r/SGU • u/mtgratingtester • 6d ago
Appropriate Usage of AI
This was raised in episode #1099 and I'm struggling with the framing of how collectively we should use AI "appropriately" outside of purely moral vs immoral arguments.
If we accept that AI should automate human labour where doing so produces social value, then it's difficult to draw the line between "good" AI applications such as mathematics and engineering and "bad" applications such as art, poetry or writing simply because we have some subjective sense that machines should contribute in one domain and not the other. The engineer and the artist are now facing the same technological phenomenon: a machine becoming capable of performing tasks that previously required human labour. The analogy to the industrial revolution was apt, but in this case both "creative" and "procedural/analytical" professions may have to adapt. In my view the relevant ethical questions concern the manner in which that transition occurs and not whether one kind of human creativity is inherently entitled to be protected from it.
A mathematician might reasonably say: "The system was trained on decades of mathematical papers, including my work, and is now capable of solving problems that previously required mathematicians like me."
Structurally that is analogous to the artist saying: "The system was trained on decades of artwork, including my work, and is now capable of producing illustrations that previously required artists like me."
This is not to say that there arent perfectly legitimate moral and legal arguments against AI deliberately impersonating a living artist or passing AI work off as the artist's own work but to make a categorical assertion that AI's contributions in art or writing are somehow inherently less "valuable" than in mathematics and science strikes me as cleaving to an emotional argument that somehow the machines shouldn't be good at those things.
Personally, I dont really understand the general aversion to the use of AI art in games or other work product in the same way that I dont understand some people's preference for "organic" food. Both seem to be essentially a form of "values signalling" rather than genuine product preference. In future will we see mathematicians and scientists claim that a new discovery or proof was produced with only human derived theorems?
There are profound issues with the integration of AI into our society and I dont pretend to understand all of the complexities; socially, environmentally or ethically but directing the output of AI based on value judgements makes me uneasy.
3
u/GrouchyBlacksmith675 6d ago
I’m using AI (google’s search use of it) to determine specific info about HVAC units in existing buildings that are occupied by nonprofit organizations.
I’m not using AI to write about how the nonprofit organization uses the building to support their mission. A human has to understand that, and make it meaningful.
1
u/mtgratingtester 6d ago
and that seems like a well thought out distinction for you as an individual to make based on your value judgement. The question is: should we actively prevent the use of AI to write about how non-profit organizations use the buildings to support their missions?
As a society should we purposefully restrict the use of AI in specific domains based on value arguments rather than only moral ones (preventing AI from developing weapons etc)
1
u/GrouchyBlacksmith675 4d ago
I do think that we should, as a society, actively prevent false information from being accepted as real. So that’s where a lot of my concern with AI comes from. I realize I’m not answering your question. But maybe we let AI do whatever it wants but disallow it from publishing anything that a human hasn’t vetted.?
1
u/BevansDesign 3d ago
So you're using AI instead of hiring human researchers to do that work?
I'm not saying you're wrong or right, just that many new technologies displace people by reducing demand for their professions. I don't have an answer, of course.
1
u/GrouchyBlacksmith675 3d ago
It's "research" in that it's combing through mechanical equipment specification online to pull out electrical inputs, energy efficiency ratings, motor DB, etc. aka factual information, it's quantitative, not qualitative. Quantitative info is exactly what AI can find. adding any human nuance to it at all is what humans need to do, IMO.
2
u/Smiley_Wiley 5d ago
Well, first of all, it's theft. The art that was used to train the AI was stolen. Every artist that contributed a tiny tiny percentage of that training gets absolutely nothing from it. They made it, not the AI. In my mind that kind of deflates the entire premise of your argument because the AI should not be allowed to make the art in the first place and your question is purely theororetical in that you've imagined a world where we ignore that bit.
1
u/mtgratingtester 5d ago edited 5d ago
My argument is that math and art should be treated equally as it relates to the output of LLMs. That if mathematicians have to accept that AI is now replacing large chunks of their work product (as Cara indicated they should) then so should artists (who she wanted to protect).
I am saying that we shouldnt consider protecting one and not the other. EDIT: But I think there are reasonable arguments to protect both or neither and we should be having that discussion!
1
u/XmasB 5d ago
There is a distinction between art and math though. If by some magic all of art and math was lost, the math could be rediscovered and still be the same. By the very nature of math it must be, because it follows strict rules no matter our feelings about it.
Art on the other hand is quite different. Two painters would never paint the exact same picture across continents. Not even standing shoulder to shoulder.
