i hate ai and centrists and ai centrists
okay so here’s a rant about an opinion on ai i saw the other day and got mad at
the take was basically: the correct, centrist[1], unbiased view on AI requires actually using AI, because a first hand experience is more worthwhile than seeing a bunch of second-hand accounts warped through the lens of social media
different kinds of source
firstly, no! a first-hand account isn’t necessarily better! it gives a different kind of experience and there’s a time and place for all kinds of sources. i really don’t think my layperson fumbling about is necessarily a more correct/centrist/unbiased than, say, the account of an expert who deeply understands how the technology works or has run scientific studies
i will not take up a smoking or gambling habit so that i have a personal account of what it’s like. i am happy to defer to what i’ve seen, and grateful i don’t have to wade through that
engage with the concerns
it’s so classic “unbiased centrist” to have carefully moved two sets of goalposts and plonked themselves in the middle. AI concerns are so much broader than just whether or not you can personally prompt it into giving good enough output.
if you really care about getting your “unbiased” first-hand experience of AI, then go experience the poisoned air near hastily installed gas generators for grok ai! go live near a data center with the sort of noise pollution that causes nausea. be a woman, or maybe even a child, and have your photos fed into the machine by men who don’t care about your consent. develop an eating disorder, and find that a helpline was replaced by an ai chatbot that recommends the exact things known to make your condition worse. go work as someone who categorises the input data, paid pennies, and develop PTSD from the material you’ve had to see. go have a problem with a product or service and find that all support has been replaced with a chatbot that is not only unhelpful but actively denies you are experiencing issues. go get air striked in the middle east after being chosen by an ai system. go run a science fiction magazine and need to close submissions because you’re getting flooded with slop
there are SO many critiques of AI beyond “is the output good?”. i probably have forgotten a bunch of them. others, i didn’t quite know how to put into this format because some of the worst problems are gradual, systemic loss that we need to be able to recognise without needing a poster child victim
footnotes
i should have backed out immediately after seeing them use “centrist” positively ↩︎