I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of pro-AI posts on this platform.
Various posts with titles similar to “When will people stop being afraid of AI” or “Can we please acknowledge AI was very needed for X”
Can’t tell if its the propaganda machine invading, or annoying teenage tech-bros who are detached from reality.
This is nothing new actually, the same thing happend during the crypto boom.
There’s slop users (autoclankers) and then there’s researchers or developers actually doing the same stuff they’ve been doing for 5+ years.
I think it just seems that way because there’s always a clash on practically every post.
Some people don’t see the inherent flaw in outsourcing their physical thoughts to a cloud model, or the massive economic bubble they are helping to create.
But some people are doing some genuinely interesting things that would have otherwise been impossible several years ago just because AI and model training research got a huge boost for everyone the past few years.
My personal favorite is a drone that rapidly identifies and counts produce plant quality, output, issues, etc for large farms with some brand spanking new image models, and it costs about as much as maybe a new toolbox. No one wants to manually weed through hundreds of acres to count buds and try to catch problems before its too late. It’s a great upgrade from doing random samples that misses a lot of data.
On the other hand, those opposed to AI also have a subgroup that wants anything and everything with AI in the name dead, without any regard to what it is or what it does.
It’s like when you throw world and ml users into one post. They both think the other is louder, and also the big dumb lol.
On the other hand, those opposed to AI also have a subgroup that wants anything and everything with AI in the name dead, without any regard to what it is or what it does.
This might be a bit of a hot take, but I don’t really see anything inherently wrong with this. The scientists and engineers will continue doing their serious work regardless of public opinion, and while some of them may have tangentially benefited from from increased interest and funding in the field, most of it is going to these corporate LLM models which are taking up all the oxygen in the room.
That’s a bubble that needs to burst. I think it’s more important to keep public sentiment rightfully focused in that direction. Let’s face it, you’re really not going to be able to educate the general public on these nuances. The field at large will persist regardless.
If you don’t differentiate and keep the two in the same pot you won’t be able to fund research into the useful stuff. It’s true that consumer hype and research funding decisions are not the same, but they may be indirectly linked. A public fund may fear public outrage if it continues funding X millions of AI projects even if they’re not LLM related.
So the reputation damage may affects viable, net positive applications.
OP is baffled by the pro-AI people.
I’m baffled by the anti-AI people.
Fundamentally it seems bizarre to judge the quality of, for example, an image or a piece of music, by the process that created it: the proof is in the pudding.
I’m amazed at what AI is generating…it seems kind of fake to pretend a beautiful image isn’t beautiful when you discover it’s made by AI.
The arguments against AI are annoyingly reductionist or biased: e.g. focusing on occasional “hallucinations” as if the majority of AI productions aren’t, basically, impressive (or, at least, what was asked for by the user).
It reads like a child who’s never had a human interaction in their life and was raised by Elon Musk Stans.
AI slop is void of any creativity or originality, and the infrastructure required to make it is killing the environment at an unprecedented rate while also poisoning drinking water and driving up costs everywhere.
But hey, at least your mom got to show you Fruit Love Island on your iPad, I guess.
What do you hope to achieve with the personal attacks? You’ll only make me dislike “your side” even more. It only reveals how unpersuasive your position is…if you resort to shaming and insult to bully people into your position.
You care so much about water waste and the environment…but do you eat meat?
If so…all of a sudden your “rational justifications for an ethical position you have taken without bias” cease to be coherent with your other lifestyle choices.
As for “AI Slop” [an obvious propaganda term, designed to be reductionist] and its lack of X, Y and Z: it’s literally drawing on an ocean of X,Y and Z in the first place - the sum total of all X, Y and Z driven human artistic and creative endeavour.
As with so many political discussions: I suspect this one is pointless. Two sides, both alien to the other. I’m as unlikely to bring you round as you are to bring me around.
It processes information to generate new (often very beautiful) works: just like human artists.
You’ll only make me dislike “your side” even more.
