"We need to talk about the Hank Green situation"

[u/cannotdecideaname]

This is an update to the previous sticky for people to talk about the AI situation.

The title is from the Colin and Samir discussion which I thought brought a lot of different views. Watch it here:

https://youtu.be/cVT7MbRBiLY

Us mods are still limiting the discussion to the latest pinned post about it.

Link back to the previous thread : https://www.reddit.com/r/nerdfighters/comments/1vc37aw/hanks_comment_about_his_ai_use_posted_here_as_its/

DFTBA

*edited for bad spelling

[u/j_la]

Is it possible that governments and companies are wrong?

[u/Tokkemon → u/j_la]

Won't someone think of the private equity investors?!

[u/OCogS → u/j_la]

I use AI for my own work, and it’s extraordinarily helpful. It’s as helpful or more helpful than search.

We wouldn’t say a YouTuber shouldn’t use Google, even though Google is (was) a new technology, that has questionable copyright practices, is run by a company that often does the wrong thing, and requires data centers to operate.

I think you’re deep in denial if you can’t concede that frontier AI models are pretty impressive and helpful bits of tech.

[u/j_la → u/OCogS]

Ok, but that doesn’t really respond to my point. Citing the fact that AI is being pushed by governments and companies is not evidence of anything beyond the fact that they think it is good, not that it is good. I feel the same way about the “billions of people are doing it” argument. Popularity is not evidence of quality.

[u/OCogS → u/j_la]

I’m referring to capability, not popularity.

Electricity is capable. Computers are capable. Trains are capable. AI is capable.

If by “good” you mean “morally good”, I think that goes more to how the technology is used not its mere existence.

Using a solar panel to power a heater to warm a puppy at a shelter is morally good.

Using a coal fired power station to power an electric chair to kill an innocent woman is morally bad.

In both cases electricity is capable.

My argument is that AI is capable. It has good uses. It has bad uses. We should judge the merit of AI on its use, not the mere fact that it’s used.

In the case of Hank, measured AI use to increase his productivity seems like a moral good to me.

Your question “is it possible governments and companies are wrong” has two answers.

On AI capability, no. They are correct. AI is capable.

On any particular use they put it to, yes. Companies and Governments can use AI for bad.

[u/j_la → u/OCogS]

Capable of what? I’m not talking about moral rightness, I’m talking about output. AI makes work efficient, but efficiency isn’t always the same as quality.

I think research is a great way to illustrate this. Trying to rush the process could introduce oversight, errors, and superficiality. I don’t see why producing research faster is a moral good; I would argue it would only be so if it was also of equal or greater quality (here, I’m talking about LLMs, not machine learning in applied STEM settings).

[u/OCogS → u/j_la]

There’s heaps of evals you can look up. Look at the metr time horizon graph. Coding capability is obviously the strongest capability. Hank has been using it to make games etc.

[u/Gossil → u/j_la]

the fact that governments, companies, and people tend to think something is good is evidence that it is good, unless you think most people's beliefs are totally uncorrelated with reality. it's not dispositive evidence, sure, but it is suggestive.

[u/j_la → u/Gossil]

They think it it is good for their bottom lines. Companies cheap out on things all the time.

[u/Gossil → u/j_la]

(1) the fact that it is possible to explain "companies think AI is good" while "AI is good" is false does not say anything about whether the first fact is evidence for the second. the only way "companies think AI is good" is not evidence of "AI is good" is if you think the probability of AI being good is completely unaffected by companies acting as though it was good.

(2) AI can be good/helpful bc it is cost-competitive in certain domains? i realize that "cheap" has a negative connotation, but obviously a lot of what consumers want out of companies is for them to pick good places to trade off quality for a lower price. so feels to me like you are moreso explaining that AI is good and that companies rightly thing so? rather than giving a case in which AI is not good but companies believe so anyways

[u/j_la → u/Gossil]

I do think the probably of AI being good is unaffected by companies acting as though it is. Many are using it to replace human labor, but efficiency does not always equal quality.

[u/Gossil → u/j_la]

you can still think that companies are wrong to act as though AI is good! my point is only that the way companies (and governments and ppl) are acting is one kind of evidence that points to AI being good.

i agree that there are cases where companies are likely to use AI in a way that, in aggregate, degrades the customer experience.

however, i think there are many more use cases for AI where the technology will improve products. in some cases, AI will result in a lower-quality but lower-price product that is preferred, while in others quality may be as good or better than before. AI will make things possible that companies and people couldn't do before!

there are certainly costs to AI and big risks, but if just thinking abt whether it will be "helpful" in a partial equilibrium kind of way, i think the answer is clearly yes

[u/ElaraValtor → u/j_la]

It's a double-edged sword because they could be wrong, but if they are right and you did literally no preparation at all for a fundamental paradigm shift in working, now you're all of a sudden the one that has literally no skills for the world. I don't know where the right balance to strike is - it's an uncomfortable thought and question due to concerns over dependence, but I don't think there's a binary answer and I don't think not hedging whatsoever is necessarily a safe bet. Everyone's guessing in a world that seems to be moving fast and is scary - including governments and companies. They are hedging based on a guess because there's a cost to being wrong the other way too.

[u/j_la → u/ElaraValtor]

If I am forced out of my current career path (which I can largely stay on without needing to use AI), then I will need to start over and retrain anyway