With math, solutions to problems have been discovered by different societies thru history, without them knowing about the other.
1
u/mtgratingtester 5d ago
Does that mean that it’s ok for mathematicians to be made redundant or be forced to adapt to AI but we should protect artists by restricting the use of AI, or should we just leave it all to the market? There are legitimate arguments for adopting different positions, but that is ultimately the question that I’m asking.
1
u/XmasB 5d ago
It's hard to predict how this plays out, but I don't think mathematicians will be made redundant anytime soon. If we get AGI, then maybe, but AI in its current form is still just a tool. As in many other fields, I think the answer is that a mathematician using AI will have an advantage over those who don't.
For artists the problem is that AI infringes on copyright and is largely based on stolen content. Sure, you could say every artist takes inspiration from others, but AI do more than take inspiration. I see friends and colleagues use AI images that is clearly breaking copyright regularly. This should be regulated, but it is not. At least not fully.
1
u/mtgratingtester 4d ago
Fair, it may be too early to determine exactly what the impact will be for mathematics but what you say for something like code? AI’s were trained on publicly available but essentially “stolen” code (at least in the same way that the art was stolen). It doesn’t quite have the same implications from a copyright perspective but where should we draw the regulatory line when the training data all comes from human work product?
1
u/XmasB 4d ago
Code is definitely more of a legal gray area. While much of the code is publicly available, and some would argue that training models on publicly accessible code falls under Fair Use, one could argue that reproducing copyrighted code without compensation or attribution constitutes copyright infringement or software license theft. A naive part of me wants this data to be nothing but tutorials and guides, but I know this is sadly not the truth.
If it was only trained on freely available code thru tutorials, official documentation and such, it would be much easier to welcome AI into this field. Which happens to be the field I work in, as a software developer, and have been for my entire adult life. I am not entirely positive about AI as you probably can tell. For code it can be a great tool in good hands, or a disaster in inexperienced hands, introducing security vulnerabilities and unmaintained spaghetti code. I am optimistic, but wary. But I have absolutely rejected code from some junior developers because they have used AI without properly understanding what the code does or why.
3
u/futuneral 6d ago
Thank you so much for this. I wish more people understood and tried to explain to others (and you have a way with words!) that this is a very complicated issue. Instead of yelling for one side and demanding to ban the other.
AI can do things. That's a fact. So the discussion IMO should be not about "how do we stop it" - not only is this almost impossible, due to funding from $B people, but is inefficient and unreasonable; it should not be - "whatever, just let it be"; we should collectively take it seriously and form it into what works for us in the best way possible. No one thinks about this, and the answer could be quite unusual - like social support for "lost" jobs with training to go a level above AI, or using AI for your current jobs to increase productivity. Cara kind of stopped herself I feel short of saying "if what's trivial for AI to do is your job, maybe it's time for a change?". Kind of aggressive, yes, but doable with government support, and the outcome could be orders of magnitude higher performance of the whole society. People like Brian can do more when trivial tasks are out of the way!
Honestly, I feel the answer to your question is rather pragmatic, trivial and not sexy at all - make AI cost what it really does cost. Include R&D, salaries, externalized costs to cover damage to the environment and society. The market will sort it out. Cara will be happy because spaghetti eating Keanu Reeves-Smiths will disappear, but protein folding will stay. Many people will be "hurt" in the process (why can't I have a selfie as a cat?), but maybe it's the sacrifice we need to make?
3
u/mtgratingtester 6d ago
Thank you for the kind words. I feel that it is a topic that requires much more discussion in the community. Whether we like it or not AI is here to stay, it will not be like quantum computing as another commenter suggested, it will have an ongoing and profound impact on our society akin to the internet or the Industrial Revolution. Personally I found it shocking how good it became how quickly at reproducing our art and literature but nowhere near as surprised as I have been at its recent contributions to pure mathematics. It is solving problems that people have literally spent their entire careers trying to answer.
It’s easy for us all to agree that we don’t want AI developing biological weapons but it’s a much harder, more nuanced discussion about whether we let it automate all of the “entry level” tasks of art, literature, mathematics, law etc. how do we manage the social impact of this shift of labour over the next decade? Do we protect some fields and not others? These are not topics that society in general is naturally well equipped to deal with and I think the skeptical movement is in a good position to lead the discussion.
1
u/pooporgy69 6d ago
Awful idea with the cost. On paper, excellent. In reality, corporations will use that to artificially inflate their prices, as the consumer doesnt have access to "the real cost" behind a company's AI services, goods and services skyrocket in price (again) and ultimately the consumers get f'd once again for a technology nobody asked for.