The fact that you know this, state this, and will do this is exactly why we’re doomed as a species.
If you know what your lizard brain is doing and that it’s activated, at least have the good sense to not still pretend it’s someone else’s fault.
No.
Being a persuasive communicator and recruiting people to one’s political agenda has never been a matter of pure logic and reason: going around insulting “the other side” will not work.
Not that anything would: I judge the value of X by X. X could have been made by a sandstorm: if it’s beautiful it’s beautiful.
A piece of music, for example, is either enjoyable or it isn’t. Admittedly AI music has a way to go yet - but it’s clearly already superior to a percentage of human made music.
A piece of music, for example, is either enjoyable or it isn’t.
Or it grows on you over time and expands your range as a listener.
But 🤷 you’re just looking for mediocre simulacrums of art anyway, so of course you’re into GenAI “art”.
occasional “hallucinations”
Every single AI output is a hallucination
The very concept of “hallucination” and the choice of that word in this context shows how retarded the entire debate had become.
A machine cannot hallucinate because it cannot have an experience.
The output is either pleasing or displeasing, an accurate and useful response to a request or not. To claim that all AI products are “ugly and useless” is a patently absurd position: were the same thing made by a human a decade ago it would have been deemed as “good, beautiful, useful, and valuable.”
You might prefer the word “confabulation.”
This has been going on for decades. Machine learning was used to create new composition based on classical sheet music in the early 2000s. Concert-goers loved it until they found out it was generated.
The first sensible thing I’ve read here.
It’s got to the point where if I want a rational, well-informed, and balanced discussion about anything I’ll just chat with AI.
If I want an emotionally unpleasant, “us vs then” manipulative, frustratingly one-sided or limited interaction: I’ll go onto social media and find someone to trigger me.
Didn’t take long on this new platform.
Ironic I suppose: these people hate AI so much, but everything they type (e.g the manipulative nonsense arguments) illustrates their own inferiority to the AI systems they oppose.
For me it is, apparently, the unpleasantness of social media discussions that make them so compelling and addictive… otherwise I’d just discuss things with AI.
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Is that something you know or something you choose to believe?
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Dude created a brand new account just for this post, because they knew AI is actually fucked up and very unpopular here.
Is someone paying you to peddle this bullshit propaganda being pushed by the AI billionaires or are you just this dumb and gullible?
Do billionaire boots taste good?
It’s my first 24 hours here. If I could get paid for saying what I believe I’d gladly take the money. But honestly, I’m just a Reddit refugee - and have no idea about the ideological bent of the users of this platform (though I’m quickly learning it’s as hysterical, fanatical and willing to use disingenuous argumentation and rhetoric as those on Reddit).
My real reason for joining: I’m addicted to having my faith in humanity destroyed by interacting with terrible people on the internet - but got permabanned from Reddit for speaking against Israel on r/Worldnews.
So thanks for delivering: 24 hours and I’m already being insulted and called a bot because I think AI is impressive and refuse to join the “Everything AI produces has 0% value” nonsense.
It’s literally got to the point where if I want an actual rationale, balanced, non-hysterical discussion: I go to ChatGPT. If I want an emotionally unpleasant, annoyingly irrational, rhetorically disingenuous and frustrating argument that goes nowhere: I feed my social media addiction instead and talk with a human.
AI hs already been demonstrated as a tool that largely benefits fascists and oligarchs. It is not a question at this point. At this point, all of the AI-evangelists are either extremwly stupid or fascists themselves.
AI hs already been demonstrated as a tool that largely benefits fascists and oligarchs.
Lmfao, what? The internet is also a tool that largely benefits fascists and oligarchs. Does that make every user of the internet a fascist, or just stupid?
Of course bad actors are going to take advantage of a tool that is very useful in an absurd amount of contexts…
Yeah that is why the worst fascists and oligarchs block access to the Internet. I think you are being pretty disingenuous here whether you realize it or not. The Internet is like a utility at this point and that is not even remotely comparable with how AI is currently being deployed and used by major corporations.
