Is society in shock right now?

Submitted by Practical-Mix-4332 t3_111gk0d in singularity

I feel like since ChatGPT has rolled out and the masses have been exposed to the power of AI, society has been in shock or denial about the future and its implications for civilization. People are at the same time both amazed and carrying on in their daily lives like nothing is changing.

The news still talks about the same problems, issues and politics like the status quo will continue as is.

Is this a problem of not enough people being exposed to the capabilities and trajectory of AI technology, or that people are in shock that this is now a reality and cannot accept that our lives and society are changing beyond what they can comprehend? If so, will there be a tipping point when the whole world turns to AI as the top issue of the time, as is currently climate change, war, geopolitics, etc?

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[deleted] t1_j8ejzfd wrote

I think most people are using AI to make better Super Bowl Dip. The truth is most people don’t even look up anymore. I doubt even 20% of people are really boiling the implications down in their head. By and large people are using to to google dumb shit and how they can abuse it to make more money. That’s it. Dumb shit and money.

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22HitchSlaps t1_j8eqvk7 wrote

I'd be amazed if it was higher than 2% to be honest. Even people who I've spoken to who do realise how profound the coming change could be, usually follow up with something like "anyway I don't like to think about that kinda stuff."

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[deleted] t1_j8erm4h wrote

Yeah my sister hits me with that. I’ll be discussing like major social issues or economic collapse and she will say “but did you watch blah blah blah on Netflix”. Like dude what the fuck are you talking about. But we are all crazy for being concerned instead of just consuming.

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Fellow_Cardboard t1_j8exdec wrote

I get both sides.

On one hand, i agree that it's important to keep a lookout for big changes, although i believe changes are on a pretty imminent horizon that are bigger than just the advent of AI.

On the other hand, it's not really that fun to dwell in a constant sense of imminent revolution and balls to the walls awe/terror, unless you would be absolutely sure you come out at the good end of it, so i get why people rather do mundane shit.

I like to think about those things, but i have done it for years.
Not necessarily AI, but general catastrophe scenarios and societal revolutions.
It's tiring, and now i just like to sit down for a while, have a beer, play wow, and pretend like i'm above decent at something in a way that manifests into reality, instead of all that unbridled potential swelling up in my amazing little head.

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[deleted] t1_j8eyans wrote

Right so basically all that said was “I used to be concerned about my environment, but now I just drink and play video games”. Look dude I’m not “balls to the wall scared” or whatever, they don’t let cowards into Valhalla, but the way this technology is being developed is like worst case scenarios. We have multiple competing super tech firms all being given billions of dollars to develop a technology we don’t have the infrastructure in place for and no one is slowing down to set that up. Not to mention now entire nations are developing their own AI. What happens when every nation has its own super AI that’s programmed with all their resources and biases? What are you going to do against a super AI on jihad ya know? That’s a pretty clearly far fetched concept, but the point remains that internationally we are racing to make this happen for profit and control. Our foundation is weak and so the results of our efforts are going to be disastrous. No one is having to really earn this knowledge it’s happening so fast, and most of the tech companies themselves say things like “we arent sure why this works like it does but hey that’s what hardcode is for”.

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Zestyclose-Drawing55 t1_j8ezcyr wrote

I read that it's possible we will only have 1 ASI. The first. It will make sure none others are developed to challenge it. Lol

Edit, typo

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[deleted] t1_j8ezrat wrote

Yeah lol sure. Because we have been so good at controlling technology so far lol

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8g28jr wrote

The fear is that the first self bootstrapping ASI will become godlike and stifle rival ASI projects

I don’t believe this, but it seems possible. Especially if it’s something that grows exponentially with scale at some point. First mover advantage may not even require scifi godlike powers. But this thinking is what this sub is for

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[deleted] t1_j8g679v wrote

Turkey is building their own

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8gkhgg wrote

What? Every country and corporation is building their own. They will likely a succeed somewhat.

The comment you are replying to is the common belief on this sub that one will be able to edit its own code and enhance itself into something with unpredictable godlike powers. Once that happens, a super Ai may not allow rivals Ai to surpass or catch up.

Maybe one caused the earthquake?

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[deleted] t1_j8gknoh wrote

No I just think that the potential for human abuse is high, pre singularity.