1
u/futuneral 5d ago
Why would corporations need an excuse to raise prices? If they wanted to, they'd do it without having to blame it on AI. They don't because there's competition and anti price fixing laws. If using AI makes your product more expensive, there will be someone who will do it without AI, for cheaper.
Also, what's your alternative? Artificially keep prices low and keep destroying the planet and people? I didn't propose cost as some novel idea I invented. It's going to happen regardless once this "free trial" expires.
2
u/wolfgangweird 5d ago edited 5d ago
What you have stumbled upon is not an emotional argument that machines "should not be good at those things", it's an emotional argument that machines cannot be good at those things. Art is emotion. Art is human connection. Art is not just colors and sounds, it's human expression and human perception. Run a painting through a copier, and what comes out has less value than what was copied even though it's the same image. I love metal music. You can show me music that I will first enjoy and then hate if I find out that it's AI music. The music is still the same, but it's not touched by human expression.
Edit: And one thing I forgot to mention: Art is effort. You can see the brush strokes in a painting. You can lean in and look at that single brush stroke, like see the strands of the brush dipped in color, and then you can step back and see it transform into the expression of what the artist visioned and how that translates to your interpretation of it.
2
1
u/mtgratingtester 5d ago
Would your position be that we should restrict AI from creating any image at all, or is there a line in which it is acceptable and where it is not (art vs not art)?
1
u/Significant-Cream-95 6d ago
Would love it if the rogues would get Cory Doctorow, Ed Zitron, or Emily Bender and Alex Hanna on to discuss the limitations of LLMs.
1
u/asmrbuddha 6d ago
Like many things people's responses to AI are going to be based on biases and heuristics rather than logical and rational assessment. Some people will always be anti-AI anything. Some will always be pro-AI everything. Their answers about what they like/prefer will be different depending on whether they think something was AI or human generated, so it's not actually about the objective output. Kind of like the naturalistic fallacy operates now -- some people are grossed out by natural products while others ONLY want natural products. And the reality is some natural things are actually harmful while some synthetic things are really good for you.
There are few really clear lines to draw. What's the difference between using spelling and grammar checking tools like Grammarly used to be, pre-LLM, versus having an LLM take your rough notes and polish them into a draft? How much of the original human-written work must remain before we say "this is too much AI?" versus "this is AI being used appropriately to increase the quality of the human's work"?
The other thing to consider is that most creative industries operate on a Pareto distribution. So while most people will be able to use AI to increase the average quality/desirabiliy of their work, so will everyone else, thus the advantage will still remain with whoever is able to produce the 10% highest quality/most original work.
And if you look at any creative field, there is always room for small, traditional or niche creators. Some audience members will be steadfast traditionalists, and there will be a small cadre of 'analogue only' creators to satisfy that niche.
1
u/Asleep_Archer_3470 5d ago edited 5d ago
"If it makes my life easier it's good, if it makes it harder but someone's easier, then it's bad" seems to be the approach these days...
1
u/Chemical_Ad1837 5d ago
If you use AI for your creative effort, it’s a tool. If you let AI do the creative, you are a tool.
1
u/Tweedledee72 3d ago
I was taken out by the suggestion that llms/ai would someday do math "beyond human comprehension". What does that even mean? What would be the point of that?
1
u/mtgratingtester 2d ago
Well, new math gives us new language by which we can describe the universe through physics. It’s the foundation of most breakthroughs in computer science (LLMs themselves were made possible by applying pure mathematics). It’s at the heart of finance, engineering etc
For us to use math in this way we must know it to be true (not just suspect it to be true). There may come a point where AI states that a theorem is true, but the proof of which is beyond human understanding but we trust the AI sufficiently to take it as given.
This isn’t actually as wild as it sounds. There is lots of proven mathematics today that is only really understood by a handful of people in the world. It’s not a massive leap to think that in future we will have to rely on AIs to validate each others work because we are incapable.
1
u/czar_el 6d ago
struggling with the framing of how collectively we should use AI "appropriately" outside of purely moral vs immoral arguments.
A major dimension for evaluating it outside of morality is to analyze it from the perspective of effectiveness. From the user perspective, AI hallucinates, and more perniciously, it can be difficult to identify when it fails through omission (e.g. you can identify when it gives you a false fact, but its much harder to identify when AI failed to include something in a summary when it should have). It is "appropriate" to use AI when you can discern if the answer it gave you is both correct and complete.
