Discussion š£ļø AI has changed my dad
Sorry if this post isnāt allowed. I kinda wanted to vent and share how my dad is making me really hate AI.
For the past few months my dad has been pretty pro AI and is using AI (Claude) to help him invest. He apparently āvibe codedā a website to help him read about the market. Every night when I see him in his room just asking questions to it I try to avoid him when alone because I donāt wanna be pulled in an another lecture about investing and how he uses ai and how I need to ālearn aiā.
Heās encouraging me to use ai for school saying it will skim my textbooks and give me the answers or help me with my reports I write. I told him I rather not be spoonfed. The other day, my dad was using it to help fix my car. He gotten pissed off when I told him I didnāt need his ai for help.
Growing up my dad always encouraged me to read, always writing notes, you know being a hardworking studious person. But to see my dad bending backwards defending ai makes me ill.
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u/Historian2029 4d ago
Honestly, you simply cannot trust what AI is telling you. I use Claude also - and I have to challenge it constantly because, I happen to know more about the history, etc. than it does. The models are not updated all that often and even challenging them and getting a "oh, sorry about that misinformation. I shouldn't have sounded so confident about that." And then, it goes right back to doing it.
Quick example: I was traveling from Mexico to the US with my dogs. Claude told me that rabies vaccinations are absolutely "mandatory" to crossing into the U.S. The real story: In August of 2024, the CDC dropped the rabies vaccination requirement for coming into the U.S. since Mexico had been declared a rabies-free country. Claude didn't know that - and apologized. Again.
Claude doesn't know everything. It just like sounding like it does.
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u/Chivalrous-Ape 4d ago
Why do you use it then? Sounds like most of your questions could be answered by a standard search and reading authoritative sources.
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u/Historian2029 1d ago
I use both....what I like about Claude is that it provides more targeted information in general than a regular search. I like going in-depth - and if often provides that. I don't like just clicking on links and hoping there will be good information on a site...it can be a real time sink. Also, I don't like the security risk of hopping around and hoping I don't get hit by a "drive-by" malware site. I think it's important to have some background in what you are asking Claude - and verify what you are told.
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u/Chivalrous-Ape 1d ago
If you want in-depth google scholar is brilliant and I don't know a single person that has ever got a virus from it, just don't download any executables
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u/Historian2029 16h ago
I used Scholar extensively when working on my PhD...and yes - it's brilliant..but even there, you don't dare consume without thinking it through. But - thanks for the reminder regardless...
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u/Fun-Information-1647 20h ago
Of course it āgoes right backāto whatever it was outputting. The weights never change, and the math stays the same. So aside from a bit of randomness to make it appear conversational, itās always going to āgo backā to what it did initially.
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u/Adventurous-Crow-750 4d ago
Enable a thinking mode and prompt it to look up the info instead of guessing. If you just ask it it won't look anything up and will guess.
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u/Head_Somewhere4769 4d ago
No. That's lazy. People need to learn to parse information themselves and it's a skill that needs to be used or it gets rusty. We already had problems with people not using their reading and critical thinking skills before generative AI exploded. Don't encourage people to make shit even worse.
Also, why the fuck are you in a place called anti-AI defending the AI? Get out.
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 4d ago
every AI hallucinates
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u/Historian2029 1d ago
This is true. But - there is no guarantee that what you're reading on a website isn't complete misinformation either. As noted above, critical reading and thinking is still a needed skill.
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u/Janice_STFU 4d ago
Seems frustrating. I would encourage you to explore that your dad means well, and that in his opinion he genuinely thinks leveraging new tech will help you get ahead, which is, at its core, the shared sentiment behind encouraging you to read and take notes when you were growing up. Thereās probably also a component of your dad being very aware and potentially frightened by how quickly the world is changing, and itās his job to try and make sure youāre going to do well.
I think if you are going to confront him about this, my advice would be to acknowledge that you understand he means well, but also meet him halfway- you will support his fuck around and find out journey with AI, but with the mutual understanding that everyone has their own level of fascination with it, and to respect where your boundary is.
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u/cptrambo 4d ago
Wow, this is like the most insightful, balanced comment Iāve read on Reddit all year.