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[deleted] t1_j8fl6c8 wrote

[deleted]

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[deleted] t1_j8flfhn wrote

https://www.google.com/search?q=valhalla&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

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[deleted] t1_j8flo1w wrote

[deleted]

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[deleted] t1_j8flqv7 wrote

Are you only capable of literal thought

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Nanaki_TV t1_j8fzdob wrote

This guy thinking he’s the main character when you’re just going to get vaporized by the AGI if it turned rouge. Chill a little bit my man.

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Yuli-Ban t1_j8fu9ty wrote

This is what I've been saying.

It's not just that most people don't care. It's also that most people won't use it to its maximum capabilities.

So many people here think art and entertainment is about to die as if every 30 something housewife is about to generate their own personal Hollywood, but I see it being more likely that 70% of people use generative AI for mundane, funny, or pornographic stuff, while a sizable number of artists continue maintaining a human-centric economy, and only a relative handful use generative AI for pure AI generated material.

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RabidHexley t1_j8ezwsb wrote

>usually follow up with something like "anyway I don't like to think about that kinda stuff."

I think for most non-techie types or other nerdy enthusiasts this is very much the common factor. Unless it's a specific interest of yours thinking about a rapidly changing future on the macro scale tends to be more of a practice in anxiety for most people.

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8g2izl wrote

Not to mention the world has been ending for thousands of years

“The bottleneck is coming! The bottleneck is coming!”

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Kule7 t1_j8f9f9n wrote

>I doubt even 20% of people are really boiling the implications down in their head.

Well, (1) the people who are boiling the ramifications down in their heads still have no idea what the fuck is going to happen and (2) given how hard it is to figure out what's going to happen and what the fallout will be, the remaining 80% are perhaps wisely waiting for some other experts to figure it out and tell them about it so they know exactly what to freak out over.

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[deleted] t1_j8f9wri wrote

Wisely waiting for an expert on AI singularity. Dude you’re my kinda koolaid drinker. Calmly logical, but wildly silly lol

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Iffykindofguy t1_j8eqz4a wrote

Look up anymore? People are more aware of their environment now more than ever lol

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hunterseeker1 t1_j8hna4o wrote

That’s the best description of the internet ever; dumb shit and money.

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[deleted] t1_j8hyrp5 wrote

That’s humanity dude. I mean shit not even 1000 years ago the Catholic Church was selling people spots in heaven and taking bribe money for premeditated violence lol. If humans can abuse something for power or money they do. Every fucking time they do

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Superduperbals t1_j8epn5m wrote

AI itself isn't really the point of issue, consider the printing press, or the internet, it's the social, cultural, economic transformation that it comes in its wake that really matters. In our case now, we're looking at the potential automation of knowledge work, and certainly this implies that many people are going to be made redundant or replaced by a superior AI.

But I think you're missing the fact that this power dynamic isn't a one-way street, you may have access to the same level of productive AI tech that your bosses leveraged against you in the first place. Already, look at how many people are incorporating ChatGPT into their workflows, soon enough, it'll probably be able to handle 95% of any knowledge tasks that you ask it to do.

If a calculator is like having a math whiz in your pocket then the future of AI will be like having a Fortune 500 company in your pocket; accountants, lawyers, engineers, designers, assistants, salespeople - it would cost you millions in wages to buy that kind of people power - AI will do for less than what you pay for home internet. One person would have the potential to be as productive as a whole startup, or a dozen, even a corp with one million employees.

If you haven't guessed by now this will only make income inequality far, far, far worse. As even more wealth and power is centralized into an even smaller number of hands. Opportunties to get rich quick will be everywhere yet at the same time so far away. No doubt it will accelerate capitalism to its inevitable terminal breaking point. The real issue here is the paradox of, why do we have a progressively shittier quality of life overall despite exponential improvements to productivity across the board? And the answer will be, grimly, that we are both incapable and unwilling to conquer our greed.

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Frumpagumpus t1_j8eqatr wrote

or maybe just cuz we tax income instead of land, allowing monopolies or cabals to form that have infinite bargaining power and even creating additional ones with regulation (healthcare, intellectual property)

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Ok_Homework9290 t1_j8fp57l wrote

>soon enough, it'll probably be able to handle 95% of any knowledge tasks that you ask it to do.

I respectfully disagree with you.

Knowledge work (in general) is a lot more than just crunching numbers, shuffling papers, etc. Anybody who works in a knowledge-based field (or is familiar with a knowledge-based field) knows this.

