To think we need to talk about AI.....

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/22/artificial-intelligence-panic-time-change

Just that really.

I mean, even Mumsnet is taking legal action due to AI data mining the site willy nilly, and industry insiders have been sharing concerns for several years.

The things that concern me are the speed at which the technology is progressing without adequate legislation in place to deal with its proper use, things like its use in the justice system, its effect on the job market and psychology etc.

The genie is out of the bottle and due to our reliance on technology in general and the potential for chaos impacting our infrastructure as seen by the recent outage I do wonder where this is leading.

I know there will be cries of "Luddite" and "hyperbole" at those balking against it, but do the benefits of this supergrass progress really outweigh the risks?

It's going to be impossible to avoid its influence on our lives, which is what disturbs me - lack of choice and no alternatives if / when things do go awry.

Any other thoughts?

Super fast progress that should read thanks Autocorrect 😆

I think there’s lots of talk about AI and its impact now and potentially in the future, it’s been all over the news and discussed at length, so yes it’s an important topic but YABU to suggest it’s being ignored in some way.

I wasn't trying to imply that. I was trying to start this conversation in particular..... I should have added "more" to the title perhaps?

Supergrass progress sounds alright!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUE4oDunYkc

AI excels at certain tasks but it’s rubbish at sounding like a human being.

I agree and as parents it's really concerning for our DC's future employment prospects. We're encouraging our DD to go into a profession that, for the time being at least, cannot be easily done by AI. I reckon within five to ten years a lot of jobs will have been replaced - IT, computing, coding, finance, marketing, PR, communications, graphic design... the list is pretty endless.

I don't really know enough about it to have an indepth discussion.

I think the biggest threat to the world is not AI itself but the greed and power of plutocrats. AI could be used so that everyone can work less and have more leisure time, but it will more likely be used to put people out of work, have us all fighting for the scraps, and enrich the superrich further.

100% agree. In the last few weeks it has become apparent how much it is being used in my workplace and by other companies and it is insidious because people are not aware of when and when it is not being used. It will get rid of jobs and it will steadily influence our lives. PP said it is being talked about. Well yes but in a vague way and no action to actually address it.

This is precisely it....if you're not "into" IT other than having learned the basics now essential to live any king of "normal" life, the not so slow creep goes on in the background until something gives one pause for thought because it's up close and personal.

A big argument is that it's all only as dangerous as those developing and controlling it and humans are complicated creatures especially these days. The economic and political landscape is fraught with self interest and corruption and has always been. But now bad actors can cause massive disruption via a few key strokes.

It's odd to think we are all subjects of what is essentially a massive experiment and we did consent I suppose with every purchase of a bit of tech that we were told would improve things but often it just adds another layer of unseen complication.

Very few people have a grasp of the change coming through AI.

It has the potential to fix virtually all of our problems. Health, energy requirements, food production, environmental clean up etc essentially doing away with scarcity of anything and making money a useless concept.

If people dont need to work to pay for stuff, what do you do with people?

Or more ominiously, what do we do when AI is all knowing and all powerful and works out the quickest way to fix all of the problems on the planet is to remove the root cause...humans!

Or more ominiously, what do we do when AI is all knowing and all powerful and works out the quickest way to fix all of the problems on the planet is to remove the root cause...humans!

alternatively it’ll conclude we’re a self-resolving annoyance and ignore us completely. Which is a bit insulting.

AI is deeply flawed and biased - ChatGPT been trained by the likes of Reddit fgs. I am not happy about the impending takeover of a super-fast LLM with entrenched biases and no ability to self-reflect. It's also terrible for the environment.

But, it's everywhere. Everyone is baking AI into their workflows and products, so there's really no way to avoid it.

I think society as we know it will change irrevocably on 3 frontiers in the next couple of decades: 1) aging population in Western countries 2) climate change and 3) job losses due to AI.

Without planning for something like universal basic income, allowing for people to afford to do the caring (think elderly care) and manual labour jobs that will not be replaced by AI, we're not going to be able to function very well.

I understand that it's going to have a huge impact on our lives. Like the threat of nuclear war in the 80s, someone like me has no control over the future of it, beyond supporting DC with considering impact on their careers. It's not featured in my workplace yet.

So personallg I'm not putting any energy to worrying about it.

I also worry about what it's doing to our perception of reality. All those cute pictures and videos on social media of cats and dogs doing catwalk fashion shows which you know aren't real and are "just" art and entertainment are a fertile testing ground for assessing public credibility but deep fakes are already a huge issue especially from a criminal point of view.

It's difficult sometimes not to worry about it all especially if you are an over thinker- guilty as charged 🤣 - because of the insidious creep of it all. I'm finding myself withdrawing more and more from social media but can't step away entirely as I don't want to be too far out if the loop and get nasty surprises .....

Strange and interesting times indeed.....

You forgot to mention 4) Mass uncontrolled migration to the West from third and second world countries.

Which has been happening for years but has clearly massively sped up recently.

That point will be obviously rolled into climate change as areas of the world become uninhabitable, but I don't think it is going to be directed only to the 'West' and I believe that concern has undertones of racism to it, so I hesitate to discuss it on a forum like this.

I think it’s mostly fine. We’re being told here is going to be a massive issue with demographic change and needing more young workers so what ones there are left can be diverted into the remaining jobs. So two sources of current panic cancel out each other and we can all relax.

Obviously it’s not great that the ability to earn will be increasingly in the hands of a few big tech owners but the money supply will keep circulating a bit by minimum basic income.

Actually, I think the above is bollocks (including minimum basic income, stuff will just get more expensive like it does when stamp duty is cut) but I also think the advantages of AI in many areas are nonsense. A lot of systems will be have be completely redesigned on an end-to-end basis to make full use of AI, enormous costs and error strewn. Distinctions aren’t made between accurate and accurate information. I feel like the shark is jumped all the time with this stuff - cars that can have a degree of autonomy seem like a good idea up to a point to me but taking the human completely out of the equation seems pointless, likewise if you actually know about a subject and need to write something then getting AI to produce the early drafts (with references) to get started then editing and finishing the article yourself seems like an excellent process but not getting it to churn out something you couldn’t be bothered to research at all yourself and pressing “send”.

I think coding done primarily by AI seems to be at the sensible end of things (with the above caveat). It’s the drive to take the human out of the process entirely that to me seems destined to fuck the whole thing up.

The extent to which we are being strongly encouraged to use AI in my workplace is astonishing. No one seems to have any concern about putting proper checks and balances in place to ensure that the AI tools are actually working properly. AI hallucinations are a real problem but all management can see is the potential dollar signs of being able to ‘increase productivity’ and no doubt get AI to do my job. My prediction is that within the next few years my role will be to correct the thinly disguised rubbish produced by AI.

@MistressoftheDarkSide Rather than worrying about AI maybe you should be reading this page https://www.mumsnet.com/i/privacy-policy Do you actually understand just how much MN collect and share about you even if you do not even log in. Mumsnet privacy policy clearly states they use digital fingerprinting, you can see a brief overview of what your device is saying here https://www.deviceinfo.me/

PS. it's got nothing to do with cookies and deleting them from your browser, those days are long gone.

How many of you mumsnetter have actually read and understood this. 🤔

A bit more info here https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/privacyhub/digital-fingerprinting/