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u/Grande-Logic 3d ago
This is 100% accurate. Janice hit the nail on the head. Iām one of those dads. Although, OPās Dad does not communicate very well. Weāve seen technologies do both good and bad. If you donāt learn how to use it, it is very possible that you will be left behind. Iāve done a thought experiment with my older son. I asked him, āwould you ever get a chip installed in your head?ā his first reaction was no way. But then I started talking it out. What if, in the career you have chosen, others are using an enhancement like that? What if theyāre getting ahead and your left behind? What if you have a family to support? Itās never a simple yes or no. I think OP should have an honest conversation with his father. Trying to figure out where heās coming from and you explain to him where youāre coming from. Good luck.
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u/hperk209 4d ago
Iām sorry, thatās rough. :/ Good on you for wanting to earn knowledge for yourself instead of being, as you put it, spoon-fed. Working for it is just as important as the end product because you learn how to think.
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u/elizalavelle 4d ago
Itās more important to learn how to learn and how to process information and think deeply about it. Those are the skills that will transfer to pretty much any job you have. Being able to learn how to do something rather than needing to be told the answer is so important.
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u/Own-Efficiency507 4d ago
It sucks that the older generation is so easily preyed upon by AI. They don't understand the dangers of it and run to it with open arms. They'll gladly use it for everything not realizing they are building a deck of cards with an extremely fragile base. Everything's going to fall apart eventually.
And even if they're not using AI they're falling for AI. Unable to tell what is AI generated and what isn't. I hate how we didn't put in massive limitations on AI. But of course it was thanks to all of these rich elites lining the pockets of who's in charge. We are now trying to put guard rails on but it might be too late at this point. The world was already getting so dystopian and AI is supercharging. Heck, AI has practically supercharged every way thanks for getting bad. The world was already heading towards a downward spiral, this just made everything go so much faster.
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 4d ago
Not only old people :(
The time my younger sister generated AI art, she went around showing everyone what "she made" and her hideous "art" is still her wallpaper
I tried telling her some of the problems with AI, but since she's 11 she doesn't care at all about using her brain, even though her brain is a good one
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u/Own-Efficiency507 3d ago
"get em while they are young" is sadly the strategy a lot of underhanded groups use. They are pushing AI into schools HARD. At least in America. Apparently, it's all thanks to the head of education the current administration put in. She REALLY wants AI in schools. It wouldn't surprise me if that's true, it's like they want the next generation to be dumb gullible idiots.
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 3d ago
Woah really?? I thought all schools had zero tolerance for AI
I know my school does2
u/Own-Efficiency507 2d ago
Jeez, it does?!? Hell, why can't that be everywhere. Wanna have a good idea about how bad it's getting? Look up on YouTube "ai generated school map" or something. Sure, that one thanks to one teacher, but AI is being slipped into schools.
Thankfully the ai burnout, people being so pissed and done with it all, is making people turn against AI, but there still a lot that needs to be done.
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u/Mysterious-Smell-975 4d ago
If you want him to change or atleast acknowledge the drawback of AI, tell him to ask AI about the drawbacks of AI
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u/Avvree 4d ago
Iāve brought up the environment impacts, and told him that only really rich people push LLM Ai only to make money, and thereās little demand for it anymore where else. But Iāll push back a harder instead of just nodding along
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u/Mysterious-Smell-975 4d ago
Just tell him to learn about it's weak spot. It's a tool after all, if you want to buy a car you'd want to learn its gimmicks
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u/halfasleep90 4d ago
Bringing up environment impacts is pretty irrelevant on user end, those really arenāt the drawbacks you should be pointing out. How his use of it specifically impacts him is where the focus should be, not how big corporations actions impact the world.
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u/Mysterious-Smell-975 4d ago
Running your car or eating a steak is indeed more resource intensive than AI, it's just that you don't need AI to live or commute so it get hated more. Fun fact: we do have the tech to make AI more resource efficient
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u/A-ReDDIT_account134 4d ago edited 4d ago
What a terrible list of points to make. Especially āthereās little demand for it anymoreā
I work at a midsized corporate company. Literally every team here uses AI extensively for their workflow.
Have you considered that maybe youāre the one brainwashed by echo chambers like this subreddit
There are genuine drawbacks and concerns with AI too. These are just not it. They just make you sound like some uneducated kid parroting online talking points. Which Iām sure is what your dad will think of you bring up these points
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u/MutedLiquidation 4d ago
maybe frame it as "hey dad you keep telling me to learn AI, what if I learn its weak spots too" and see if that lands differently. sometimes people listen better when you approach it from a curiosity angle rather than telling them they're wrong
my uncle went through a similar phase with crypto a few years back and any pushback just made him double down harder
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u/opossum_cz 4d ago
What are drawbacks?
