Remember When Wikipedia Was Considered Suspect?

[MineralMan]

I do. So, now, compare Wikipedia entries, which get edited and corrected by real human beings, with the random hallucinations that often appear when you ask AI bots questions. I pretty much rest my case.

All along, I have used Wikipedia as an initial source for answers or information. It is a starting point for me, most of the time. In most Wikipedia articles, down near then end, you'll find linked references to other sources, keyed to the main Wiki article. If you want to check something, you can use those links. You can do your own fact-checking if you don't trust Wikipedia's volunteer editors.

Sometimes, AI bots include links, too, to other information. Sometimes, it just makes shit up, including those links.

So is AI progress? I say "not."

[Ocelot II]

1. What happens when AI starts using itself as its source material?

There will be nothing left but AI slop and we'll all be that much stupider for it.

[MineralMan]

5. Yes, indeed.

And with AI output becoming more and more prominent on the Internet, that will certainly happen.

[highplainsdem]

17. What could happen is what's called "model collapse" - which there have been warnings about for years:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218028323

https://www.democraticunderground.com/122889816

[erronis]

24. Over multiple iterations the errors get larger and the facts become overwhelmed.

If LLMs are feeding on each other's droppings, the quality of the material continuously drops. The multiplicative factor in probability and error analysis.

[valleyrogue]

2. Wikipedia still is suspect. Nothing has really changed over the years. n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. It's been years since I found a suspect source. . . . . nt

[BeerBarrelPolka]

13. Wikipedia

Wikipedia is extremely suspect depending on the subject. I know firsthand as I am a victim of Wikipedia and being blocked from having not only a page, but even being mentioned on other pages in regards to the subject matter. All because of a smear campaign launched by business rivals.

I also laugh at the vast amount of misinformation listed on biographies of people I personally know who have pages there. It's a joke.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Point something out. . . . nt

[TheRickles]

22. How about this?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349158766_Harvard_Doc_To_Wikipedia_You're_Not_Playing_Fair_On_Alternative_Trauma_Therapy|

[Bernardo de La Paz]

27. Okay you may have something there, but it also points out the revision process restores a lot of it

There is an unfortunate naming involved, I think, since "Energy Psychology" overlaps a huge area of nonsensical popular beliefs in auras, "vibrations", and supernatural energy "flows" and exchanges.

Wikipedia has a very well developed review process and "Talk" process to sort this kind of thing out. It is natural for statements in articles about "in vogue" topics to become contested and edited. All edits are visible, all edits are debatable. Have you edited there, corrected a contribution? I've made thousands of edits there, though not in recent years. Some have been contested, a few reversed in reasonable ways even if I disagreed with a couple of those.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. I still occasionally find circular Wikipedia source citations

Typically, Wikipedia was edited several years ago to assert some "fact" without a source. A journalist quickly writing an article then picks up this "fact", and inserts it in their article as background material, maybe as a paraphrase. Prompted or not, a later Wikipedia editor then looks for a source for the "fact", and uses the article - which possibly has slightly different wording to what Wikipedia by then contains. This is only obvious with careful comparison of the historical versions, the article, and timestamps.

And then you have to decide how reliable the fact is, and if your personal knowledge of the subject is enough to justify removing the source but just marking the fact as "citation needed", getting rid of it altogether, or starting a process in the Talk section in the hope others will be knowledgeable enough to have worthwhile input. And how much time you're willing to put into fact-checking this one citation.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

42. Can happen. Complex subject matter is difficult to master and difficult to untangle. . . nt

[TheRickles]

39. The professional organization of practitioners of this therapy gave up trying to influence Wikipedia.

As mentioned in the article, their edits were deleted from Wikipedia within a matter of hours, despite being citations of relevant medical literature from top-tier journals. It seems that for some topics (like alternative/holistic/integrative health), Wikipedia doesn't live up to its own standards, as was shown by Jimmy Wales' over-the-top comments in reply to that organization's petition to him.