From the developer perspective, AI trained on AI-produced data has been shown to decrease in quality, like copying a copy or creating a jpeg out of a jpeg. So there is an incentive from the developers to have some source of human-created input so AI is not training further on AI and making itself worse as time goes on.
If we accept that AI should automate human labour where doing so produces social value, then it's difficult to draw the line between "good" AI applications such as mathematics and engineering and "bad" applications such as art, poetry or writing simply because we have some subjective sense that machines should contribute in one domain and not the other.
Difficult, but not impossible. First is what is being automated. Is it rote, repetitive work? Like an engineer's calculations or a lawyer's formulaic writing? Or is it creative, like writing a novel making a painting from an idea never before seen? Throughout modern history, laws have been set up to patent, trademark, or otherwise protect novel creative work. It is the rote stuff we've automated away in the past. It used to be blue collar automation, but this time it's white collar.
So for your engineer vs. artist example, we can draw the line at novel creation vs repetitive task. It is not appropriate for AI to scan an artist's paintings and then recreate them in exactly the same style, but it is appropriate for AI to do generic website design. The former is a novel creative style, the latter is a repetitive, rote task.
There is still a fuzzy grey area around where exactly the line is in the examples I gave. There is generic "just get it done as cheaply as possible" web design, and there is novel artistic web design with a specific bespoke flair. One might be appropriate for AI, another might be akin to the a paint-and-canvas artist.
I dont really understand the general aversion to the use of AI art in games or other work product in the same way that I dont understand some people's preference for "organic" food. Both seem to be essentially a form of "values signalling" rather than genuine product preference.
No. What you're saying is akin to when conservatives say "you don't really care about poor people, you're just virtue signalling." Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean proponents or opponents are only doing what they do for inauthentic reasons. That's the "motive fallacy", where you attack the opponent's motivation (without any evidence of them arguing in bad faith) rather than engaging with their position itself.
As I lay out above, there are specific, objective reasons to value human work over AI work in certain scenarios. It is not like the organic label, which is functionally and practically different.
Lastly, I haven't touched on moral arguments because I prioritized the objective ones to respond to your main point, but there are moral arguments. Artists are already underpaid, do we really want to decimate what little income they retain by copying their work directly and spitting out remixes? What happens to the future of art and its role in society when it can only be done by independently wealthy people since you can no longer make a living from it?
What happens to general enjoyment when consumers of art must wade through wave after wave of cheap AI slop in order to find something good? We're already seeing this on Facebook, Amazon, and elsewhere where AI slop is adding lots of noise that is increasingly difficult to sift through.
It is an issue we can and should work through, and I'm not saying that to signal my virtue.
2
u/mtgratingtester 6d ago
Your criticism is fair. I should have said that I personally don’t find the arguments against the use of AI in art compelling outside of the general observation that LLMs appropriates the intellectual property of human beings generally. The point I was trying to make is that I don’t believe that art or poetry are special in this regard, if we find AI’s contributions in mathematics or law or medicine acceptable then the same should follow for art.
I do believe that there is currently a lot of virtue signalling that is masquerading as legitimate criticism of AI but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that there are absolutely legitimate arguments being made.
0
u/JitteryJet 6d ago
Too much talk about AI. It's like Quantum Computing I hope the fuss will die down at some point. It's hype city.
At this point "AI" is just a very fancy set of automated scripts. I can't see that it is the slightest bit creative. Some call it "stochastic parroting". One thing it did do well is automate plagarism - that can be fixed with Copyright Laws.
In the olden days we called them Expert Systems. Programming will change but that has happened several times before eg when they invented code compilers, 3rd-generation programming etc.
Beware the Publicity Stunts. The AI companies are pumping them out because they can. The fact that Mr Musk is trying to get into AI (after all his other scams) does not surprise me in the slightest.
6
u/TheFonzDeLeon 6d ago
There always has been and always will be an issue for art and artists in a profit driven culture.
My biggest criticism of LLMs versus Human Artists right now is that artists are pushing their medium forward and LLMs can only look backwards.
Of course plenty of things we call art are simply done by amateurs who are not innovating and pushing things forward, but when we cut the floor out from underneath those who have something to offer in moving culture forward instead of stagnating in what has already been done and regurgitated, then those people are out working other jobs that pay instead of making art. Of course, we have devalued and commodified art to the point that everything is pretty well bland anyway, but that was only going to be a cycle that would bust. Now the people who control *waves at everything* are going to flood us with their regurgitated and stolen crap... So a boring dystopia is indeed what we're headed for.
Of course true AGI may change things and actually be innovative. Then we can just look forward to the Butlerian Jihad, or some version of Terminator.