AI that's capable of fully replacing what a significant amount of knowledge workers do is still pretty far out, IMO, given how much human interaction, task variety/diversity, abstract thinking, precision, etc. is involved in much of knowledge work (not to mention legal hurdles, adoption, etc).

Will some of these jobs disappear over, let's say, the next 10 years? 100%. There's no point in even denying that, nor is there any point in denying that much of the rest of knowledge work will undoubtedly change over the next time span and even more so after that, but I'm pretty confident we're a ways away from it being totally disrupted by AI.

Just my thoughts 😊.

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CrispinMK t1_j8g86sw wrote

Right on the money. This sub tends to assume that just because a technology exists that all of our institutions will immediately respond. That's just not how the world works. It took 20 years for many governments, corporations, etc. to even adopt the Internet, which was proven tech in the 90s. Politics and culture just don't move that fast.

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Proof_Deer8426 t1_j8h0c8f wrote

I don’t think greed is the right word. The power dynamic is a one way street - there may be benefits for workers initially, but as you say, it will ultimately be centralised and controlled by those who already have power. The problem is structural - most people are driven by economic necessity rather than greed - and the structure is upheld by ideology, which ai will be used to reinforce through media and online social networks. It will accelerate capitalism to breaking point, but the question is, what comes next? I suspect some kind of UBI will be instituted to deal with mass unemployment, and that this income will go straight to rent - not just housing but also various rental schemes in the style of Netflix - a sort of modern neo-feudalism, with perhaps some kind of ‘service’ like military or other public work demanded in return for receiving UBI. Having said that, the professional classes like lawyers and accountants will be able to resist their obsolescence for the foreseeable future, even if ai could feasibly do their work, because they are quite a powerful social group in their own right.

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Zealousideal_Ad3783 t1_j8fvm7u wrote

Your fourth paragraph does not at all follow from what you said in your third paragraph. I don’t understand how you could possibly say that the average person will have a progressively worse quality of life when a few sentences earlier you said people will be able to have a whole army of servants for essentially no cost.

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8g4lnq wrote

Maybe relative living standards. By making normies feel like second class citizens when all the nerds are like super heroes. Imagine if you were the only one without a cellphone and a laptop

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visarga t1_j8j4o1y wrote

> If you haven't guessed by now this will only make income inequality far, far, far worse.

Doesn't follow. When you got this power in your hand, why do you think inequalities will be worse? AI lowers the entry barrier in many fields, thus normal people can rely more on themselves and their own assistant AIs. I think necessities will get cheaper and spending money will be mostly for luxuries.

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hmurphy2023 t1_j8g95ns wrote

>soon enough, it'll probably be able to handle 95% of any knowledge tasks that you ask it to do.

I consider myself an AI optimist, but even I don't believe this.

Knowledge tasks (in general) are a lot more complicated than you're making them seem, and there's lots of aspects to those tasks that are not covered by lms and will likely require new AI breakthroughs to be able to handle them one day, rather than just scaled-up lms.

I think you're being a bit too optimistic.

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Glad_Laugh_5656 t1_j8gi4qb wrote

I've noticed that a surefire way of getting a decent amount of upvotes on this sub is to comment that a certain job/industry is done for (or something along those lines).

It's almost like a lot of people on this sub get major hard-ons when thinking about the demise of an industry or job. Fucking weird.

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94746382926 t1_j8eksjv wrote

I think most people are either still unaware or aren't giving it much thought. They've maybe heard about it in the news and think oh cool. Maybe play with ChatGPT for a few minutes and then get bored.

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belarged t1_j8f8e00 wrote

That's how everyone I know has responded to it--even smart people. There's only a few who look at me with that shell shocked "how long until this is good enough to take over" look that I have when I use it.

I mean... it's not there yet, but we have no idea how long it's going to take from here. Months? Years? I'm hoping years. I would like years to be the answer.

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GreenMirage t1_j8fz82j wrote

ChatGPT+WolframAlpha+Langsim+StableDiffusion+Fusion360;

Jarvis baby

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blueSGL t1_j8g6qtf wrote

> "how long until this is good enough to take over"

Depends on your definition of "Take over"

I suspect there is going to be a lot of layoffs in the call center sector as soon as a customer service LLM company gets spun up with competitive rate for per company fine tune and maintenance cost.
As soon as one company does it the rest will follow swiftly. Leaving a skeleton crew of humans to verify the large changes to accounts whilst everything else is handled automatically by a LLM and speech synthases software.