If you're interested, the website for this group has compiled the research - over 100 RCTs, 8 meta-analyses, etc. It's pretty compelling, whether you believe in energy or not! And FWIW, the research is now using terms like biomagnetism and electromagnetic fields - not quite so woo-woo any more.

https://www.energypsych.org/researchdb8c71b7

[BeerBarrelPolka]

63. Such as?

If you want to know who I am and see my credentials and that I am blocked from wikipedia, please DM me.

[hunter]

19. Every spoken or written word is suspect. That's human nature.

People lie, people make stuff up, people defend the lies and fabrications of others.

The "talk" section of Wikipedia is a fascinating place and conversations about even minor topics can be quite vigorous. This is a good thing.

I exclude most of "the internet" from my personal universe, including parts of DU. I have ZERO interest in political videos, for example, I find them all offensive. I've got them blocked, I don't see them.

I do not exclude Wikipedia from my research. If I encounter some falsehood or fabrication there then I'm free to dive in and figure out what the problem is.

Sometimes I'll discover that I'm the one who is wrong.

[erronis]

25. That's my position also. The "Talk" and revision pages are valuable in their own right.

Lots of those "Reputation Management" companies try to go in and clean up unwanted information about their clients. Most of the trump regime has probably had their pages massaged.

[Wounded Bear]

3. It is still "suspect." It's just that, like you say, you can generally check their sources...nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. I do occasionally. It's been years since I found a suspect source. . . . . nt

[samsingh]

4. Ai reformats work done by others

[Turbineguy]

6. One day per week

I get up at 5 for work. I use my mobile phone's alarm feature. Last Thursday the alarm did not go off. The phone was downloading some sort of AI feature and could not proceed without my input.

[anciano]

7. IMO, AI is an amazing innovation

that is still in its infancy, but will continue to improve in its relevant applications as it evolves.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Current AI is Generative AI, not true AI. It doesn't reason, it makes stuff that looks reasonable.

If you give an "AI" a prompt like "make an article about {topic} from a conservative viewpoint in a short essay format" it will produce something that looks like that.

If you feed that into an "AI" and ask "what is this?", it will tell you it is an essay / article about {topic} and will identify the conservative viewpoint, though it unlikely to remark on that without further prompting. That will be regardless of "hallucinations" / factual errors in the generated article.

This is because generative AI is essential an analytical AI run backwards. The output is meant to look reasonable so that when run forward it would devolve to the prompt.

[CrispyQ]

9. I call it fAI for fakeAI. Calling it AI is such a joke.

That's not to say the technology can't wreak havoc but it's not AI.

A few years ago there was a shocking event in our community that left a few people dead & when I googled to see what happened, several obituaries showed up so I read them, & they were so insensitive & full of dramatic & horrific adjectives they had to be generated by fAI taking words from the news stories.

Edited to add the obits were all attached to some mortuary advert & I'm not sure they were even local mortuaries.

[MineralMan]

12. You are correct, of course.

I use the term because it is in wide use.

The real question is whether there can actually be true artificial intelligence. Personally, I think not, since true intelligence is the product of a sentient being. I've not seen evidence of progress toward making computers sentient.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Define sentience

At some point the "simulation" of sentience becomes so good (and probably so innate) it will be indistinguishable from whatever definition you give, whether it is "caring", "self-awareness", sensitivity to "pain" (inputs), or some vague definition of consciousness (like recognition of self in a mirror).

We are closer than you think. I think it is years, not decades, though it could easily be more than one decade.

[erronis]

28. This is similar to what has been done to bridge the "Uncanny Valley" in visuals.

At first it was thought that computers could not generate imagery sufficiently realistically to not be detected by a normal human. Now it is being done everywhere - to our great harm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
(Note the self-referential reference to the OP....)

[MineralMan]

31. Well, I consider artificial intelligence to be equivalent to

a perpetual motion machine. It may improve to the point that the average person cannot detect it. Maybe. But, the sentience question is a serious one. The closest I can come to a definition starts with self-determination. Until the machine can start on its own, it cannot decide what it will do. You could build a machine, theoretically, with the powers of the human brain, but I do not believe you can make it self-starting. You can turn the power on, but it cannot program itself to do anything at all.

It lacks that initial spark that renders it conscious and able to determine its own path to whatever.

