[bawolff]

> only reminds me of what we could have achieved if this ingenuity had been applied in another domain.

I hate arguments like this. Even ignoring how dismisive it is of the achievement at hand, why would you assume ingenuity is transferable like that? Someone who makes a breakthrough in physics is by no means likely to have made an equivalently ground breaking advance in biology if they had decided to study that field instead.

[capitalsigma]

I think this phrase actually means "I don't want to seem like a Luddite, but now that AI is disrupting something that I personally care about, I'm no longer enthusiastic about progress"

[logisticpeach]

Aside from the fact that I explicitly praised the achievment, my point actually relies on said appreciation.

I guess my musing was hypothetical but I was careless in communicating that. I get that we can't centrally plan innovation or human effort - and I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where this was the case.

[bawolff]

Respectfully, you can praise the achievement while still being dismissive. The two aren't mutually exclusive.