I’m curious to get a general pulse on how people here view the rapid evolution of AI, specifically on lemmy. On one side, there’s growing interest in local open-weights models, self-hosted setups, and practical developer/productivity tools. On the other, there seems to be a growing list, I can’t keep track of, that are seen as major concerns. I’m not here to pick sides or be biased in one corner. Im genuinely curious what people have to say about AI in general. And maybe it will help me and other get a better handle on how we perceived it in our ever changing world.
I think LLMs are going to cause massive change, not all of it good.
Ultimately, I’m an optimist. I think in the long run, LLMs are going to enable us to do amazing things that we wouldn’t have been able to do without it. In the short term… I dunno. It’s going to be a rough transition.
I do think the people who think LLMs are going to keep getting better, leading to either some sort of techno-utopia, or kill us all off maybe don’t really understand how they work and what the implications are.
I also think the people who are categorically against AI are making a mistake out of fear, but that’s pretty understandable.
For a point against AI, I think you should consider the way in which LLMs reduce cognition in people.
Arguably it’s not necessary for people to do all of their cognition themselves, but that definitely does make people’s thinking ability weaker. I suppose you could look at it like how when we automated physical labour away from most people - and now most people do not do nearly enough exercise. If we automate thinking away from most people, I feel like that will lead to worse health outcomes as well
Ohh. Yeah. It’s a concern.
People said the same things about TV. I don’t know that they were wrong.
But it is here to stay, and I think it will do more good than harm on balance. The sheer access to information LLMs can provide to someone who knows how to sort fact from hallucination is staggering.
But, yes. I do share you’re concerns. My view is that, at this point, people who don’t make an effort to exercise their minds are already a lost cause. I’m not sure how much worse LLMs can make it.