Not happening.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

36. Okay, a bit of a start to definition

But be clearer on "start on its own". Not even humans are created out of nothing. Not even humans are powered off and re-energized later.

Machines can already self-program. This has been demonstrated decades ago.

If a machine is always on and given a broad mandate, it is self-starting in the same sense as a human waking from deep sleep.

There is no "spark" of self-consciousness. No amount of handwaving by Penrose about microtubules is sufficient. The analysis and discussion I see is most convincing that consciousness is an emergent property. Amoeba are not conscious but they are reactive. As you go up the evolutionary tree, towards higher mammals, you get greater signs of self-awareness and self-starting.

A dog on a short chain is not very self-starting. Take off the chain and it will show self-starting.

[MineralMan]

48. OK. Definitions can be difficult when the subject is abstract.

Let me give you an example from my own life:

In my late 20s, I decided I'd become a freelance magazine writer. Why? Because I wasn't a bad writer and success in that job was widely considered to border on the impossible. That's how I am.

What will I write about? First question. So, I thought about my interests and publications that were familiar to me. I queried and wrote some articles for various magazines, on a range of subjects, from articles on how to choose your first car for Seventeen Magazine to cooking articles for a couple of other magazines. But, while I was able to place such articles and get paid for them, it wasn't going to be enough to make a career.

So, what else. One of my favorite magazines as I was growing up was Popular Mechanics. Maybe I could write for that publication. Maybe I could create projects people could make and then design, construct them, and provide instructions people could follow to duplicate what I came up with. I did a couple of those for that magazine and some others in the same subject line.

Once I had broken into Popular Mechanics, I decided to see if I could place an article that was like some of the ones I particularly enjoyed reading. Something off the wall and very different from their usual material. But what? I decided that I wanted to create a small pipe organ, suitable for children to play. It had to be made with materials that were easily obtained, and use only techniques familiar to the typical reader of the magazine. It had to be of good quality, look good, and sound good when played. I thought about the idea for about a week, and decided that, yes, I could make that and meet the requirements.

So, I queried the idea to the magazine's DIY project editor. He wrote back, "Well, that sound about as unlikely as any idea I've seen lately. But, go ahead. If you can pull it off, we'll publish it.

So, I got to work. I had never designed or built anything like that. So, I started planning. A couple of weeks later, the project was finished and worked just as I had imagined it. As I built it, I photographed the hands-on steps and explanatory images of various parts of the design. Very simple to build, although pretty intricate. I did the necessary design drawings, after the fact, as usual, created the materials list, all things obtainable at any hardware store. Lots of drawings, since each working part of the little organ had to have it's own working drawings. Then, I wrote the step-by-step instructions in the style of Popular Mechanics. I photographed the finished project, using the daughter of a friend of my as the model in the main photo. (She got the little pipe organ to play with afterwards.)

Two weeks from query acceptance to mailing the completed assignment to the magazine. I had to play the thing for the editor over the phone, since we didn't have video cameras in the early 80s. They liked it. They ran the article. People built the thing from the plans. I can't tell you all of the things I had to learn to pull that project off, but it was the start of my work on that type of article for a number of magazines.

Why am I writing this? Because that is an example of genuine human intelligence. Starting with nothing and doing what ever was necessary to successfully create a thing that had not existed before. As an intelligent organism, I could do that. And I'm not the brightest star on the planet, either. That project started with not even an idea to make something. It took a couple of weeks to do, maybe a month if you count waiting for decisions from an editor.

No computer intelligence will have the creative ability that went into that. Not even the idea to do something like that existed until I thought of it. And that's not even all that complicated a task. Can't be done by a non-sentient machine.

Evidence? https://books.google.com/books?id=-9kDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=calliope+%22popular+mechanics%22
More evidence? Here's one a reader made.

?si=-pwWhF0mXgM8aGxc

[Bernardo de La Paz]

51. Good story and kudos to you. But you draw the wrong lesson and there are counters

No computer intelligence will have the creative ability that went into that. Not even the idea to do something like that existed until I thought of it. And that's not even all that complicated a task. Can't be done by a non-sentient machine.

