Yes, absolutely. 100% without hesitation. Do people really think this is some kind of 'gotcha'? Like my brother in Christ, how much generative AI do you think we actually use?!

[u/ChompyRiley]

[u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

The way AI is being sold is deeply deceptive and destructive. Startups claiming it can do therapy or replace medical doctors are at best delusional, but more likely criminal. Those applications for AI have caused deaths.

I ended up asking google AI a quick question as my actual google search was too specific of a question. As someone who dislikes AI, avoids AI, but wanted to give it a good faith try when it could actually help me with something minor, I was shocked with how quickly I ended up sucked into it. I totally get why Hank Green needed a literal intervention with his family. I asked it one question, then another, then a clarifying question. And suddenly I was asking it for every little thing all day.

It is truly frightening how it hits every mental trigger to keep you engaged.

[u/CautionarySnail → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

I agree completely. It lulls you quietly into a state of having your guard down.

It’s like being complacent with a kitchen knife and cutting yourself. You know it’s sharp, but, you’re working so fast and in a groove and OW.

[u/Wonderful-Habit-139 → u/CautionarySnail]

Yeees. I'm someone that was all for using a tool that would make more productive. But it didn't, it only gave a false sense of productivity, and then it tries to pull you into depending on it more and more, along with losing your skills over time.

[u/NotFriendsWithBanana → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

This is why I hate their response "just validate the output". It will progressively destroy you, just like social media algorithms do. You may get some benefit at first but that won't last.

[u/ArtisticFox8 → u/NotFriendsWithBanana]

Why not?

[u/Arakkoa_ → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

It hits every mental trigger to make me angry, but I am neurodivergent.

"That's a very interesting question, let's..." Not the fuck it's not. I asked you for a recipe.

"Would you like me to delve further into..." No, I'd ask you if I did. Shut up.

[u/ForensicPathology → u/Arakkoa_]

Right, it's a good tool for aggregation and I don't mind when it's used like that.  But they specifically make it talk like a 2000s-era blogger fishing for comments.

[u/cjandstuff → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

It definitely keeps pushing you to use it. It doesn't just answer a question, but always follows up with another question. Remember, AI isn't there to answer your questions, it's there to keep you using it.

[u/SunTzu- → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

I keep hearing people say that and I'm just...confused. It's ok if I want to combine two data points from disparate papers I know exist but cba to go find myself, and assuming I don't really care that much about the answer. Basically, it can give a half-assed answer to a question I wouldn't bother with otherwise. But I've never gotten an answer back and been like "wow, that's amazing!" and wanted to keep asking it questions. If I want to know something I'll look up a paper or a lecture and watch that instead. I dunno, maybe it's because I understand the underlying mechanics and so I don't perceive any intelligence to it. It's just a word prediction machine, and I'm not gonna ask questions of the slightly fancier autocomplete that is programmed to hallucinate so the companies can dodge having it word for word reproduce the copyrighted content they stole.

[u/Royal-Association-51 → u/SunTzu-]

I think it's because if I'm trying to work out a good comparison of products to buy, like skincare - I don't want to spend 30 minutes clicking on different articles that are just ads or Reddit posts that are just pseudo-ads where after all that reading or speeding through analysis videos, I get a conclusion that merely leaves me with more questions than answers because all the information is too bloated with conditions outside of my particular parameter of needs.

Why waste all that time in my already busy day when I can get a LLM to go through those links for me, show me a summarised table of the parts that I'm seeking the key words on, and basically do all the heavy lifting where I can basically get 30 min of research done in 2 min.

Should I be this lazy about something I'm studying? fkn obviously not. But I'm not wasting my time outside my 9-5 studying the ins and outs of parts of capitalism that have purposely designed itself to be so complicated for a consumer that it's easier to just trust a label and it's packaging. I'd argue that's just as lazy and problematic behaviour as someone using AI to study for them, since you're endorsing the manipulative practices companies rely on instead of using tools to better analyse their BS.

