[joshstrange]

Article title: Google CEO: A.I. is more important than fire or electricity

Quote from article: AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I dunno, electricity or fire," says Pichai

——

That’s not the argument he made. I have said for a long time that you can find always someone saying anything you want on the Internet, with that you can paint your side/any-side all with the same brush even if it’s an opinion held by only 1 person.

There might some someone on Twitter who actually thinks AI is more _important_ than fire or electricity but that’s not a commonly held belief and it’s not even the case in the article you linked.

[latexr]

> I have said for a long time that you can find always someone saying anything you want on the Internet

Agreed. But who says it matters too. Some people scream into the void, others share opinions that sway elections and affect the lives of millions.

I’m not only considering Pichai, he was merely the first proxy I remembered. The point is that the importance and abilities of LLMs are regularly overstated.

[hombre_fatal]

My friend and I have a game where we link each other a wildly successful submission title on reddit (usually political) and then screenshot the part of the article (usually not linked on reddit) that reveals the title as phony.

Thousands of comments reacting to a headline or screenshot of a tweet that purports to summarize a headline without actually reading TFA.

[joshstrange]

Yep, I used to get caught up in headlines and I’m sure I still read too much into them but if there is an outlandish comment/position/opinion in the title OR something that perfectly fits with my “world view” I make myself find the real quote/line which often just further erodes trust in reporting institutions.

You need to consider your source of course, but more often than not the more outlandish the claim the more likely it was misquoted or they had the wrong takeaway.

[bryanrasmussen]

>if it’s an opinion held by only 1 person.

an opinion held by Sundar Pichai about technically important issues is much more than an opinion held by 1 person

[joshstrange]

Except the originally stated option (in the comment and in the article title) is completely false. He didn’t say AI was more _important_ but that it was more _profound_. There is a difference and words have meaning.

[bryanrasmussen]

as a general rule when someone discusses profound technology they mean it is important, words may have meaning but they also have common usage and when he says AI is profound he certainly doesn't mean it is deep like the ocean.

Evidently you do not agree with this - so please tell me, what technology do you consider profound and yet, also, unimportant.

[latexr]

That is not the point of the argument. But fine, I edited the original post to use “profound” so we can end this nitpick. Yes, words have meanings and we should absolutely consider those differences when they’re the central thesis. But this wasn’t it, it was merely the first buffoon with a similar argument I could think of. He served as an example of a trend, not as the entire point. It makes zero difference if he said “profound” or “important”, they are equally stupid in this context.