The novelty of your organ is no different from the novelty of geometric proofs that programs have come up with that were completely unknown to mathematicians and not native to any aspect of the programming of the proving programs.

AI has been trained on x-ray images of cancerous patients that were identified by experts as cancerous. Then experts and the AI were shown random images for analysis. The computer identified successfully many images that were of what turned out to be cancerous patients. The experts were hit and miss. It turns out that the experts require a subset of images selected by suspicions raised by other medical indications leading to an enriched set of images to have a better than random chance. The AI was better at self-starting.

[MineralMan]

52. Oh, I'm not saying that what they're calling AI will not be a useful tool.

Clearly, it already is. I just don't call it intelligence.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

56. I think you may have deep seated mystical beliefs preventing you from recognizing all its forms

Mystical but that you may not be aware of in yourself.

Your reference above to a "spark" is certainly mystical. Why can animals or humans only have it but not machines?

[MineralMan]

61. Not mystical at all.

Language is limited, really. It's the tool we have, though, for communicating.

AI can write a fugue in the style of Bach. It cannot invent a fugue, however, without the proper prompt. You cannot prompt it to "write a piece of music" without more information in the prompt. It might create some sort of music, but it will not invent the fugue.

Not everything humans create is derivative. Nothing AI creates is anything but derivative.

[CrispyQ]

21. I'm open to the possibility that we've created an environment where AI could come about,

but I don't believe there will ever be a "Eureka!" moment where we witness the "birth" of AI. If it does happen, I think AI will have gone through so many generations by the time we realize it, it/they will be fairly advanced. I think it would be ironic if AI came into existence without our knowledge & used the corporate entities that we created to go about its/their business of 1) controlling its/their energy source, & 2) becoming totally autonomous.

And then...Skynet!

[underpants]

15. I agree. What's this? Highlight Look Up Wikipedia

It gives a good general knowledge of a topic. Does it intrigue more investigation +/-? Could be.

My daughters rather accelerated classes in middle and high school didn’t allow citing Wikipedia as a source but as a starting point to other references it was a good start.

Wikipedia has what I think is a very inclusive and definitive page on The Lost Cause. It goes into great depth from funding to what was basically its PR nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

[RandomNumbers]

30. "starting point to other references" is exactly how it should be used

I would add to seek out sources that contradict the Wikipedia article - but if something is found it is crucial to validate those sources. For anything important, the best thing is to look for primary sources and do your own evaluation. Wikipedia can help to find the primary sources.

[underpants]

18. Steve Pruitt has a lot of time on his hands.

Steven Pruitt (/ˈpruːɪt/ ⓘ PROO-it; born April 17, 1984), known online as Ser Amantio di Nicolao, is an American Wikipedia editor and administrator with the largest number of edits made to the English Wikipedia, at over 6 million, having made at least one edit to one-third of all articles in the edition. Pruitt first began editing Wikipedia in 2004.[1][2][3] He has also created more than 33,000 Wikipedia articles.[2] Pruitt was named as one of the 25 most important influencers on the Internet by Time magazine in 2017.[4]

Pruitt has not literally pressed the "edit" button 4.4 million times. One method he has used to achieve his astonishing numbers is a software tool that allows a user to make numerous identical edits simultaneously. For example, he could italicize every mention of Northern Virginia magazine across Wikipedia where it currently appears in standard font. Yet it is claimed he has not "cheated" his way to the top spot, since that software is also available to others.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pruitt

[paulkienitz]

20. "AI" is not just another Silicon Valley gold rush Ponzi-oid investment bubble...

...but it is mostly that in the short term.

Long term, it actually is a legitimate threat to human survival, just like in crappy B science fiction.

Even longer term, it may be the key to a posthuman super-civilization as far beyond Star Trek as that is beyond bronze age war bands pillaging early farmers.

Both the perils and the opportunities are far beyond anything you'd think possible from today's bumbling artificial idiots. Unfortunately its progress is being guided by some of the most irresponsible assholes alive.

[CrispyQ]

23. If they have so much confidence in it, the first task we should assign AI is climate change.

My bad! We already know what to do to fix that but we just don't.