I am glad to hear you accept bad actors will misuse it. I don’t think anyone is actually ready for the level of deception that AI will be able to accomplish once it has access to you and your family/friends information while being used by a nefarious party. For example impersonating loved ones to trick you, epic cat fishing with a persona that has been custom tailored to you, complex financial schemes involving fraud, etc.
Palantir wants not only a total surveillance world, but also needs AI to process and use the information it has on almost anyone to send to jail or murder.
Its annoying but so is this. There are very anti ai folks on the fediverse and very pro and very nuanced. Myself I see it like smartphones and the www. www in terms of the dot com bubble and smartphones in term of the ick. There is no denying it has uses though and its not going away.
Can’t tell if its the propaganda machine invading, or annoying teenage tech-bros who are detached from reality.
They’re both “annoying teenage tech-bros who are detached from reality” and they are spreading propaganda they picked up elsewhere.
Current AI is unsuitable, but automation of some kind (maybe not AI) will be necessary for a nearly workless future. Life is kind of dumb as is, it’s better if we spent time in the gym, or doing yoga, or learning something, instead of spending life in the pesticide factory, then dying after 3 years of retirement from a horrific disease.
We already had (pre-2020) all the automation we needed to work less than 20 hr/wk and produce all the necessarily calories, fresh water, and housing for everyone. But, instead we chose to turn a few people into decabillionaires and continue to bicker over the scrap like we weren’t in a post-scarcity society.
LLMs, transformers, convolution layers, characteristic tensors, etc. all have some legitimately novel uses, but all the big “AI” product lines are unethically developed, irresponsibly deployed, and dishonestly marketed.
If you want an ethical chatbot, I recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertus_(LLM) .
I don’t know of a ethical model that’s good for images or code, yet, but I know people are working on them. The IBM Gemini models are getting close, but I don’t know if IBM will ever get the training data completely “clean” / open / free.
I’ve been told that StarCoder is an ethically-trained free software model, but some of my research ( https://mot.isitopen.ai/model/StarCoder ) contradicts that assertion, and I’ve not looked into it deep enough to resolve that conflict myself. (IMO, we don’t actually need automated code generation, we need to write less code in better languages with better tests and more reuse; but you may not agree.)
I am in general pro-AI and far from being a teenager. The important difference is that i can acknowledge that not everything is fine.
For example, i do see no harm in self-hosting your LLM, or in things like Horde AI, where people share their resources for Imagegen. I also think that machine learning in itself is simply a technique like any other CS method.
I DO see harm in the way that Corpos try to push LLMs in every nook they can find (nothing wrong with experimenting inhouse, but lots of wrong when rolling out “features” noone wants or needs, and which can never be cost effective). It’s also very much not fine how this technology has been marketed (especially by Sam Altman) as more than a small stepping stone towards AGI - the expectation (and the correlating real-life consequences) that LLMs in their current state can actually replace human workers cannot hold up when taking a critical look at it. The current push away from open source models is also a bad thing.
All of this leads to very unhealthy things, like unsustainable growth/building of datacenters that will probably not be needed in this form, elimination of entry-level (or worse, even senior) jobs which will bite the industry in the ass sooner or later, and people who seemingly aren’t capable of seeing that production of language isn’t the same as intelligence or conscience.
I have said before that i would suggest an UNESCO-founded open model with the option to opt out for whoever doesn’t want their data in this “world heritage model”. It’s the worlds combined output that is used, so it should be free to use for private usage, and with licencing terms for organizations funding an stipend / UBI for the arts.
I’ve seen that anti-AI folks get very irrationally angry when you don’t share their hate towards AI. It often degenerates into personal attacks, as in “how could you be so stupid as to not share my views?”, which translates into the knee-jerk reactions you mention.