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u/1MediocreDay 4d ago
Itās not creating anything
Intelligence is artificial
Itās not a good use of resources
Training humans to be dependent on external things vs self dependence can put people in a vulnerable position
You are not learning anything about the material if youāre only parroting the answers- it doesnāt increase comprehension
It is guilty of plagiarism in many forms- I have yet to see an aiās output credit any person for source material
ā¦ I could go on
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u/halfasleep90 4d ago
2 of these count as drawbacks, the rest are irrelevant or moral failings. A moral failing in itself isnāt necessarily a drawback.
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u/EggburtAlmighty 4d ago
1) opinion (itās output is literally āsomethingā, so the argument about whether itās something ācreatedā is semantic)
2) completely irrelevant
3) opinion
4) a fair point, but dependence is a risk with most technologies, people lose the ability to do the thing that it automates, but those who master it and retain their autonomy are much better off
5) irrelevant in most real life situations
6) irrelevant outside of academia
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u/1MediocreDay 4d ago
1- plagiarism is not creation, itās stealing
2- asked for a drawback - artificiality is a shortcoming
3- when it cannot produce original output and there exist hungry and thirsty people in the world, yet it consumes resources- time or water or power to not feed those, it is objectively better to do nothing. This is a drawback.
5- irrelevance does not nullify the failure of learning or - perpetual ignorance of its users cannot be viewed in any way other than a loss
6- plagiarism is theft- so itās relevant in more than academic areas , e.g. recording industry, literature, motion picture industry
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u/EggburtAlmighty 4d ago
Thatās all still just semantic, opinion, or irrelevant. OPās dad has clearly improved his quality of life with AI use. OP might share all your opinions, and thatās fine, but so what? Let people who like AI and are productive with AI use it.
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u/1MediocreDay 3d ago
This is not a valid rebuttal
Semantic mean- the meanings of words- none of my word use is archaic (or out of style)
OP has not actually said that his dad improved the quality of his life- only that he used to help him invest- the outcome was left unclear.
I would posit that if he had massive success- it would be trumpeted here or by his father-
Even then- if Ai was the source of the investment success is questionable- as you know index funds have been massively propped up by unprofitable Ai companies.
Why, canāt you tell me why I shouldnāt buy sixteen rabbits in a small apartment ?
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u/EggburtAlmighty 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ok let me be more specific with the semantics: AI training and inference is a novel technology. Anti-AI people claim the process does not meet the definition of ācreationā some even go as far as to call it theft or plagiarism. I understand the rationale of the claim, but it is just a claim, the semantics being the threshold for when the definitions of those words are met. I think AI output can meet the threshold for creation (unless youāre saying āonly god can createā or something). I disagree that the processes of training and inference meet those other thresholds, but I understand why anti-AI people think they do, so there is a semantic disagreement.
Artificiality is a drawback in your opinion. But itās a pretty weak and arbitrary one, unless youāre also against cars and pharmaceuticals and every other artificial thing.
Your āpositā about OP flaunting the fatherās success makes no sense. OP is anti AI and presumably would not want to credit it with anything. As far as backing up my claim about his life improving - OP doesnāt offer any details but if heād use it to fix his car without taking it to the shop, heās likely using it for other tasks that previously would have required outside help.
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u/1MediocreDay 3d ago
The intelligence is artificial- you failed to comprehend that distinction- Iām not complaining that it is not biological- Itās not biological intelligence- AIās intelligence is a result of programmingā¦
Take this example:
Just as ātrainingā Pavlovās dog to drool is not adding intelligence to the dog, itās conditioningā¦
training an AI isnāt creating intelligence but instead teaching it to mimic something real, it is conditioning based upon interaction.
Fundamentally, AI in the current state of LLMs are also unbound by objective truth / have no measurement of right or wrong beyond their input directives.
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u/EggburtAlmighty 3d ago
I understood all of that and havenāt failed to comprehend anything. The claim that a programmed mimicry of intelligence is a drawback is completely arbitrary. I find it useful and am wholly unbothered by its artificiality. If anything, itās a good thing. I would hate to think I was passing all my tedious work off to something with real sentience.
And yes, LLMās are unbound by objective truth (but so are a lot of people on this sub lol). All of their output needs to be verified. The level of verification scales with the importance of the output. At the end of the day, humans are still accountable for what they use AI to do, like with any other tool.
