Comment on AI Could Be the Most Effective Tool for Dismantling Democracy Ever Invented
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago#1 doesn’t have anything to do with liking it, though, that’s just… knowing what it is. I know what it is, and I dislike it; it’s really easy.
It will make it easier for them to claw AI technology for themselves
Okay, but why do we want it? What does it do for us? So what if only corporations have it: it sucks.
Do you remember bitcoin and NFTs? Those didn’t pan out very well. They were solutions looking for problems. What is it about AI that I should be excited about?
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It can’t simultaneously be super easy and bad, yet also a massive propaganda tool. You can definitely dislike it for legitimate reasons though. I’m not trying to anger you or something, but if you know about #1, you should also know why it’s a good tool for misinformation. Or you might, as I proposed, be part of the group that incorrectly assumed they already know all about it and will be more likely to fall for AI propaganda in the future.
eg. Trump posting pictures of him as the pope, with Gaza as a paradise, etc. These still have some AI tells, and Trump is a grifting moron with no morals or ethics, so even if it wasn’t AI you would still be skeptical. But one of these days someone like him that you don’t know ahead of time is going to make an image or a video that’s just plausible enough to spread virally. And it will be used to manufacture legitimacy for something horrible, as other propaganda has in the past.
You yourself might not want it, and that’s totally fine.
It’s a very helpful tool for creatives such as vfx artists and game developers, who are kind of masters of making things not real, seem real. The difference is, that they don’t want to lie or obfuscate what tools they use, but #2 gives them a huge incentive to do just that, not because they don’t want to disclose it, but because chronically overworked and underpaid people don’t also have time to deal with a hate mob on the side.
If you don’t believe me that’s what they use it for, here’s a list of games on Steam with at least an 75% rating, 10000 reviews, and an AI disclosure.
And that’s a self perpetuating cycle. People hide their AI usage to avoid hate -> making less people aware of the depths of what it can be used for, making them only think AI slop or other obviously AI generated material is all it can do -> which makes them biased towards any kind of AI usage because they think it’s easy to use well or just lazy to use -> in turn making people hide their AI usage more.
By giving creatives the room to teach others about what AI helped them do, regardless of wanting to like or dislike it, such as through behind the scenes, artbooks, guides, etc. We increase the awareness in the general population about what it can actually do, and that it is being used. Just imagine a world where you never knew about the existence of VFX, or just thought it was used for explosions and nothing else.
PS. Bitcoin is still around and decently big, I’m not a fan of that myself, but that’s just objective reality. NFTs have always been mostly good for scams. But really, these technologies have little to no bearing on the debate around AI, history is littered with technologies that didn’t end up panning out, but it’s the ones that do that cause shifts. AI is such a technology in my eyes.
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
This does not follow. People who despise AI still talk about what it’s capable of. In fact, they probably talk about it more.
Actually, hate and anger spread throughout a population far more easily than genuine interest and novelty. I would think our distaste for it would actually be very helpful for propagating information about it.
Okay, you’re right that it doesn’t suck in that specific way. But spiritually, it sucks very much.
You’re not really talking about counter-propaganda, though, you’re just talking about people… giving up the fight about it? Because it’s annoying to some game devs? When does the action come?
Keep in mind, any counter-propaganda strategy must involve its (AI’s) eventual dismantling or full, legal banishment because a democracy cannot survive a technology that wears people’s skin and drowns out other voices like this. Democracy cannot survive a Dead Internet.
They do in the sense that all of them are driven by neophilia and big tent people horny for cash and power. Bitcoin would have been a paradigm shift had it been adopted by society, but it would have been a worse society. Because Bitcoin sucks.
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I do not share your experience about people that despise AI talking about it more, but if your community does, that’s great. But I am kind of skeptical that really is the case because of some of your statements.
Most communities I see like that are incredibly rude and dismissive of people that see the positive sides of the technology, and even objective statements about the technology, are dismissed because they are not negative of the technology (eg. that AI is advancing medical research and healthcare, or also being used to stop scammers), and people that discuss that are mocked or ostracized by those groups. It’s cult like behavior, where only the group opinion is allowed. And if you even dare like something that was made with AI despite more and more media such as games uses it, even if you still have reasonable objections, oh boy.
I highly disagree with your statement that hate and anger spreads an opinion far more easily, because it contains an assumption that people agree on it ahead of time. Take racism. I hope you’re a nice person, so seeing a wildly racist post hating on X people, show up on your feed isn’t suddenly going to make you think “Huh maybe they have a point, X people are to be hated.”, it just makes you very angry and resentful in return, with an opposing opinion, aka polarization. And that kills the conversation. For racism that’s kind of warranted, since the person with the irrational hatred isn’t to be taken seriously. And regardless of if the position is pro, neutral, or anti AI, if it is defended with irrationality, they will be the ones in this analogy. I equivalently denounce people that have no respect for artists and see AI as a way to kill the creative industry as I denounce people that pretend nothing good can ever come from AI and everyone that uses it is without a conscience or has no feeling for creativity.
As for your points about fighting it, I cannot find any point in it that I agree with. Three or four years ago I would have entertained the notion that it might go away, but it has been showing up all over society. It’s an unattainable goal. Even if it somehow got banned in one country, that does not stop other countries around the world, with different cultures and values from using it, nor stop bad actors from using it so long as it cannot be proven to be AI. It’s like thinking because drugs are illegal, nobody is doing drugs. And to drive that point even further, positive uses such as certain drugs ending up being used for effective treatment of PTSD or chronic pain, end up being undiscovered. That’s the kind of world irrational reasoning builds.
And by having an opinion that can only be satisfied by someone unequivocally agreeing with you, with no room for reasonable disagreeing on some aspects such as fair usage, it makes alliances that could actually get majorities to secure rights and fair treatment impossible.