Same thing will likely happen where any ridged formal structure is, law for example. A lot of stuff happens outside the court room that could be automated and likely with those branches of law that don't hold peoples lives in the balance. (e.g. corporate merges/acquisitions vs criminal trials.)

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94746382926 t1_j8fh4cl wrote

Yeah same haha. I think I need a few years to get my affairs in order :P. Maybe I can call OpenAI up and ask them to schedule it for 2026.

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Borrowedshorts t1_j8fmytu wrote

99% of people aren't even paying attention. Of the 1% who are, a majority of them are in denial of the transformations ahead. We're all in for the wildest ride in history.

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AggyResult t1_j8kgryv wrote

Exact numbers aside, I think you’re generally right. The majority of the population either aren’t paying attention, or understand how to leverage its capability.

I wouldn’t say denial, but there are differing opinions of how fast this can get up to speed and transform business and ultimately society as a whole.

A lot of what I see is people (kids?) trying to fuck with it as kids do and make it swear or write porn. Others are perhaps a little more sophisticated in this regard and trying to jailbreak it.

IMO it is an absolute game changer for a small business owner/knowledge worker. Knowing how to leverage the system can easily 10-100x one’s output. I’ve had ideas kicking around for years that I’ve been too busy to flesh out that have been outlined to 60-70% complete by CGPT in less than an hour, theses, articles, emails, all drafted in record time. Even tearing through billable work by blasting away the blank page syndrome. It is a nightmare for my VAs because I just ask CGPT now, it understands me better and it’s output is more accurate and thousands of times faster than waiting days.

It’s mind blowing, it really is.

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Borrowedshorts t1_j8kj1px wrote

Interesting, yes I'm interested in the latter portion of what these things can do with making people more productive. Do you have any specific examples?

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SurroundSwimming3494 t1_j8hbp6w wrote

>a majority of them are in denial of the transformations ahead

Some may be in denial, but others may simply be skeptical.

You can't write off all skeptics as simply being in denial.

>We're all in for the wildest ride in history.

If this sub is correct (which there's no way to know for sure since no one knows what the future holds exactly), then maybe.

If not, then things will probably be somewhat more tame than expected by the people here.

I just hope whatever change does come is both positive and gradual.

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CertainMiddle2382 t1_j8fgti3 wrote

For better or worse, I am a science guy to the core.

But I also have that romanticism, some people could even mysticism, whatever that means.

The coming times have been long forseen, but I couldn’t imagine them coming so quickly.

I though most of it would have come just for us to experience it in our old age.

But here we are, at the doorstep of things to come…

That is my useless impression late this night on my way home.

Good night all :-)

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quantummufasa t1_j8jtn6a wrote

yeah Ive been a kurz fan since 2005 and always thought id have to wait until 2045 for shit to get insane, but it seems to be coming sooner than anyone could have thought

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Insane_Artist t1_j8fcwpb wrote

People are not going to process information until it directly changes their lives. Only then will it start to feel real IMO.

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MrEloi t1_j8eukbb wrote

More and more people are aware of it ... but I think very few have used it.

Of the users, very few have used it enough to become aware of what it can do.

You need to be fairly computer-literate - and dare I say imaginative - to evaluate it ... and more importantly, the potential of the technology.

The technology will advance for ever .. and as Asimov's Multivac once said: "Forever is a long time."

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Diacred t1_j8f1r4e wrote

Man, even my friends that are developers and use tech day to day don't seem to care much, most of them haven't even tried it, some are vaguely warming up to it, but almost nobody in my circle is ever discussing its impact or consequences or actively trying to make us of it everyday.

People are generally slow on the uptake even in fairly tech-savvy circles

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quantummufasa t1_j8jtsyn wrote

Im a dev and love chatgpt, my senior doesnt care at all though

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ChipsAhoiMcCoy t1_j8eunrm wrote

People are just blind to the possibilities of ai and I feel like they always be

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8g4r9x wrote

That’s like trying to be blind to smartphones. You still get some old people, but it’s like their living in some strange antiquated world and all there interactions with society now are frustrated

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Kaje26 t1_j8euu7w wrote

I sure as fuck didn’t take it well. I’m already living paycheck to paycheck and don’t hang out with friends or go on dates because I’m stressed out. I got drunk as hell over the weekend.