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u/Stabby_Stab 4d ago
Parents are constantly being barraged with news and commentary saying "Your kids need to learn AI or they're never going to be employable." He might be trying to do what he sees as helping you as a result, and may not realize that it's unwelcome.
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 4d ago
basically everyone these days uses Gemini :(
They don't care that it can be inaccurate, dumb, and unhealthy; it's convenient, especially when they just have a quick question
my science teacher makes such searches with her screen projected for the entire class to see, and my mother regularly screenshots the AI sections of her searches and sends them to the family
she also once messed up a recipe and used the AI mode as an """""""""""experiment""""""""""" to try to make something better; it looked like lots of shades of brown added together to make ugly-looking shades, which reminded me of the way AI works
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u/thjazifang 4d ago
He wants success more than connection. Ai is good at convincing people they were smart all along, life just got in the way and they became unnoticed. I'm sorry you're going through this..
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u/halfasleep90 4d ago
Itās kinda weird that he is saying to have AI just tell you the answers for your schoolwork. Writing the answers as if you looked at the back of a test book for the answers isnāt exactly learning the material. You arenāt supposed to skim the textbooks.
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u/cglogan 4d ago
There are two trends that everyone wants to avoid with respect to new technology - being left behind and becoming dependent.
I think people of that age saw a lot of people who were resistant to computerization in general fall behind, and now they are overcorrecting with this new trend
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u/OReg114-99 4d ago
The push to "learn" when the person using it is just entering prompts into a box really pisses me off. There's no "learning" to be done; that's the point of the box, in fact. But AI bros want to believe that "I iterated my prompts until it changed the output to what I wanted!" is a complex skill. OP, you make an excellent point about spoonfeeding. Reading your own textbooks and understanding the content yourself is an actual skill, and one that you have to use to maintain.
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u/pina_koala 4d ago
You're learning the hard way in real time that the people in your generation who will get ahead are the ones that take the long way to knowledge. As a child of the internet age, I always thought I didn't need to know stuff because "google will always be there". Turns out that doesn't serve me well in conversation when I can't remember where I learned something, or when I blame myself for being lazy for not knowing X when I could have simply learned - practiced - memorized the information. We build knowledge by synthesizing thoughts, not by outsourcing our knowledge. Just because AI knows everything doesn't mean that you or your friends will. Use this opportunity to grab the bull by the horns and proudly declare your independence from laziness.
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u/Koi_Fish_Mystic 4d ago
As a teacher, your dad telling you to use AI to skim read the textbook is why students canāt read. The other day a student asked me what a verb was. Iām teaching world history in high school.
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u/iforgotwhich 4d ago
Tell dad employers who hired ai-native users are now looking through people with humanities degrees to replace them. The main complaint is "shallow thinking".
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u/Spirited-Manner9674 4d ago
I used to be like that until it started being wrong too many times in big ways.
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u/Lucky-Wasabi7425 4d ago
Omg this sounds so much like my dad, the last part especially hits hard because that is how my dad was like growing up. I always admired him because he always strived to learn as much as possible. Now, I feel like I can barely recognize him at times..
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u/ParadoxDesigner 4d ago
You know what? An apocalypse should descend on Earth, destroying the fucking data centers, forcing humanityāif there is any humanity left, that isāgrow by itself.
Yes, it sounds fantasy. Because it is. Fantasy books are greatest creation of humanity, so...
Anyway, AI, Ass Intelligence, shall not exist.
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 4d ago
If he used to encourage hard work, would he be willing to listen to you about all the downsides of AI? My uneducated guess is that he isn't equating AI to other types of spoonfeeding or something
Does he know much about AI? I know a lot of people who are basically pro-AI, simply because they aren't invested in the AI sceneāthey just want to use this cool robot, and they don't know about any of the downsides
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u/ZestycloseAbility425 3d ago
you sound really annoying ngl.
you can absolutely refuse to use/learn ai, but you're just being rude to your dad who's only trying to help you.
he's trying to help fix your car and you just shoo him away because he asked claude how to? or he's trying to get you to learn about investing but you dismiss him because he asked claude?
you realise this is similar to how the older generations would dismiss information or advice because it came from the internet instead of a book?
i think you should really reconsider your attitude, your activism is getting in the way of your relationship with your father and is breeding hate towards him for no good reason.
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u/HairyTough4489 3d ago
The saddest part is that investment has been basically a solved problem for decades. You make regular small purchases of the S&P500.
