[andymasley]

There's a ton of stuff I think is useful in specific circumstances but can be bad overall.

-Video games: Provide fun, but probably overall bad for society bc people waste too much time on them.

-Alcohol: Most drinkers get a lot of value out of drinking, but alcoholism is so bad that on net alcohol's probably bad.

-Guns & nuclear weapons: Wish both didn't exist, but each provides a lot of use to the specific people who have them.

-TikTok: Overall causes too many people to believe misinformation, but for a lot of other people is fun or interesting.

It's possible to think AI chatbots are net bad because people use them to cheat, or they rely on them for information too much and believe false information, without believing that they are always useless in all circumstances. I can use ChatGPT to alphabetize a long list for me. That's useful, even if I think overall chatbots are net bad.

[jrflowers]

> I can use ChatGPT to alphabetize a long list for me.

Trying to imagine using enough energy to boil two liters of water(1)(2) to sort a list instead of typing

sort list.txt

which is a command that works pretty much the same on Windows(3), Linux/Bash(4), macOS (5) and does not have any risk of hallucinating at all, and the only reason I could imagine myself doing that was if for some reason, using enough energy to boil two liters of water to sort a list made me feel good. Like I would only do that if I got some sort of rush out of it or if it made people on the internet think that I am smart.

1 https://ai-basics.com/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-really-us...

2 https://eatwithus.net/how-much-energy-does-it-take-to-boil-1...

3 https://www.windows-commandline.com/sort-command/

4 https://thelinuxcode.com/bash_sort_command/

5 https://ss64.com/mac/sort.html

[andymasley]

Sorry the energy comment is ridiculously out of context. I've written a deep dive on how small that number is. Do you complain when YouTube videos or video games use similar amounts of energy? Your laptop uses the same energy every 3 minutes. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa...

[jrflowers]

You make an interesting point about that you do not care about energy usage at all, and I have completely forgotten about the point I made about being able to type sort into any computer without installing any software or connecting to the internet.

On the one hand the fact that people accept hallucinations is all the proof you need to indicate that chat bot usage is driven by feelings and not results, and on the other hand there’s a blog post that might’ve been written by a chat bot about how chat bot energy usage is pretty cool, actually, so who is to know anything about anything

[bpt3]

Are you saying you also believe video games, alcohol, and guns shouldn't exist?

If so, that's a pretty radical position, and if not I don't understand how they're relevant.

[andymasley]

I think each are net bad and shouldn't exist yes, but I also think each is useful in specific contexts. Not sure why that's not relevant, it's a direct example of stuff that's useful but net bad.

[jrflowers]

Wait are you saying that you think that chat bots are a net bad that shouldn’t exist because of the cheating and the false information but you can sort a list or are you saying despite the cheating and false information chat bots are a net positive that should exist because you can sort a list?

[andymasley]

I'm not making a claim about whether they're good overall or not, I'm saying 1) Reasonable people can think they're bad overall. 2) It's not reasonable to say they're literally always useless.

[bpt3]

I said your list was not relevant if you didn't believe the items on it should not exist, but that's not the case.

Frankly, the inherent contradiction of your vehement support for something you think shouldn't exist has confounded me, and your position that video games, guns, and alcohol also should not exist is so far on the fringe of society that it's hard to take at face value.

[andymasley]

Sorry this is pretty straightforward. If I'm Kim Jong Un, a nuclear weapon is extremely useful to me. That doesn't mean I think overall a world where nuclear weapons exist is good. I'm confused why you think "useful" needs to have this additional meaning of "good overall"

[bpt3]

Equating TikTok (which I am not a fan of but can see the entertainment value), video games (which I do enjoy), and nuclear weapons (which is basically the only thing in existence that can wipe humans off the earth) is absurd. A user of TikTok and a "user" of a nuclear bomb are not equivalent in any way, and therefore claiming this is an example of your "straightforward" reasoning is also absurd.

I am not conflating "useful" and "good overall". You are the one claiming that something (let's pick TikTok) is useful to its users, but shouldn't exist. Why should something that is useful to its users not exist?

When you say useful in this case, I think you mean that users are deriving short term pleasure from interacting with the app by choice. You also seem to believe that the long term effects of near-constant social media consumption are so harmful that it should be banned. In my mind, if the latter is true, the short term pleasure is not in reality useful. If the latter is false, then the short term pleasure could be considered "useful" but there's no need for a ban.

This pattern also seems to hold with your example of students using chatGPT to avoid writing papers themselves. If I needed to succinctly describe the actions of someone who is spending tens of thousands of dollars a year and at least several hundred hours a year at a place for the express purpose of learning yet also actively avoids making effort to learn, "stupid" is a word that jumps to mind. Yet you seem to be arguing that is not the case because they know they're making a bad decision, which is hard to accept as an attempt at honest dialogue.

In both cases, people are trading long term gains for short term enjoyment. Calling that choice "stupid" may be rude or blunt, but it's not incorrect in most instances.

I'm not trying to put words into your mouth so I would welcome an actual answer to my question above (Why should something that is useful to its users not exist?), but I did want to explain what seems to me like an inherent contradiction in your position.

[andymasley]

I'm really confused about what you're reading into this. I don't "equate" nuclear weapons with video games, I say "here are two completely unrelated things that I'd consider net bad overall, but useful in specific places." Would you say I'm equating guns with balloons if I say they're both man-made? It's hard not to think you're intentionally misreading this.

Yes, it is possible for something to be useful in specific circumstances but still be bad overall.

We have disagreements about what counts as useful. If our definition is "This is only useful if it leads to longterm happiness" that seems way too specific and would exclude too much.

It's stupid to cheat, I agree and try to make that clear. What I'm saying is the claim "Students think they're learning when they cheat using AI" assumes students are so stupid that they think cheating off of a robot will help them learn as much as writing an essay themselves. That's obviously wrong.