For the articulated response, I agree with you though. I’ll copy a comment from another thread that I think shines a really valuable light on the issue:
Most arguments people make against AI are in my opinion actually arguments against capitalism. Honestly, I agree with all of them, too. Ecological impact? A result of the extractive logic of capitalism. Stagnant wages, unemployment, and economic dismay for regular working people? Gains from AI being extracted by the wealthy elite. The fear shouldn’t be in the technology itself, but in the system that puts profit at all costs over people.Data theft? Data should be a public good where authors are guaranteed a dignified life (decoupled from the sale of their labor).Enshittification, AI overview being shoved down all our throats? Tactics used to maximize profits tricking us into believing AI products are useful.
What do you mean by AI? LLMs or artificial neural networks in general?
FYI: Anti-AI people are a very small minority of the world.
When more “normies” join in, you’ll see a natural shift into being more “pro AI”
Anecdote: A fucking therapist told me to “just use AI to help you write a resume”… 🧐 (don’t remember how I even got to the topic of resumes)
Yeah… turns out not a good fit, for other reasons… (constantly just be like “go outside” and making me feel so unconfortable and I kinda had an existential crisis on whether or not I belonged in this country)
Yeah… Your opinion isn’t really backed by the data
“Normies” don’t default to pro AI
Tbf they said “the world” not “USA”
"Globally, the share of individuals who see AI products and services as more beneficial than harmful has risen from 52% in 2022 to 55% in 2024.
https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/public-opinion
Here, try this - genuine, well-regarded organization with actual experience at opinion polling far in excess of the clanker wankers at Stanford: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/how-people-around-the-world-view-ai/
But many are worried about AI’s effects on daily life. A median of 34% of adults say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI, while 42% are equally concerned and excited. A median of 16% are more excited than concerned.
Being concerned about at technology and being against that technology are not synonymous.
clanker wankers at Stanford
Just going to toss out a wild guess here, but any chance you might be emotionally motivated to find a source that backs what you already believe to be true rather than looking at the stats objectively?
I too am concerned about AI, but I’m not against it. Those things aren’t the same.
Those are a different set of questions though. The question shouldn’t be if someone is concerned about AI use. Frankly, everyone should be. It has a huge capacity for harm in a growing number of areas in modern society. The question should be about who is using it. Additionally, what are they using it for? Novel problem solving, new automation, replacing older automation, or just for fun? That is what I’d personally be much more interested in finding out.
Interesting how Americans are the most concerned. I wonder what might explain that. In the US, white people are the most worried (IIRC).
Probably because we have the worst mix of low govt regulations and high amounts of AI tech being pushed at us.
Yeah, and you can automatically trust such an independent and neutral source as that 🙄
Is Stanford not neutral or independent? AFAIK the data is from Ipsos and they just made visualizations, though you can correct me if I’m wrong. I was just trying to say that the OP said the world whereas the person I replied to showed data from Americans specifically.
Edit: Ohhh I see it’s from Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) not just Stanford the University, my bad.
I could definitely see how this would be a biased source then:
“Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) is an academic entity led by an interdisciplinary steering committee of university researchers and industry experts.”
Luckily they only made visualizations from Ipsos’s data though I think?
Ipsos is a poll-for-hire firm and they just design the surveys their clients want, unlike Pew which is doing actual independent research polling. It’s like the difference between tobacco company-funded specialized research and independent, government funded basic research.
I think you may be misinterpreting the data set that you posted. The point of that data set wasn’t to find if someone was pro versus anti-AI. It was to find concerns about existing AI structure. Nonetheless, that post shows on a few occasions The majority of the people surveyed were okay with AI as a whole, but were just concerned about how it was functioning and controlled.
if you would like to look into that data yourself, it even says it right on the front page when it asks about what sectors people believe that AI should be in and only about one third of the people who responded said that it should play no role whatsoever in the topics.
