[blackbrokkoli]

Is anyone else detecting a phase shift in LLM criticism?

Of course you could always find opinion pieces, blogs and nerdy forum comments that disliked AI; but it appears to me that hate for AI gen content is now hitting mainstream contexts, normie contexts. Feels like my grandma may soon have an opinion on this.

No idea what the implications are or even if this is actually something that's happening, but I think it's fascinating

[dragonwriter]

No, AFAICT, AI hate has been common (but not the majority position, and still not) in normie contexts for a while.

[sph]

You’re reading it wrong: rather, AI hype had been common (but not the majority position) in tech contexts for a while, especially from those that have something to sell you.

What you derogatorily call normies are the rest of the world caring about their business until one day some tech wiz came around to say “hey, I have built a machine to replace all of you! Our next goal is to invent something even smarter under our control. Wouldn’t that be neat?” No wonder the average person isn’t really keen on this sort of development.

[dragonwriter]

> You’re reading it wrong

No, I don't think I am.

> AI hype had been common (but not the majority position) in tech contexts for a while, especially from those that have something to sell you.

There's a whole lot of that for quite a long time targeting normie contexts, too; in fact, the hate in normie contexts is directly responsive to it, because the hype in normie contexts is a lot of particularly clumsy grifting plus the nontechnical PR of the big AI vendors (which categories overlap quite a bit, especially in Sam Altman’s case), and the hate in normy contexts shows basically zero understanding of even what AI is beyond what could be gleaned from that hyper plus some critical pieces on broad (e.g., total water and energy use, RAM price) and localized (e.g., from fossil fuel power plants in poor neighborhoods directly tied to demand from data centers) economic and environmental impacts.

> What you derogatorily call normies

I am not using “normie” derogatorily, I am using it to contrast to tech contexts.

[rcxdude]

The most typical reactions I see outside of techie and arty spaces where people are most polarised about it are:

- annoyance at stupid AI features being pushed on them

- Playing around with them like a toy (especially image generation)

- Using them for work (usually writing tasks), to varying degrees of effectiveness to pretty helpful to actively harmful depending on how much of a clue they have in the first place.

Discussion or angst about the morality of training or threats to jobs doesn't really enter much into it. I think this apathy is also reflected in how this has not seemingly affected the sales of this game at all in the months that it has been reported on in the video game press. I also think this is informed by how most people using them can fairly plainly see they aren't really a complete replacement for what they actually do.

[PunchyHamster]

They don't call normies derogatorily, they just use it as proxy for "non-tech people"

> “hey, I have built a machine to replace all of you! Our next goal is to invent something even smarter under our control. Wouldn’t that be neat?” No wonder the average person isn’t really keen on this sort of development.

Nope, most are just annoyed from AI slop bombarding them at every corner, AI scams getting news of claiming another poor grandma, and AI tech industry making shit expensive. Most people's job are not in current direct threat of being employed, unless you work in tech or art.

[callc]

Job replacement and AI slop are both legitimate reason that people have negative opinions on AI

Amongst many other legitimate reasons.

[jlouis]

LLMs has had a couple of years by now to show their usefulness, and while hype can drive it for a while, it's now getting to the point where hype alone can't. It needs to provide a tangible result for people.

If that tangible result doesn't occur, then people will begin to criticize everything. Rightfully so.

I.e., the future of LLMs is now wobbly. That doesn't necessarily mean a phase shift in opinion, but wobbly is a prerequisite for a phase shift.

(Personal opinion at the moment: LLMs needs a couple of miracles in the same vein as the discovery/invention of transformers. Otherwise, they won't be able to break through the current fault-barrier which is too low at the moment for anything useful.)

[JKCalhoun]

It is fascinating. It's showing of course that AI has gone mainstream.

There was a time that I remember when you could gripe at a party about banner ads showing up on the internet and have a lot of blank stares. Or ask someone for their email address and get a quizzical look.

I pointed my dad to ChatGPT a few days ago and instructed him on how to upload/create an AI image. He was delighted to later show me his AI "American Gothic" version of a photo of him and his current wife. This was all new to him.

The pushback though I think is going to be short-lived in a way other push-backs were short-lived. (I remember the self-checkout kiosk in grocery stores were initially a hard sell as an example.)

[asadotzler]

How many American Gothic AI fake photos do you think he'll make. Sounds like a novelty experience to me. I also loved my first day in Apple's Vision Pro. It was mind blowing. On the 4th day I returned it. Novelty wears off, no matter how cool it might seem initially.

[JKCalhoun]

Oh, not disagreeing with you. A strange thing has happened inn the past when the what was novel also becomes the commonplace. Not in all cases, of course (and I personally also believe VR is one of those things that will never become commonplace).

[GaryBluto]

People were told by other people to dislike LLMs and so they did, then told other people themselves.

[AmbroseBierce]

Just like feminism when it was starting, back then millions of women believed it was silly for them to vote, and those who believed otherwise had to get loud to get more on their side, and that's one example, similar things have happened with hundreds other things that we now take for granted, so it's value as judgment measure it's very low by itself alone.

[theshrike79]

Ha! You’re actually exactly right.

