[tovej]

Are you serious when you connect anti-AI sentiment to anti-science sentiment?

To me, they are opposite sentiments, and my experience discussing AI with others supports this. The most pro-AI people I meet are very far removed from science, and my research colleagues are definitely more critical of AI than not.

[pjc50]

AI's tendency to emit unsourced, untrue statements with authority is about the most unscientific thing you can get.

AI is scientism: presenting science-flavoured things as a cultural marker.

[nephihaha]

Unfortunately there is a lot of cargo cult science around. I am not just referring to alternative viewpoints (which vary in validity), but even things from mainstream outlets masquerading as mainstream science.

One such example was businesses claiming physical cash was unhygienic while promoting dirty touchscreens for ordering. Real science has indicated that many of these touchscreens are covered in bacteria if they are not cleaned regularly.

The Daily Mail has been telling us that the Yellowstone supervolcano is about to blow for nearly thirty years now at least. Maybe one day it will, but hasn't yet.

[pjc50]

> The Daily Mail has been telling us that the Yellowstone supervolcano is about to blow for nearly thirty years now at least.

That's the Daily Mail, though. They platformed Andrew Wakefield, a misrepresentation of science that has a massive body count.

A more serious question for Silicon Valley is the San Andreas fault.

[nephihaha]

I would argue that the heavy handed censorship we saw in the early 2020s fuels the likes of Andrew Wakefield though. There was plenty of cargo cult science during that period, notably the U-turn on masks (in early 2020 people were being told they were ineffective) and many others. I suspect that was down to supply and demand. There were plenty of other unscientific ideas out there, and not all from the anti-side. People respect ideas more when they come from people with power. Allowing Amazon and pizza delivery access to everyone's door was not good epidemic control by any metric. I could specify other things.

Freedom of expression is important because it is not just members of the great unwasjed who promote ridiculous "science".

Yes, I agree about San Andreas. A problem for all California.

[dsign]

> Are you serious when you connect anti-AI sentiment to anti-science sentiment?

I don’t believe that the current state of things represents peak-AI problems. AI is for now weak both in its capability and its impact, and also just new. Speculatively, if things go really bad, in a couple of decades there will be a huge swath of population without jobs nor high-flying education. They, perhaps rightly, will blame AI for the situation, but they’ll also, perhaps rightly, blame capital and the “snobbish elite” that is today and in the near future propping AI. That “snobbish elite” is well-paid engineers and researchers. That’s because people tend to like to have somebody to blame for their problems. But even without making it about bad guys, the heart of the thing that is pouring billions into AI is a relentless ethos of profit deriving from progress and disruption. You can’t stop AI without stabbing that heart.

[antonvs]

Calling current AI "weak in its capability" is very disconnected from the reality. Their capabilities in many areas and on many tasks are incredibly strong. The disconnect seems to come from completely unrealistic expectations, e.g. imagining the AI as a sort of omniscient oracle which should never make mistakes.

[FrustratedMonky]

I think he is making the point that scientist built the AI.

The whole "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should,"