The best graph for it though in my opinion is the very last page where they asked the question of how many people would use AI at all even a little bit and the majority of them said they would at least a little bit use AI.
from how I interpreted it, it’s clear at least by that study that the majority of the people are for AI, but they are concerned with how it’s currently being implemented. And there are certain areas that they don’t believe it should be in Such as relationships, health care and creative thinking. (Although these areas still got quite a bit of votes just didn’t hit the 50%)
The byline of the article you posted is “Americans see a role for AI in some areas of society” and it clearly states “a majority is open to letting AI assist them with day-to-day tasks and activities”.
Being “afraid” of it isn’t the same as not using it.
“Normies” don’t default to pro AI [emphasis mine]
That’s a pretty significant distinction there. People are using AI even if they’re not “paying” (directly) for pro versions.
A lot of people are using AI in ways they don’t realize as well. Like the click through rate on Google search results is terrible now since people are just reading the AI generated summary and moving on (Study Confirms Google AI Overviews Cut Organic Clicks 38% https://share.google/8gllKLbbC0Onygqvz).
Other people eat up and share AI slop articles, videos and photos without even batting an eye. I ask them if they’ve thought about whether it’s real or not. Nope. I point out its AI slop. “oh, that sucks. But it’s still hilarious/cool/fascinating/etc.”
I know several people who don’t even think twice about using free AI directly. Need to translate something? Copilot. Need to write an email? Copilot. Need to post something to instagram? Copilot (for text, not the photos - as far as I know.)
Will they pay for it? No. Will they say they’re worried about AI? Yup. Do they connect what they’re doing to the issue? Nope.
If you only pay attention to the prevailing winds here on Lemmy, your view of the world will be very skewed.
It’s usually bots. Unfortunately it’s not easy to moderate them, but if a bot is reported, doesn’t have a bot flag, and says a bunch of pro-ai stuff in addition to the reported activity it’s usually enough evidence to ban. It’s just one of their current tells, I wouldn’t base a ban only on that though. Report when you suspect them though.
It seems like its usually just one person just posting over and over or making alts (I assume, based on the fact they just reiterate the same arguments), rather than a coordinated effort.
I assume, based on the fact they just reiterate the same arguments
I saw someone else make this same argument. Can’t believe you made an alt to post it again.
It’s a sad state of affairs. Post anything that is going against the grain, you must be a bot or part of a coordinated attack…
Some people are unlearning the fact that different opinions exist :'(
propaganda
AI (LLMs) is/are a fantastic tool.
But that’s what it is, a tool that can make some tasks easier.
It’s not world-changing like some tech bros and CEOs think it is because they don’t actually understand the technology.
It’s also not the apocalypse or The Matrix or Skynet coming to end civilization. It’s just a tool.
After the AI bubble bursts, AI will still be there, as a tool for humans to use.
I think it’s possible that some of the people you see on Lemmy may have started using AI a little more in their lives and see it for what it is.
It’s also not the apocalypse […] It’s just a tool.
So, the problem with tools is that their existence still affects the systems they’re a part of.
For instance, war between the US and Russia is much more dangerous now (yes, it used to be dangerous before as well) because now we have nuclear bombs. We did a whole cold war thing about it. Nuclear bombs change the world even when they’re not being used.
Similarly, meth is just a tool. It is entirely possible to smoke meth, not become addicted, have a great time, vacuum your entire house I guess, come down, chill, and move on with the rest of your life. But, that’s not what we would say meth’s effect on society is, is it?
I am so happy that you are capable of using AI without becoming a psychopath. I am concerned about the psychopaths.
Google at some point also was a great tool. Wikipedia also joins the rankings. LLM chatbots are great but certainly not the primary source of information.
What annoys me is that people began to use them to not to do simple things like writing their own posts about their own things. They began to generate content instead of making it. It is obvious that anything what takes time to be produced, will most certainly be automated once tools are given. But this annoys the hell out of me.
