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Mirthisse's avatar

I wish this wisdom could get into the mainstream news funnel. Another 'root cause' for me is the simple use of the word "Intelligence", and I believe this has driven many people to automatically think it is is much more capable than it is. Keep it as "Machine Learning" and the hype never comes. Language matters, and our optimistic view from years of marketing that "technology will save us" is creating a zenith of craziness that will do real damage. A fool with a tool is still a fool!

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JE's avatar

And all of this runs on massive amounts of electrical energy… 🤔

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Paul Hossfield's avatar

AGI will NEVER grow out of LLMs.

You could spend a gazillion dollars on it, steal all the human created work in the world, use all the electricity in the world, and all microprocessors on earth, and destroy the world. I don't care.

AGI is human-like intelligence, and human intelligence is fundamentally unlike an LLM. Not that AGI is impossible, it's just that LLMs will never get there.

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Mike Ward's avatar

Does anybody remember a few years ago when the Techlords were talking about Universal Basic Income? Good times. Early last year, once they came to the conclusion that Trump could win, they seem to have lost all interest in things we might do to mitigate the unemployment and poverty that will result once AI takes over all our jobs. I don't look forward to stepping over starving people in the streets, but they don't seem to be bothered by the prospect, and some may get a thrill from it.

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RM Gregg's avatar

Worth noting that the AI fan club are all the exact same players/grifters that promote Web 3 and the still on going cyrpto scam. SoftBank is doing this funding in orderr to support the significant investment in Navida, which is the only entity actually profiting from the AI bubble. Tulips, it's all just tulips.

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Jaroslav Sýkora's avatar

Truhly a skynet moment, although it does not feel very thrilling.

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Mary Wildfire's avatar

I have one question. Surely the point of replacing employees with AI machines is mostly about saving money, although some might be about not wanting to put up with those annoying creatures, other humans. But if you save money in salaries and wages, and almost everyone is unemployed and scrambling for survival, to whom are you selling your products or services? Or is at all a circle jerk of the rich class? Or do they use UBI to keep the masses spending...then either they're replacing salaries with UBI money they have to pay, or they keep UBI ar bare survival level in which case we can't buy much. Seems to me a booming economy, needed to make the rich richer, depends on a middle class. Not sure this adds up.

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Dedier's avatar

at that point like what is even the point of the economy? there is only power, why keep money around

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Jasmine R's avatar

I don't think society could function for long with such deep inequality. See the Haitian and French Revolutions.

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James Labuschagne's avatar

Absolutely spot on with this.

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Clem's avatar

Another week, another great piece! Thank you Brian. The findings of the paper on AI impact on critical thinking are chilling...

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DemonD's avatar

Hi Brian,

Can you share some AI prompts (or transcripts) so we can duplicate results for the skeptics?

Thanks, -dano

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