As a peasant, I am only able to see what signs are showing up at the end of the spectrum of consequence, but here's a couple of effects that appear to be making themselves apparent:
1. AI-generated bot posts to social media to affect public opinion on important political issues. Their efforts have appeared to work here in America, with the help of folks like Elmo and America's adversaries.
2. The amount of energy used (and heat generated) from training these "machines of subtle hallucination", while not (I guess) on the order of the insanity of bitcoin and their ilk, is non-trivial and nearly nothing but pure waste. Sure, we may find a useful application for such algorithmic expert-system creation, but nothing generated by big-corp or nation-state is going to benefit we peasants, and I'd guess that it'll be just another measure of kgs added to the boot on our necks.
And, yeah, bad only comes from humans. The universe rather likes us, but has given us the power to harm ourselves with any tech amplifier. Tech can, for example, amplify food creation efficiency, or it can amplify callous degradation of human existence. That is why it is so important to refine one's own perception of morality: to clearly see the failures of those we allow to have power. When the population is morally-ignorant, the gears of power tend to grind humanity into blood and dust, for the foes of humane collective benevolence have always relied upon the ignorance of the majority to perpetuate their crimes against humanity.
Only a fool trusts the powerful to do whatever-the-hell their rich brains dream up. I remember when Google had the aspirational slogan "Don't be evil" in its "mission statement" or whatever. William Gibson's framing of kleptocracy has been illuminating to me, as a life-long programmer.
1. AI-generated bot posts to social media to affect public opinion on important political issues. Their efforts have appeared to work here in America, with the help of folks like Elmo and America's adversaries.
2. The amount of energy used (and heat generated) from training these "machines of subtle hallucination", while not (I guess) on the order of the insanity of bitcoin and their ilk, is non-trivial and nearly nothing but pure waste. Sure, we may find a useful application for such algorithmic expert-system creation, but nothing generated by big-corp or nation-state is going to benefit we peasants, and I'd guess that it'll be just another measure of kgs added to the boot on our necks.
And, yeah, bad only comes from humans. The universe rather likes us, but has given us the power to harm ourselves with any tech amplifier. Tech can, for example, amplify food creation efficiency, or it can amplify callous degradation of human existence. That is why it is so important to refine one's own perception of morality: to clearly see the failures of those we allow to have power. When the population is morally-ignorant, the gears of power tend to grind humanity into blood and dust, for the foes of humane collective benevolence have always relied upon the ignorance of the majority to perpetuate their crimes against humanity.
Only a fool trusts the powerful to do whatever-the-hell their rich brains dream up. I remember when Google had the aspirational slogan "Don't be evil" in its "mission statement" or whatever. William Gibson's framing of kleptocracy has been illuminating to me, as a life-long programmer.