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ActuatorMaterial2846 t1_j8f6fjl wrote

Personally it's not stress for me, its distraction. Knowing that the world has just changed has kept my hpyer focused on the topic, which leaves little room and energy to focus on general things in life.

I'm watching the progress like a hawk, and it seems like something new and amazing is being pitched every few days.

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8g59n6 wrote

Where are you following?

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ActuatorMaterial2846 t1_j8g9cgl wrote

Reddit like this sub, r/futurology, r/technology, r/science, r/futurism etc.

YouTube subscriptions, particularly David Shapiro. Been watching the development of open assistant.

Also various science and technology magazines I have subscriptions for. Since 2017 I've been watching these developments pretty closely.

Also my father runs a technology company that specialises in internal audit automation. He has been operating this company for 23 years and is about to sell his shares later this fiscal year. So I have access to leading experts in the field, particularly in finance and have picked their brains a lot over the last 15 to 20 years.

What has always fascinated me is the assumption that menial physical tasks were assumed to go first, but if you have been speaking to people in these IT industries, particularly ai and automation, over the last 10 or 15 years, they would have been telling you that cognitive labour was always going to be the first thing to be hit in a disruptive way.

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j8gjvey wrote

Username checks out. You truly are in a more specific niche to know, but the theme of this sub has mostly been scifi nerds being told by industry folk that nothing is likely to happy anytime soon. I never think of IT as being robotics either, and that’s the field that is replacing manual labor.

In fairness, robots HAVE replaced a lot of people. And we’ve chosen NOT to use robots for some things, famously people are just starting to accept self check out and I think the only robot bar tender I’ve seen was a gimmick. Factories are mostly automated. the biggest field, truck driving, will still likely see layoffs faster than tech which seems to be temporarily mean reverting. Warehouses are being automated now. Drones are on the battlefield.

You should push your dad to sell AS ASAP as possible, but that’s probably out of his control. Sounds like he’s about to have a lot downward volatility risk. How old are you? Any interest in helping you dad out? It seems like you have an interest in this. Even if you guys are too rich, it might be fun to have some kind of flexible role. Is your dad retiring?

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ActuatorMaterial2846 t1_j8gt5ic wrote

I'm 38, but I don't work for him, I'm a PLC electrician (Porgrammable Logic Control or automation industrial electrician), so I program robots in factories like you described, amongst other automated processes. I mean its interesting tech, but they're pretty dumb machines, mostly relying on timing and positioning parameters, I don't write the code or anything, but I do input it and install the necessary equipment. Mostly for smaller factories, but its often the same principles.

His field is in finance specifically, so not really my industry. The decision to sell was based on licensing agreements with the major accounting firms in our home country. My understanding is that they're committed to 5 years using his product, this allows him to consider that revenue in the negotiations. He is already retired, but he is still chairman currently.

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Practical-Mix-4332 OP t1_j8evenx wrote

Yeah I totally understand. It is uncharted territory and there is no plan or idea of what will happen over the next few years. It is only fair that people are getting stressed out about their futures.

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Electronic_Chard_270 t1_j8f7cku wrote

This such a ridiculous statement. Nobody’s in shock because a machine can spit out halfway decent answers

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DoubleJuggle t1_j8fgmuc wrote

The real question is are you going to be ok when shit actually gets real.

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Practical-Mix-4332 OP t1_j8g2s92 wrote

Good question. I don’t know if society is ready for anything like this. I imagine the mental health crisis will be extreme and lots of people will commit suicide unfortunately

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PoliteThaiBeep t1_j8fg0be wrote

I actually think the opposite. It went from the fringe topic of a select few to everyone talking about it.

Like when did you see singularity mentioned on ML or technology subreddits? It was completely unthinkable just in 2015. It would just be a downvoted/ignored comment. But today it's creeping up so high that it's almost mainstream.

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GoodAndBluts t1_j8g1rxn wrote

exactly - everyone here slapping themselves on the back like they are some oracle at the rim of a new world that the "normals" can't comprehend

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No_Ninja3309_NoNoYes t1_j8f0s4i wrote

The world is burning. By the end of the year, ChatGPT will be ten times faster. Bing, Bard, Claude, Ernie, Galactica, Baba will take over. Soon they will be 100x more powerful, meaning less than a second per request. Speech recognition will be so good that you only need to mouth a bit and the AIs will create games and books and software and art for you. My friend Fred says that he will quit his job when the new Nvidia GPUs become available. They are basically the replicators of Star Trek. You don't need anything else.

