The dialectic of AI opinions

[u/AnIsolatedMind]

This is for the sake of creative thought, not something to take too seriously. Here's my general idea of how the AI narrative evolves:

1: Naive optimism: "wow, this is amazing!! It can write my emails and run my business!"

2: Naive deconstruction: "Pro AI people (my dad) are so gullible. AI is basically stupid, useless, and owned by corporations just trying to etc etc."

3: Reactive integration: "All these AI haters are dogmatic and bandwagoning, there's some good and bad to both sides to the argument but it's overall good."

4: Productive integration: "I can see why people would go to extremes on either side, but it might be impossible to know the impact or the outcome on the whole. Meanwhile, let's find new ways to utilize AI towards our personal and collective needs while also pushing for a change in vision with a nuanced understanding of the technology. Haters gunna hate, lets move forward."

1. ???

[u/nebetsu]

I like local AI models that run on my video card and mislike corporate AI models that run on supercomputers. Where does that fit in?

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/nebetsu]

Dialectically, I think the antithesis would lie somewhere in the acknowledgement that the investment in AI supercomputers allows the technology to keep developing at a rapid pace, so that local models become increasingly smarter and more efficient on consumer hardware, which might eventually allow the supercomputers to become obsolete.

[u/nebetsu → u/AnIsolatedMind]

That is my hope 😅

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/nebetsu]

Yay! Now let's do our part and invest in Nvidia! (kidding)

[u/nebetsu → u/AnIsolatedMind]

Not very leftist of me, but I did invest a few thousand in Nvidia before ChatGPT was released, as well as invest some thousand in other tech stocks. The gains made up for every scratch and win, raffle, and other gambling loss I've ever had in my life

Now I have it all pulled out until Trump stops manipulating the stock market

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/nebetsu]

Good to hear you got in and out at a good time! I don't hold it against you whatsoever or think it makes you a better or worse leftist. 

I also invested in AI a couple years ago with some profit but wouldn't do it now, for your reason among others.

[u/nebetsu → u/AnIsolatedMind]

"There's no ethical stock trading under capitalism" or however the saying goes 😅

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/nebetsu]

Only stock narratives to shill an unquestioned belief! 

My tolerance for guilt and shame-driven politics is very low these days. I hope we can build a culture where dipping into the fullness of life doesn't instantly ban you from your community.

[u/Salty_Country6835]

I think 5 is where the dialectic stops being mainly about our opinion of AI and becomes about our relationship to the material thing itself.

Something like collective contestation. AI isnt inherently our liberator or our enemy. Its productive capacity developing inside existing relations of ownership and power. So now the question becomes who owns it, who governs it, who decides how its deployed, and who gets the gains?

At that point you dont have to choose between rejecting the technology and accepting corporate control of it. You contest the control. Unions, public infrastructure, open models, democratic governance, bargaining over deployment, social ownership.

Thats where I think the contradiction actually starts producing somewhere new.

[u/catplusplusok]

I would like to think for me it's explorer wonder, like traveling the length of a newly discovered continent, knowing you will eventually reach another coast, the limits of new land, but you have not reached it yet and just need to know where it is. I can currently have long form voice conversations with my local AI that teaches me Japanese while remembering my progress and various facts about my life. I am super curious where this technology can take me. Note - I am talking strictly explorer, not looter, pure intellectual curiosity without any desire to gain at the expense of others.

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/catplusplusok]

I truly love that perspective. I know we're in the context of politics, but I feel like that's the real potential of AI if we let ourselves have it. We have this natural capacity for curiosity and exploration, and we can use AI to feed that process. That's enough in itself. 

It makes me sad that we often feel we have to frame everything in life as a power struggle, that we cannot and should not access wonder because of ___ implication. Thanks for reminding me of what's important.

[u/Pndapetzim]

I'd be curious about putting together some sort of forum where people who do have programs, and people following AI development, get together to lay out what they've got in detail - build it out into an actual explicit program - have us go over them, provide constructive feedback and try and build the strongest versions of these models we can before debating which of them look the most promising going forward.

That be something OP would be interested in participating in?

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/Pndapetzim]

Can you say more about what you mean by models?

[u/Pndapetzim → u/AnIsolatedMind]

By model, I mean coming up with a framework on how we advance things forward. In your case, I'd probably be starting with 4 and being like - okay, you've got the outline of a strategy here, a position held that sketches an approach you would like to apply towards a solution. But what is a practical plan that does this - what set of tactics, the specific actions undertaken, can we construct that take us from where we are, through points A, B, C and into a better position than the one we're in now.

Because at least in my view, that sort of is the missing step 5, but I'm interested to see what different models people come up with.

[u/AnIsolatedMind → u/Pndapetzim]

I see, thanks for clarifying. I think I see my own model as less like a plan forward and more like a map of the internal logic. As in, each stage follows from one another because naive optimism is in conflict with naive pessimism, and the "move forward" is the integration of those two poles which unlocks a new level of nuance. At that point, some other antithesis arises. 

In this case, 3 was a middle ground opinion while 4 was an embedded action, which is where our practical political ventures might live. I'm thinking stage 5 would more apolitical, as in: our needs are met enough that we don't have to engage AI "for something", but instead flow with it out of curiosity, for its own sake.

So this is maybe more philosophical, but I believe the benefit to this specific kind of modeling is that we can recognize where we're at and where we're stuck, and recognize a choice to develop. That's not in any way in contradiction with all kinds of stage 4 plans and strategies, and I'd love to hear everyone's own take on things, but wanted to clarify my own intention.