1. By what metric? I think the internet has changed the world an incredible amount. The way we interact with each other has been disrupted by the smart phone. The way children grow up has been changed dramatically by social media and access to political/social information few children had exposure to before the internet. Remote work has …
1. By what metric? I think the internet has changed the world an incredible amount. The way we interact with each other has been disrupted by the smart phone. The way children grow up has been changed dramatically by social media and access to political/social information few children had exposure to before the internet. Remote work has had an enormous impact on the amount of time I can spend with my partner and my children, personally, as well as eliminating an annoying commute that saves me an hour of every work day. I would ascribe at least some of the decline in how often people see their friends to the internet as well, and for teens, probably a lot of it. I hardly ever go to a brick and mortar store that isn't for groceries anymore, which is very strange compared to my childhood where I was constantly dragged around on errands compared my kids. I could go on about other changes, there are almost too many to name, and I suppose if you take them one by one and evaluate the impact none of them alone are transformative, but taken as a whole it's an incredibly dramatic change to society, and I would find it hard to argue otherwise.
But it's ridiculous of a piece with the overall media portrayal. Again, the claim "AI is about to dramatically change the very nature of human life" is not an extreme outlier claim in our media, it is the DEFAULT claim.
That's a fair critique. I just have a hard time reading "Maybe this stuff just doesn't work very well" and not comparing it to someone seeing the first telephone and saying "Well what are you going to do with that? It can only reach across the room."
The future is understandably hard to predict because of the number of variables involved. That said what people should keep in mind is that when people talk about "AI" now they are referring to LLM's. It makes sense to question how well a car could navigate the ocean and in a similar vein it makes sense to examine what LLM's are well suited for.
1. By what metric? I think the internet has changed the world an incredible amount. The way we interact with each other has been disrupted by the smart phone. The way children grow up has been changed dramatically by social media and access to political/social information few children had exposure to before the internet. Remote work has had an enormous impact on the amount of time I can spend with my partner and my children, personally, as well as eliminating an annoying commute that saves me an hour of every work day. I would ascribe at least some of the decline in how often people see their friends to the internet as well, and for teens, probably a lot of it. I hardly ever go to a brick and mortar store that isn't for groceries anymore, which is very strange compared to my childhood where I was constantly dragged around on errands compared my kids. I could go on about other changes, there are almost too many to name, and I suppose if you take them one by one and evaluate the impact none of them alone are transformative, but taken as a whole it's an incredibly dramatic change to society, and I would find it hard to argue otherwise.
2. This is ridiculous.
But it's ridiculous of a piece with the overall media portrayal. Again, the claim "AI is about to dramatically change the very nature of human life" is not an extreme outlier claim in our media, it is the DEFAULT claim.
That's a fair critique. I just have a hard time reading "Maybe this stuff just doesn't work very well" and not comparing it to someone seeing the first telephone and saying "Well what are you going to do with that? It can only reach across the room."
The future is understandably hard to predict because of the number of variables involved. That said what people should keep in mind is that when people talk about "AI" now they are referring to LLM's. It makes sense to question how well a car could navigate the ocean and in a similar vein it makes sense to examine what LLM's are well suited for.