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EddgeLord666 t1_j8f8muy wrote

That’s very optimistic, I hope you’re right. Narrow AI that could enable post scarcity by itself would probably be better than AGI imo since the unpredictability of AGI scares me.

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lovesdogsguy t1_j8nyrwh wrote

>My friend Fred says that he will quit his job when the new Nvidia GPUs become available. They are basically the replicators of Star Trek. You don't need anything else.

Can you elaborate a bit on this? I haven't looked into the new Nvidia GPUs. How are they the replicators of Star Trek? Isn't that replication on the molecular level? I know this is probably hyperbole, but I'd like to know if there's even something akin to this with these GPUs. What can they do? What would they enable a person who owns them to do?

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Animas_Vox t1_j8fz31u wrote

I mean what can we do but go back to our day to day at this point? Like you said in another comment it’s totally wild uncharted territory. We have no clue whatsoever how this will shake out. There are such a wide variety of potential outcomes it’s mind boggling. Still gotta eat and pay the bills for now, so just doing whatever the next thing is in front of me.

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MultiverseOfSanity t1_j8gdmfa wrote

It's like when the government announced aliens were real a few years ago and nobody gave a shit. Sentient AI, which if it's not already here is just around the corner, is an even bigger deal than aliens and still nobody gives a shit.

Hell, right now we either shot down alien craft or we just kicked off WWIII. Still people don't care.

People only care what the news tells them to care about.

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Martholomeow t1_j8gxkk2 wrote

i’ve been using chatGPT for useful things a few times a day and it’s very cool and helpful, able to do things faster and easier than web searches.

It’s pretty amazing but to me it’s just another of many useful tools, along with the many amazing and useful tools i’ve encountered since the days of the first pocket calculators.

Am i in denial about the supposed implications for civilization? Was i in denial when the first web browser came out?

Maybe it’s just another amazing and useful tool in a long line of amazing useful tools.

I had a pocket calculator in the ‘70s. I learned to program on my Commodore 64 in the ‘80s, i made my own web page in the ‘90s, etc.

You and i are talking to each other on Reddit. That’s pretty damn amazing.

All those things had an impact on society, as did the printing press, the radio, the telephone, and the rest. Air conditioning was probably one of the biggest changes to society yet we don’t think anything of it. Where would Florida Man be without AC?

Now we have generative transformers and they are amazing and useful. So what is it that’s so different about this that makes you think we are in shock or denial? What would it look like to not be in shock or denial?

It’s amazing but so were all those other things, and there’ll be other more amazing things to come.

And the news media can’t seem to shut up about ChatGPT, so what else do you want? Should they stop reporting on everything else?

Yes it’s amazing, and it will change things, but humanity will remain the same. As always we will adapt and it will become part of our lives, and children alive today will grow up in a world where they can’t imagine that there was a time when you couldn’t just ask for what you wanted from the chat bot. Just as someone in their 20s doesn’t know a world before touchscreens and facetime calls, and someone in their 50s doesn’t know a world before televisions. And all those things transformed society, making and breaking entire industries. Before the interstate highways the Pennsylvania Railroad was the most profitable corporation to ever exist. They had so much money they didn’t know what to do with it all, so they built giant beautiful train stations all over the country. Now they’re out of business and those train stations are crumbling.

As William Gibson once said, the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

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Ashamed-Asparagus-93 t1_j8empbz wrote

The average fat (and skinny) American redneck has no clue what AI even is but they know a lot about guns and call of duty

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Practical-Mix-4332 OP t1_j8epjs0 wrote

Good point. That makes me wonder how the acceptance of AI will diverge based on political beliefs. Will conservatives embrace it if it is imbued with their values or will it be a hard no.

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Ashamed-Asparagus-93 t1_j8ges2q wrote

It gets tricky. Those type of ppl were against the vaccine and many even thought the government was trying to use it to track them but on the other hand they do seem to love smart phones and social media.

I'm guessing they'll fall in line once it's mainstream enough and convenient with a certain percentage complaining about it

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Embarrassed-Bison767 t1_j8iceik wrote

With social media you have truth Social and the Twitter takeover. With AI you'll have truth bot, your local anti-vax, racist, homophobic, devoutly religious, gun-loving chatbot.

