hanging example are social media engagement farming accounts like "pictures AI could never create" meanwhile its entirely just stolen slop content for the sake of getting a paycheck out of said engagement.

Social media nonsense is one thing, but I feel we're going to increasingly see people's frustrations redirected and weaponized in more harmful ways. Its an easy hairpin trigger towards brigading.

When AI first passed the original Turing Test in spirit - producing text indistinguishable from a human - we didn’t declare machines intelligent. Instead, we raised the bar: now we ask if they can create music, art, or literature that feels human.

But if every time AI meets the challenge, we redefine the challenge, are we really measuring intelligence - or just defending human exceptionalism? At what point do we admit that creativity isn’t a mystical trait, but a process that can emerge from algorithms as well as neurons?

Here’s the real question: should we measure AI against the best humans can do - Einstein, Picasso, and Coltrane - standards most humans themselves can’t reach? Or should we measure success by how well AI enables the next Einstein, Picasso, and Coltrane?

I think we need to move to the era of Assisted Intelligence, a symbiotic relationship between AI and human intelligence.

The Ayn Rand quote ("Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon") neatly distills precisely what worries me the most about an AI dominated future: that those in control of our destiny seem to have swallowed her misanthropic philosophy that (to paraphrase Rand again) "he is not a social animal".

Man, in fact, cannot survive without society. You don't have to be a communist to realise this. Until now the stratification of society has had certain unavoidable limits - everyone has a finite lifespan, everyone has an upper bound of intelligence and physical ability - as well as self imposed limits of regulation through states or unions. When kings and empires have come to dominate, revolutions have at least attempted to reform the social order, if not reset it. I fear that with AGI in the hands of the likes of Musk and Thiel we may soon be entering an age when men with Rand's worldview have the kind of power that makes them utterly untouchable and any chance of building a just and democratic future becomes impossible.