We’ve observed this in AI gen ads (or “creatives” as ad people call them)

They work really well, EXCEPT if there is a comment option next to the ad - if people see others calling the art “AI crap” the click rate drops drastically :)

[Devasta]

If I was vegan and found out after the fact that a meal that I enjoyed contained animal products in it that doesn't mean I'm some hypocrite for consuming it at the time. Whether I enjoyed it or not at the time it still breaches some ethical standard I have, abstaining from it from then on would be the expected outcome.

[theshrike79]

The same works the other way, and actually a lot better IMO.

Let's imagine a scenario with two identical restaurants with the exact same quality of food.

One sells their dish as a fully vegan option, but doesn't tell the customers.

Hardline "oorah, meat only for me" dude walks in and eats the dish, loves it.

If he goes to the other restaurant and is told beforehand that "sir, this dish is fully vegan" - do you think they'd enjoy it as much?

Prejudices steer people's opinions, a lot. Just like people stop enjoying movies and games due to some weird online witch-hunt that might later on turn out to be either a complete willful misunderstanding of the whole premise (Ghost in the Shell) or a targeted hate campaign (Marvels and many many other movies starring a prominent feminist woman).

[DangitBobby]

Does that make it ethical to mislead people? You are stripping people of agency.

[DangitBobby]

I think that's a hint that people already dislike AI ads on principle but it's good enough now to fool them, and the comment section provides transparency.

[PunchyHamster]

yes, having some transparency is terrible to PR

[oneeyedpigeon]

Just as they were told to like them in the first place. A lot of this is driven that way because most of the public only has a surface-level understanding of the issues.

[latexr]

That’s a bad faith argument using weasel words. Do not assume everyone who disagrees with you is an unthinking tool.

https://xkcd.com/610/

Look at how easy it is to make the argument in the other direction:

> People were told by large companies to like LLMs and so they did, then told other people themselves.

Those add nothing to the discussion. Treat others like human beings. Every other person on the planet has an inner life as rich as yours and the same ability to think for themselves (and inability to perceive their own bias) that you do.

[xboxnolifes]

LLM hate for use in art has been pretty mainstream from the start. The difference in criticism between use in code generation and use in art generation is palpable. I dont think anyone took kindly to the discourse of movie producers buying actor likeness rights and having perpetually young old actors for all future movies.

Programmers criticized the code output. Artists and art enjoyers criticized cutting out the artist.

[tokioyoyo]

It’s the usual “I don’t like it, I’m against, but it’s okay if I use it” thing. People understand the advantage it gives a person over another one, so they will still use it here and there. You’ll have some people who will be vehemently against it, but it will be the same as people who categorically against having smartphones, or avoiding using any Meta products because of tracking and etc.

[PunchyHamster]

It's because amount of AI slop bombarding people from every side increased and created knee-jerk reaction to anything AI, even if it is actually the "remove the boring part of work"

[j_w]

The issue with "removing the boring part of work" is that which part of the work is "boring" is subjective. There are going to be plenty of people that don't think that what they do is the "boring stuff that should be automated away." Whether this is genuine enjoyment for what they do or just an attempt to protect their career, both are valid feelings to have.

[blibble]

all news is prophesying that everyone is going to lose their jobs to "AI"

along with news about "AI" causing electricity bills to rise

every form of media is overrun and infested with poor quality slop

garbage products (microsoft copilot) forced on them and told by their bosses to use it, or else

gee I wonder why normal people hate it

[Macha]

The art bubble is generally considered more "normie" than the tech bubble and they've been strongly anti AI art for longer than even the introduction of the original GitHub copilot

[spencerflem]

Read the other comments in the thread lol- “Fuck artists, we will replace them”

This is not a winning PR move when most normal people are already pretty pro-artist and anti tech bro

[oneeyedpigeon]

It feels like a similar trend to the one that NFTs followed: huge initial hype, stoked up by tech bros and swallowed by a general public lacking a deep understanding, tempered over time as that public learns more of the problematic aspects that detractors publicise.

[vanviegen]

I think this comparison makes little sense, as in the case of AI there is some actual impactful substance backing the hype.

[Ukv]

I don't feel NFTs ever really had much interest among the general public - average reaction just being "I don't get it, that sounds pointless".

Whereas AI seemed to have a pretty good run for around a decade, with lots of positive press around breakthroughs and genuine interest if you showed someone AI Dungeon, DALL-E 2, etc. before it split into polarized topic.

[Hamuko]

NFTs have way less downsides than LLMs and GenAI, since the main downside was just wasting electricity. I didn't have to worry about someone cloning my voice and begging my mom on the phone for money.

[Devasta]

If you look at daytime TV in the UK, there are a lot of ads targeting the elderly talking about funeral cover and life assurance and so on.

I for one cannot wait for a future where grandparents get targeted ads showing their grandchildren, urging them to buy some product or service so their loved ones have something to remember them by...

[wiseowise]

Typical brigading, same with blm, woke, right wing, etc.

[AmbroseBierce]

Wow you do mentally group things efficiently, that much I can say.

[wiseowise]

Anything wrong with the grouping? Or you don’t agree that most of those employ extreme brigading tactics to destroy opponents?