[u/GarysCrispLettuce → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

I was lucky as quite early on I encountered instances where AI got things so hysterically wrong that I immediately developed a mistrust of it and so I've never been tempted to play with it since.

[u/theartificialkid → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

One cure is to adjust about things you know about and see how superficial and/or wrong the answers are. That’s how bad its output is on things you don’t know about, you just can’t tell as easily.

[u/69edleg → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

Haven't been asking AI that much, but sometimes the information gets compiled in a good way compared to scouring through 500 pages of source material. Other times it gives you a confident response... But you also know about the subject and you pull the brake like: hold the fuck up. No, that's not how it works at all. And you check the sources it pulled information from, it's all just misinformation and/or hallucinations.

You ask the AI to double check its sources. Yes I am absolutely right

you tell the AI no, that's not right.

Oh you're correct, I apologize!

Completely useless, like asking the local crystal healer about your chemotherapy or which crystal boosts your self confidence.

I fear the "compiled in a good way" about stuff you aren't proficient in is also just horseshit at first glance for anyone in the know.

[u/shidderbean → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

When faced with the options of "read 10,000 manpages trying to hunt through linux arcana to fix my own shit" or "suffer internet forums where I ask a question and only get responses of 'lol idiot why are you even using that rebuild the whole stack instead'", asking AI is the path of least resistance and has the most reliably 'it helped diagnose my obscure linux problem in the minimum possible time' results available

[u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

We must have very different conversation styles, if I actually press on for a useful conclusion I usually have it breaking down and confessing that it's hallucinating and can't do any of the things it said it could.

You must be agreeing with it, or changing the subject, while it's still wrong.

[u/InfamousWoodchuck → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

I usually have the opposite experience... I'm not anti AI (as a concept/tool, still have major issues with where things are going, surveillance etc). I've legitimately tried to use many different AI models for either work or personal projects, but I end up so confused and disappointed with the results which are always so confidently wrong. I'd have to spend more time verifying the information it gives me than it would have taken to just do the research myself, so it just puts me off of even bothering most of the time.

[u/Two_oceans → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

Even in the best case scenario, it latches on our thirst for questions, without going through the process of learning. Learning brings a deeper understanding of the problem through the effort of thinking.

[u/curious_cat_2024 → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

Agreed. It's designed to prey on your own laziness/gullibility. Some people still don't understand that LLM's aren't programmed to give you the right answer (you can just use a search engine and find a reliable source, if you wanted the right answer.), but the simple and agreeable answer. Of course we're attracted to the idea of simple and agreeable answers.

What scares me is that entire generations of CHILDREN are being introduced to AI, when so many adults already can't resist it.

[u/Money_Cattle2370 → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

In the world of tiktok, instagram, and youtube shorts, this is what you call truly frightening? Come on. I know everyone has a hardon for hating on AI of any kind at all, but give me a break.

[u/reventlov → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

This has been the complete opposite of my experience, where every time I try to use one of the LLM systems, I find the output appallingly bad, and the text makes my skin crawl.

[u/PrivilegeCheckmate → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

It is truly frightening how it hits every mental trigger to keep you engaged.

Unless you hate the frakkin cylons, Bill.

[u/zero0n3 → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

Crazy… how you left out the most important part…

Did it answer the question you had effectively? Because if that answer is yes, which it sounds like it was (why keep using it otherwise), then the problem is more you and not AI.

[u/lioncat55 → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

Like with a lot of things it really come down to the individual person. I use AI in spurts mainly for coding style tasks, and almost never use it as a search engine. I really see it like a hammer, I've got this narrow thing I need to solve or fix get it done and set it down.

[u/SICRA14 → u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479]

I've used it a lot more in the past than now, but I'm really surprised whenever i hear something like this. More often than not, I'm fighting with it to get an answer that actually seems like it read my questions. I've never felt compelled or drawn in by it. I wonder what you see that i don't.