Seeing posts, comments, content generated by LLM, I feel that I am being robbed of artistry, curiosity, interactions with real people. I can automate chats with my family, friends, colleagues, children. But that wont be me. That will be perfect grammar sentence generator, not me - real, tons of mistakes, typos, mostly renting about everything, passionate, bored, funny, witty, dull me.
It saddens me that LLMs are exedcuting (almost?) final blow to a society that is sustaining social media terminal damage.
Unfortunately we will always have problems explaining to people how to use the right tool for the right job.
The old “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” saying still applies.
Using LLMs to automate your social media is dumb as shit and I don’t understand why people are doing that. It is actively destroying social media. Which may be the natural end-state of a social media platform. Isn’t that why most of us are on Lemmy right now? Because of the state of Reddit and Xitter?
Also, generative AI making art and music and literature is dumb as shit too. Why would you make an AI that does the fun stuff that humans actually want to do? I can’t wait to have AI finish playing BioShock for me…
They began to generate content instead of making it. […] [This] annoys the hell out of me.
Seeing posts, comments, content generated by LLM, I feel that I am being robbed of artistry, curiosity, interactions with real people.
That is probably the greatest irritation I have with my wife right now. I don’t wanna start fights over it, but I also don’t make a secret of my disdain that she uses LLMs for her work. I get it, she has to, because her business requires churning out a lot of text quickly to stay competitive and I want her to succeed, but I hate what the internet has come to and I hate that she participates in that race to the bottom.
typos, mostly renting about everything
That is either a wonderful coincidence or a clever joke, but I love it either way.
To be fair, given the power consumption it requires, it definitely leans towards civilization ending.
We also have “the Internet” slurping up massive amounts of energy.
Current Global Electricity Breakdown:
- Total Data Center/Infrastructure Demand: Approximately 2.0% of global electricity.
- AI-Specific Share: Roughly 0.5% of global electricity.
- “Traditional” Internet/Cloud: Roughly 1.5% of global electricity.
The Internet is also a tool that humanity uses. Should we shut that down too? (I would argue yes considering how the “Information Superhighway” somehow made the average person dumber, but that’s a different discussion.)
Except the Internet is actually useful. AI has not shown that it deserves to use that insane amount of energy. It’s actually insane that you think AI isn’t an issue when it’s using 1/3rd as much energy as the ENTIRE INTERNET
You know what’s crazy is that everyone has begun rebranding things that existed before AI as AI.
The algorithm summary of a common question in Google results? Now it’s AI.
Trello’s automation tasks moving items marked as “Done” to archive? Now it’s AI✨
It’s idiotic lol
Marketing BS. The bad part is all the C-Suites falling for it.
LLMs are neat, and useful for some things - but as with practically everything in modern society, capitalism is ruining it.
Maybe not everyone thinks the same way you do. Crazy, I know.
The community is pretty split. I know a lot of people are going to think the accoints are bots. Maybe they are.
But ive met people in real life that truely believe in llm ai solving all thier problems. Its not true bur thats what they believe.
If you point out any valid use case for AI, anti-AI people will come down your throat for sucking off Jensen Huang and promoting genocide.
There is also a difference in argument about what will become of AI. Anti-AI argue it is just a fad like crypto, and will die out. Others saying this is just the beginning and the technology will grow and revolutionize various industries.
So even if you don’t like AI and AI datacenters, even acknowledging the fact AI is almost certainly the next massive revolution in technology is enough for people to start going down a rabbit hole.
My research was AI. Using a certain ai algorithm to find cancer tumors. The new ai funding is helping out adjacent projects.
Llms im still kinda iffy about since the tech requires a lot of copyrighted works just to get mediocure results.
AI is a HUGE field. But what people talk about is the llm side of things.
I know a few people though work who are interested in self-hosting LLMs. There are people in real life who are some amount of pro-LLM.
Most people here are somewhere between neutral and very opposed, so I wouldn’t say the community is split, but there are certainly a range of perspectives, and I can understand where a large chunk of them are coming from, even beyond those I agree with.
