Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are ‘personally disturbing’::Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are ‘personally disturbing’: ‘The worst bits of everything this industry is’
Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are ‘personally disturbing’::Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are ‘personally disturbing’: ‘The worst bits of everything this industry is’
I used to think techno supremacists were an extreme fringe, but “AI” has made me question that.
For one, this isn’t AI in the scifi sense. This is a sophisticated model that forms an algorithm to generate content based on patterns it observes in a plethora of works.
It’s ridiculously overhyped, and I think it’s just flash in a pan. Companies have already minimized their customer support with automated service options and “tell me what the problem is” prompts. I have yet to meet anyone who is pleased by these. Instead it’s usually shouting into the phone that you want to talk to a real human because the algorithm thinks you want a problem fixed instead of the service cancelled.
I think this “technocrat” vs “humanities” debate will be society’s next big question.
I used to be on the tecnocrat side too when I was younger, but seeing the detrimental effects of social media, the app-driven gig economy and how companies constantly charge more for less changed my mind. Technocrats adopt this idea that technology is neutral and constantly advancing towards an ideal solution for everything, that we only need to keep adding more tech and we’ll have an utopia. Nevermind that so many advancements in automation lead to layoffs rather than less working hours for everyone.
I believe the debate is already happening, and the widespread disillusionment with tech tycoons and billionaires shows popular opinion is changing.
Very similar here, I used to think technology advancement was the most important thing possible. I still do think it’s incredibly important, but we can’t commercially do it for its own sake. Advancement/knowledge for the sake of itself must be confined to academia. AI currently can’t hold a candle to human creativity, but if it reaches that point, it should be an academic celebration.
I think the biggest difference for me now vs before is that I think technology can require too high of a cost to be worth it. Reading about how some animal subjects behaved with Elon’s Neuralink horrified me. They were effectively tortured. I refuse the idea that we should develop any technology which requires that. If test subjects communicate fear or panic that is obviously related to the testing, it’s time to end the testing.
Part of me still does wonder, but what could be possible if we do make sacrifices to develop technology and knowledge? And here, I’m actually reminded of fantasy stories and settings. There’s always this notion of cursed knowledge which comes with incredible capability but requires immoral acts/sacrifice to attain.
Maybe we’ve made it to the point where we have something analogous (brain chips). And to avoid it, we not only need to better appreciate the human mind and spirit – we need people in STEM to draw a line when we would have to go too far.
I digress though. I think you’re right that we’re seeing an upswell of the people against things like this.
All the ills you mention are a problem with current capitalism, not with tech. They exist because humans are too fucking stupid to regulate themselves, and should unironically be ruled by an AI overlord instead once the tech gets there.
You are making the exact same mistake that I just talked about, that I have also made, that a bunch of tech enthusiasts make:
An AI Overlord will be engineered by people with human biases, under the command of people with human biases, trained by data with human biases, having goals that are defined with human biases. What you are going to get is tyranny with extra steps, plus some of its own concerning glitches on the side.
It’s a sci-fi dream to assume technology is inherently destined to solve human issues. It takes human concern and humanites studies to apply technology in a way that actually helps people.
It’s pretty much exactly what the ship computer in StarTrek: TNG is along with the Holodeck (minus the energy->matter conversion).
You’ll be up for a rude awakening. What we see today is just the start of it. The current AI craze has been going on for a good 10 years, most of it limited to the lab and science papers. ChatGPT and DALL-E are simply the first that were good enough for public consumption. What followed them were huge investments into that space. We’ll be not only seeing a lot more of this, but also much better ones. The thing with AI is: The more data and training you throw at it, the better it gets. You can make a lot of progress simply by doing more it, without any big scientific breakthroughs. And AI companies with a lot of funding are throwing everything they can find at AI right now.