[pj_mukh]

I think this is exactly the right intuition. I think people hopelessly underestimate the human tendency to do nothing. We have this idea that if an innovation is good enough it should “sell itself”, and that’s almost never true because across all organizations, it’s almost always safer to do nothing, adopt nothing, keep doing what you’re doing.

No one gets fired for suggesting no change.

It takes a special level of hype where “doing nothing” is no longer the sensible choice.

Do I wish this hype was spread around to other technologies that are also awesome, of course. I’d love to help someone figure out a way to do that but as of now, we don’t know how to do that. Humans are very bad at holding two different ideas in their head.

[BrenBarn]

But we don't need to do anything. We don't need AI and so we don't need a push for it. If AI is just a "normal" technology that has some legitimate uses, it doesn't need a huge boost, it doesn't need any hype at all. It can just be slowly discovered and used by the people who have a legitimate use for it. Doing nothing is often a good move.

[pj_mukh]

“ technology that has some legitimate uses, it doesn't need a huge boost”

That’s what I’m disagreeing with. “Legitimate uses” isn’t something just hanging out in the ether to attach itself to useful technology it happens via a grinding sales process and big industry wide cultural changes.

People don’t like change.

I think AI and its knock-on effects in robotics will have massive productivity boosts in industries where productivity has been lagging for years. It will take decades and multiple boom-busts to happen to drag the population into change but it’ll happen.

[BrenBarn]

I guess what I'd say is that if that grinding sales process and those industry-wide cultural changes have all the negative effects we're seeing with AI, then we shouldn't make that trade. There is simply no urgent need to adopt AI, and the frenzied push to adopt it anyway is actively harmful.

[pj_mukh]

“If people keep stabbing each other with knives then we shouldn’t make that trade just to be able to continue to cut vegetables at home”

Tale as old as time itself.

“But on balance it’s a negative!!”

By what measurement? That’s simply a measurement of your own personal information bubble.