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Crypt0n0ob t1_j8f8dj3 wrote

It’s not really that big deal right now. It’s smart but it still makes terrible mistakes and can’t follow up conversion properly. I personally aren’t in shock and if someone actually tried it extensively they shouldn’t be either.

ChatGPT and current image generators aren’t going to take anyone’s job anytime soon and to be useful in any kind of professional production.

Current AI status is same as internet status was in 1995. It’s starting but we are still at least few years away from actual shock.

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Fellow_Cardboard t1_j8eyk2t wrote

I think it will be a rather fast polarization between thinking and unthinking people.

Those who don't like intellectual labour may get further simplified, since they can ask simple questions and get simple answers, and don't have to go through the process between A and B.
Intellectuals may find it to be another tool to aid in their strive to become more merited.

Unless literal armageddon arrives before that, i think that within 30 years we will see a society where you pretty much have to be a top dog genius to not live by the scrapes that the absolute majority of people will have to live by, and the absolute chasm between haves and have-nots will be unrivaled.

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fctu t1_j8f52yx wrote

At that point, why wouldn’t people vote to tax the rich and share the wealth?

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EulersApprentice t1_j8h7gg4 wrote

See, the problem is the top echelons of society have their wealth in an indestructible unobtainium vault. Not even governments are powerful enough to break into that vault – there are too many layers of defenses keeping intruders out.

People can vote to tax the rich, but the government is simply physically unable to carry out the taxation.

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often_says_nice t1_j8h6244 wrote

When I think of a chasm between the haves and have nots, I think of medieval times where a king feasts every night while the peasants starve on spoiled bread and die of the plague.

It’s hard to imagine what that would look like in the 21st century. I think as long as the masses have their VR content generators and McDonald’s they’ll be content. Hell, maybe AGI will even design a cheaper more efficient way for humans to get calories.

There may be a larger chasm of haves and have nots, but I think the have nots will still have higher qualities of lives than any previous generation of humans.

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swingingsaw t1_j8fhvg6 wrote

lol when it happens everyone will know. Siri 2.0 isn’t it

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rushmc1 t1_j8fk2qb wrote

No, most of it is just oblivious...and will remain so for some time to come.

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Environmental-Ask982 t1_j8fledl wrote

ChatGPT is not fundamentally revolutionary in what it does, just its capacity. The use of it as some backing service is what you're seeing as this radical exponential change which is just people iterating on what is currently here and doable in the now.

You've been exposed to machine learning everyday for the past decade or so, its influence will continue to go unnoticed.

God this sub is brainwashed by hype lol

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ihateshadylandlords t1_j8g16du wrote

Not at all. GPTChat is great, but can give confidently wrong answers. If/when it can give correct answers consistently, society may be shocked.

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Fix_It_Felix_Jr t1_j8gb2jy wrote

I recently went to the employment office and met with some staff to go over cover letters and resumes. Most of my work is solid and I’ve had good success with my templates for getting interviews, but recently I’ve been using ChatGPT to produce my cover letters because it is significantly faster. I shared an example with the staff that I used on a recent application and they were very impressed at what ChatGPT could produce. They noted this and would be sharing it with people who struggle to generate letters on their own. ChatGPT will become mainstream and help people secure jobs, it is a valuable tool for those who are competent with typing on a keyboard but not at technical writing.

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tangent26_18 t1_j8gygle wrote

When everyone writes the “perfect” letters, then what would distinguish a good employee from a bad one? Will we become hypersensitive to minor flaws rather than appreciative of excellence?

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EulersApprentice t1_j8h7ngh wrote

>Will we become hypersensitive to minor flaws rather than appreciative of excellence?

That was already the status quo before ChatGPT came along.

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Akashictruth t1_j8gcn2s wrote

It’ll take a well-known job being fully automated to see mass shock(and maybe hysteria?), right now not a single well-known job has been automated as AI is just not creative enough to automate something that it can do(art, songwriting, etc) and knock humans out of business, people still want humans songwriters and artists

It did kind of automate poets though? Well most of them do it as a hobby so doesnt matter

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Devanismyname t1_j8gyqln wrote

I've brought up chatgpt to multiple people and I get blank stares every time. I just don't think the average pleb cares yet. It isn't a big in your face change to society yet, and yeah, it is incredible, but its not affecting anyones lives in a big way yet.

