[ARandumGuy]

I find it interesting how a lot of other comments are saying how "HN users are a bubble, the public is actually really excited about AI", when the research indicates that the general public is even less interested in AI then HN is.

It's fine to express your opinion on AI, whether positive or negative. It's even fine to share anecdotes about how other people feel. Just don't say that's how "most people" feel without providing some actual evidence.

[UtopiaPunk]

I think HN is a space where practically everyone has a grasp of what AI is and is not capable of, and of what tools could theoretically exist in the near future. I also think that HN is a space where there is not a consensus on whether AI is "good" or "bad," and there is a lot of discourse on the subject.

In my experience, this makes HN probably the most pro-AI spaces around. Most people in my life feel more negatively about AI, without a lot of defense for it (even if they do use it). The only space in my life that is more pro-AI than HN is when people from the C-suite are speaking about it at work meetings :/

[spacemadness]

How is HN an anti-AI bubble? People post their AI projects here all the time. That's not something the general public is doing.

[edanm]

In the sense that many anti-AI articles are shared and upvoted, and many anti-AI or AI-skeptical comments are upvoted. Of course, a lot of pro-AI and AI-enthuisastic content is also shared and commented.

HN has many, many users, and they're not all monolothic, which explains 90% of the questions along these lines that people raise.

[anthonypasq]

chatgpt has 400 million weekly users and youre under the impression most people dont want ai?

[ARandumGuy]

I believe most people don't want AI because I read the Pew Research report linked by the parent comment, which indicated most non-experts don't want AI. That report has a pretty large sample size, the methodology seems sound, and Pew is an organization that's historically pretty good at studying this sort of thing.

Obviously one report is not the end of the discussion. And if more research is done that indicates that most people really are interested in AI, I'll shift my beliefs on the matter.

I was interested in that 400 million weekly user number you posted, so I did a little digging and found this source [1] (I also looked through their linked sources and double checked elsewhere, and this info seems reasonably accurate). It seems like that 400 million figure is what OpenAI is self-reporting, with no indication how that number is being calculated. Weekly user count is a figure that's fairly easy to manipulate or over-count, which makes me skeptical of the data. For example, is this figure just counting users that are directly interacting with ChatGPT, or is it counting users of services that utilize the ChatGPT API?

In addition, someone can use ChatGPT while having a neutral or negative opinion on it. My linked source [1] indicates that around 10 million people are actively paying for a ChatGPT subscription, which is a much more modest number then 400 million weekly users. There clearly are a lot of people who use and like AI, but that doesn't mean the majority of the population feels positively about it.

[1]: https://backlinko.com/chatgpt-stats

[hollerith]

I use an AI chat service, but would prefer that research and investment that might yield more powerful AIs be banned. Maybe that is what the survey respondents meant when they said that they don't want AI.

[famouswaffles]

You don't really have to rely on self reported numbers to see its scope. It has become that massive. ChatGPT was the 6th most visited site in the world in March and will likely be 5 in April.

https://x.com/Similarweb/status/1909544985629721070

The idea that a site that consistently has billions of visits every month but most of them have a negative opinion of it seems more delusion than reality.

[no_wizard]

How many are paying?

Thats the ultimate test, how many users will pay for something like this?

I also have usage pattern questions but I don’t think OpenAI publishes much data as to how their platform is most commonly used

[caleblloyd]

Conversely the ultimate test may be that once the free plan is monetized with ads, how many users will continue to use ChatGPT.

[habinero]

Absolutely. People using it to write shitposts and spam and a first draft of something is one thing, but "fun toy" is not the same thing as "sea change"

[pluto124]

The article is so stupid. AI is replacing traditional Google search. It's everywhere already and people not only want it, they use it every day. My Google phone replaced the old assistant a while ago.

[sigotirandolas]

When I buy a car I want to talk with a salesman, but outside of that I don't want salesmen ambushing me with car deals.

ChatGPT is like the former, while the AI features are like the latter.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> general public is even less interested in AI

Part of the problem is that the term has become utterly diluted to the point of becoming meaningless - any computer system can be called AI nowadays.

But what I think people dislike most is the genre of Generative AI aka AI slop: images and texts generated by machines, often of low quality, unchecked or barely checked by humans. Another one is cost cuts by replacing human support with automated responses - which can give you abysmal experience even in trivial cases.