“[T]he whole world, including the United States, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
AI is in its toddler stage.
It can barely stumble out of the crib—and the author assures us it will never turn into a mass murderer.
If GPT 5 is any indication AI is already plateauing and expectations starting to become more realistic
I can’t get past the words cringe-worthy.
I have found MANY errors in what Grok tells me. Serious errors in Excel formulas. Serious errors where it keeps asking me to provide something over and over again. Serious errors in simple facts. I point all these out and it replies “Thanks for catching that.” I’m losing faith.
And don’t get me started on interactive telephone systems. Verizon’s now brags “We are using AI to give you the best customer experience” and, instead, it is now the WORST of any company I deal with. They get a solid zero out of ten.
I have a simple request — stop sending me junk email and text messages. You’d think such a simple request would be easy to handle. Nope. Nothing can stop that flow of junk.
It interests me that the discussion around AI is similar to the discussion around other major technological innovations in history. There are articles that sensationalize the problems of the technology and predict doom. Especially the fear that the technology is going to put a massive number of people out of work. Technology can create massive disruptions in society but always results in a higher standard of living in the long run. That is cold comfort in the short run but there is no way to stop it.
Prove it.
Given that we know what humans do with great gobs of power, what reason have we to presume that machine systems created by humans won't do likewise with the even greater power that AI represents?
It doesn’t have to wish our destruction for us to wreck ourselves.
Medicine, law, programming, client interfacing taken over. Humans not understanding, not learning. No humans to appeal to for institutional knowledge, common sense, a little mercy or decency.
If the AIs get hungry - want to grow- need resources and energy - they fight each other and we are collateral.
If an AI gets infected with antihumanism, nihilism, anti-lifeism, maybe other AIs stop it. Maybe they try but aren’t in time.
But first comes what we do.to ourselves, just losing control of things to complicated to understand. We are sort of there already even without AI.
This is kind of like when crypto first started everyone and their brother were poo pooing it c,aiming g it would never gai traction. We shall see what happens with the ai.
We are built to do mental and physical tasks. We get satisfaction out of completing a challenging task and overcoming obstacles. We are strengthened by ploughing through these tasks.
As machinery does more of these tasks for us, how does that affect us individually and as groups?
There will be millions of autonomous AI humanoids. The dollar will become massively devalued (if it exists at all). We will “enjoy” a robotic slave service industry but power will be held by elites who barter among themselves. Those elites will be the only ones with access to luxury travel and the best properties and toys. The rest of us riff raff will realize the “own nothing and be happy (or, more accurately, docile and well fed). I’ll give it 25 years, tops. On the bright dude, taxation will be obsolete.
Bkmk
“”Artificial Intelligence does the work of many minds at once.””
Because... AI has been programmed by ‘many minds’. Human minds. Thus, AI will never be perfect. And as such, it will have limits to its capabilities. If it is presented as being “perfect”, it will fail as people slowly realize the fallibility in AI. I suspect that government ghouls will be around to prop it up and push it, despite its flaws. It’s a tool, after all... and government ghouls do so love their tools.
AI is certain to have serious downsides, worse than people are predicting. It might be like "free" electricity nuclear power, which turned out to have a serious expensive accident about every 10 years. Widespread AI will turn out have a serious mass accident more frequently. As before, nothing will be done. We'll just put up with it.
Mother Nature is smarter than any AI and will carry on, with or without us, although the Amish are sitting pretty.
Find an actual bio for Arthur Christopher Schaper, more than "a blogger, writer, and commentator."
What is his education? As a teacher before becoming the above, one should be able to learn more of him. Give it a try....
On the title / question: "Is AI Gloom and Doom Justified?" Yes and no. Depends on who answers. I say not really. It's not "intelligent," just fast. And prone to repeating GIGO. That's what large language models all do. And some become racist. Others misogynist. A Google AI became "depressed.: What is certain is this is all jolly fun.
The only “doom” facing American workers are H1Bs.
I’m afraid to imagine what it is going to do to our voting system.
AI doesn’t have any power that humans don’t give it. A great deal of circumspection needs to drive that. You wouldn’t give a loaded revolver to a three year old. (Well, I might but you wouldn’t...)