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truthwatcher_ t1_j8hich4 wrote

chatGPT managed to get a million users quickly. Yes, that's impressive but insignificant in terms of "society changing stuff". There's no shock or even awareness by people outside a tech affine minority

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BinyaminDelta t1_j8i1qhf wrote

No, society is mostly oblivious.

Most average people see ChatGPT as just a "chatbot" and image AI as "that TikTok filter" -- neat, but not world changing.

People don't yet understand why the transformer and neural network are revolutionary, because these are hard concepts to explain.

Imagine someone who has a vacuum tube radio. Show them a new transistor radio, and they probably said... "Neat so it's a bit smaller. So?"

The transistor revolutionized the world and allowed PCs and smartphones but this is hard to "grok" until it happens.

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Shockedge t1_j8i2b43 wrote

None of my friends even knew about it until I told them. They're uninterested or unimpressed

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Coderules t1_j8i2ycq wrote

Are your expectations that all of society should just stop their day-to-day lives and use AI for everything??

"...ChatGPT has rolled out and the masses have been exposed to the power of AI"

The "masses" have not been exposed to the power of AI. First off, the ChatGPT system as it exists (version 3.5) is more or less a function prototype. Sure, there are many cool things that we can accomplish with it. But it is far from ready to take over things.

There are generally 5 stages for technology adoption: Innovators. Early Adopters. Early Majority. Late Majority. Laggards. I think we are somewhere between the "Innovators" and "Early Adopters" phases.

What is going to get us into the next phase will be the integration into common tools. This will be supported by Microsoft, Google, and others.

This somewhat follows the adoption of the Internet when it because publicly available in the early 1990s. You didn't see companies closing their storefronts to jump on the internet. It took the tinkerers to develop tools and standards. Companies eventually took the leap and published simple websites with static information mostly with address and phone numbers to their storefronts. It was a long time before things because more ubiquitous in our lives.

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GreenMirage t1_j8g2rso wrote

There will be a market for countermeasures against the technologies AI can rapidly deploy against us but not without loss of human life or securities being held hostage first that's for sure. People already attack the power-grid and various government institutions in cyber-ransom attacks.

I am a little unsatisfied with how our other technologies grow but at least these neural networks are fantastic at helping us find engineering/medical breakthroughs. ChatGPT is something I'd find paired well with Wolfram Alpha but its a bit too wordy rn.

Pray we are not Tony Starks staring at Ultron, hoping it's Vision.

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Reasonable-Bat-6819 t1_j8g2sep wrote

maybe it’s just an overrated advancement. If seems to me that it does rehash’s of answers it finds on the internet. It makes up references and in general has no real capacity for reason. While it seems close being useful and it feels like we are on the cusp of some crazy era it’s just as likely that it will stagnate and getting it to go from 90% general ai to something that’s 99% reliable will take far longer than people realise. Driverless cars are probably a good example. it seemed just around the corner years ago but now it’s perpetually 5-10 years away from full self drive.

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billcarsonjr t1_j8ghlne wrote

Lol! The masses are sound asleep or sitting around waiting for their next booster shot! They don’t even know wtf ai is. And they don’t give a shit.

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neneksihira t1_j8gttya wrote

No, most of society are not early adopters and aren't particularly interested until they can tangibly see how they will be affected. I don't think people will start connecting the dots until they personally get laid off along with 80% of their team so the top 20% can manage ai driven tasks. I highly doubt governments will be able to implement social programs to help transition the change before it becomes crucial. For anyone on the forefront managing a self owned business this is a great opportunity to get ahead of the game. But don't expect the majority of wage workere to be on the same page.

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Private_Island_Saver t1_j8hcmh3 wrote

I think like the CEO for MSFT said that this will lower the barriers for people becoming knowledge workers, thats the main short term impact, but that will take some time for societies to adjust to. Basically the amount and quality of knowledge work will grow exponentially which will then in the long term enable the singularity

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DukkyDrake t1_j8hscfe wrote

>society has been in shock or denial about the future and its implications for civilization.

There is no shock unless the productizations of current ML progress is directly impacting their lives. Future possibilities don't impinge on people's lives, they still have to get up every morning and go to work to pay their bills.

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imlaggingsobad t1_j8hsv56 wrote

if you think this is shock, then just wait till things start getting crazy. We've barely even started.

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rektumsempra t1_j8ifbgs wrote

They're not in shock or even that excited, they just think of it as a tool to write their essays for them. I don't really understand normal people. I guess they don't think exponentially

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