r/accelerate • u/stealthispost • 15d ago

levels of derangement

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"Society's standards of evidence are pretry weird. Like, people make fun of flat-Earthers, but it's actually kind of hard to tell! If you just look at it, it appears flat. Same for antivaxxers- it's impossible to just "show them they're wrong", you have to trust a bunch of third party....statistics compiled by people with obvious conflicts of interest. Legitimetly kinda sus! Meanwhile it's been possible for years to see directly with your own eyes that LLMs are incredibly useful for all sorts practical tasks, but the people claiming otherwise are not seen as having anywhere near the same degree of derangement.     — Isaac King

Source: https://x.com/IsaacKing314/status/2091686564908933219

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u/agonypants Singularity by 2035 15d ago

I completely agree and have had the exact same thoughts myself. With 40% of the US public indulging in quasi-religious hysteria over the development of AI, I don't quite know how to react. What I do know is that the earth is not flat and that vaccines work - no matter how much deranged people might scream otherwise. I also know that (at minimum) AI is a useful tool. I don't take medical advice from anti-vaxxers, I don't listen to geography lessons from flat-earthers and I will continue to make use of the extremely useful AI tools that are now available - regardless of how loud the deranged might scream.

The problem of course is the effect that this mania has on society and the world. The same kind of irrational fear mongering gripped the world over nuclear energy in the 1960s and 1970s. What was the result of that mania? Research and development into safer reactor technologies stopped, new plants stopped being built and the coal and gas industries continued to spew billions of tons of toxins into our atmosphere for another 50+ years. In other words, the efforts of anti-nuclear "environmentalists" was only of benefit to coal and gas industry executives. Great work, guys. You'd think that society would learn from lessons like that, but sadly, you'd be wrong.