[pxmpxm]

Exact opposite experience on my end - impressionable gen-z kids, and people with minimal background on the topic,* are seeing it as the second coming of christ, where as all the math-and-adjacent PhDs, especially ML-focused, I work with are not buying the hype.

* There's really bizarre tendency of that group to woo-woo and anthropomorphize all those language models. I get answers like "oh it just knows" or "you should try it" when asking probing/hypothetical question.

[Terretta]

Today's AI(ML) is "just" big statistics. And so ...

The math-and-adjacent cohort you mention would like to avoid another "AI winter".

It's possible "you should try it" is a UX use case indicator that (perhaps akin to engineers who don't understand why normies buy iPhones) those telling you this feel you're missing something essential about the experience of this tech's utility: "You may be right, but this works for me, while whatever else you're on about ... doesn't."

As for woo woo, this is the first time the big statistics are indistinguishable from magic for them, passing the Turing Test en masse.

[survirtual]

Highly educated people spent a very long time creating a moat economically with their intelligence. Now, a being of intelligence can augment anyone without having to waste most of their lives learning, and most of professionally brain work is about to be obsolete.

Who has more to lose with the advent of such a tool?