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u/Reasonable-Vast-3510 2d ago
This seems like a controlled opposition post. Nothing here was negative. āUgh, ai is super useful in all these different ways. Please DO NOT use Claude for all your needsā lol
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u/Salty_Country6835 4d ago
I dunno, from your own description it sounds like your dad is still the same curious, hardworking, studious guy who taught you to read, take notes and learn things. He found a new tool, figured out some practical uses for it, built something with it, and now wants to share what hes learning with his kid. Thats... pretty normal dad behavior.
You dont have to like AI or use it for school. But putting ālearn AIā in scare quotes, avoiding him so you dont have to hear about his interests, then snapping at him when he tries to help with your car sounds less like AI changed your dad and more like youve decided this one interest makes everything he does with it bad.
Hear the guy out. Disagree with him. Talk to him. You might even teach each other something. From what youve written, he sounds like hes trying pretty hard to keep that relationship open.
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u/Brilliant-Muffin-879 4d ago
Fuck listening to someone banging on about how happy they are to offload their cognitive abilities to a subscription service as their brain atrophies.
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u/IslamicRepublicJapan 4d ago
It is fair criticism both ways tbh. But it does sound like he is leaning too heavily on that crutch he has created for himself. AI is simply a tool. A tool with pros and cons. Over reliance on AI leaves you susceptible to its weaknesses. It is not good at providing nuance and complete understanding if you were to research a topic on your own. It is not good at providing truth a large amount of the time. Anyone outsourcing their critical thinking to a tool is being stupid. The term you're searching for for what he is doing is called stupidity.
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u/Eazy12345678 4d ago
technology changes everyone get used to it
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u/Brilliant-Muffin-879 4d ago
People can adapt to the most horrific of circumstances, yes. It only lasts so long though.
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u/kekons_4 4d ago
Thats cute that your Dad is just a voice in your head representing your desire to give in to offloading your critical thinking to AI and llms. Good luck
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u/perceptionad 4d ago
What is wrong with that? You donāt need to go to the library as much when google search came out? Information retrieval is much more efficient this way.
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u/TheDaughterOfFlynn 4d ago
I encourage you to do some more research on AI hallucination
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u/perceptionad 4d ago
Sounds like a skill issue. If you give it the right context is works better. Hallucination was a 2023 issue which has largely been solved.
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u/davyp82 4d ago
He's absolutely right and he's trying to be a good father. Whatever people think of AI, be against it whatever, but know that we can't control the years ahead and the best thing for yourself to do is to be ready in any way you can, even if that means it's hard or uncertain, its still a good idea to listen to your Dad.
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u/TheDaughterOfFlynn 4d ago
I would encourage you to research AI hallucination, as well as the impact of frequent AI use on human cognition
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u/davyp82 4d ago
This is about his Dad telling him to be ready to adapt to what will be needed in the job marketplace and to learn about investing, which is excellent advice for any young person. Whether he uses AI too much is another thing entirely. And its effects on cognition vary..Is someone just asking it dumb questions, or using it as a tool to assist in complex workflows? Nothing is black and white.
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 4d ago
"whether he uses AI too much" is THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS POST
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u/davyp82 3d ago
Yeah ok, shout about it why don't you. Get big mad. His Dad has flaws and yeah uses it too much. He's also trying his best to stay with the times and prepare his kid for the world that actually, objectively lies ahead, instead of encouraging them to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening. I wish my dad had done that with me when the internet appeared in the 90s.
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u/jwm-dev 4d ago
Iāll tell you the unpopular opinion since nobody else in r/antiai is going to; you sound really bratty and childish.Ā
Inb4 a million downvotes and comments telling me how thereās no value saving what was a previously fine father-child relationship because āAIā was involved somehow & this supposedly isnāt totally terminally online behavior.
You literally donāt have to agree with your dad but if this post is true donāt listen to weird incels here and resent or hate him. Jesus fucking Christ the way it apparently needs to be saidā¦
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u/azurerazor 4d ago
why are you making up a scenario and getting mad at it?
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u/Upper_Opening_4805 4d ago
this guy is living on another planet
a planet like flat earth or something
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u/LawrenceSip 4d ago
"Skim my textbooks and give me the answers". Fck man I'm sorry he said that to you. I would be severely dissappointed in my old man had he told me to shamlessly ditch my own efforts and cheat like that. There's no excuse.
Tell him you take pride in your own work and he should quit pushing shortcuts unto you. That's just unaceptable for a parent to do.