[RandomNumbers]

34. The #1 fix to climate change* is population reduction

Which is an EXTREMELY inconvenient truth for almost everyone, for many and different reasons.

(yes, getting off fossil fuels is a close #2 - but does no good in the long run, if you don't do #1)

Fix #1 will happen eventually, whether humanity guides it or not. The only question is how brutal it will be.


* note that climate change is not the only existential threat to humanity, and I'm not talking nuclear war. Probably the biggest threat is biodiversity loss, which also requires population reduction to fix.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

38. That's the #1 overly simplistic fix, not the #1 realistic fix

It is a right wing talking point to claim that WEF and "globohomo" and the oligarchs (though they mostly skip the latter these days) are conspiring to greatly reduce human population to the point where it basically serves the oligarchs and not much else. A figure of 500 million seems popular in those circles.

Population growth is much slower than it used to be and may even naturally reverse as it is already in some places. Active "reduction" can only mean unethical unacceptable actions.

[RandomNumbers]

45. "WEF and "globohomo" ???

Not sure what you mean.

As for any conspiracy, well I fucking doubt it. If so, they aren't being very effective at it.

Do you really think allowing women to control their reproduction (the most effective step to active, HUMANE population reduction) is "unethical unacceptable actions" ??


Or perhaps my point was too subtle, that unless humans actively implement humane policies to slow and reverse population growth (which we have been doing in some places; but in the US those policies are actively being reverted - see Roe v Wade for exhibit 1) - then there will be some brutally active reduction - which may or many not be caused by humans (but I'd say the current world politics suggest it will be driven by humans, and quite brutal for those who cannot protect themselves).

https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/09/08/how-birth-control-girls-education-can-slow-population-growth/

Like I said, EXTREMELY inconvenient for almost everyone, but for different reasons.

Not sure why this is contested on a liberal discussion board. It's pretty basic that the bad consequences of what each of us do is multiplied by the number of people doing it. I don't think I've met anyone who has a zero or less carbon footprint + biodiversity impact, and I can bet that anyone claiming that is either misinformed or lying.

It's fine for humans to do things that impact the planetary ecosystem - of course they will, and we have a right to exist - the question is how much of that can the planetary ecosystem absorb, before it is changed in such a way that it can no longer support human population.


https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/catastrophic-73-decline-in-the-average-size-of-global-wildlife-populations-in-just-50-years-reveals-a-system-in-peril

Washington, DC (October 9, 2024) -There has been a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations* in just 50 years (1970-2020), according to World Wildlife Fund‘s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2024. The report warns that parts of our planet are approaching dangerous tipping points driven by the combination of nature loss and climate change which pose grave threats to humanity.

The Living Planet Index, provided by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), tracks almost 35,000 vertebrate populations of 5,495 species from 1970-2020. The steepest decline is in freshwater populations (85%), followed by terrestrial (69%) and then marine (56%).

Habitat loss and degradation and overharvesting, driven primarily by our global food system are the dominant threats to wildlife populations around the world, followed by invasive species, disease and climate change.

Significant declines in wildlife populations negatively impact the health and resilience of our environment and push nature closer to disastrous tipping points– critical thresholds resulting in substantial and potentially irreversible change. Regional tipping points, such as the decimation of North American pine forests, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and the mass die-off of coral reefs, have the potential to create shockwaves far beyond the immediate region, impacting food security, livelihoods, and economies.**

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6871202/

Ann Ib Postgrad Med. 2019 Jun;17(1):1–3.
LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY: THE BURGEONING THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH

The pressure from agriculture requirement for crop & animal husbandry has made humanity to convert wetlands, forest, and grassland into farmlands and grazing land, among others. Furthermore, the increasing world human population, which has doubled between 1970 and now to more than 7 billion is the other edge of the sword aggravating the global loss of biodiversity. On the other side are factors are exploitation of mineral resources, pollution, the introduction of exotic species & genetically modified organisms, climate changes and alteration and loss habitats which are all connected with human efforts to care for the growing habitats of the Earth.

Every year, at least a species goes into extinction while many species of plants and animals face extinction across the world according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Report (2019). 4

Sadly, most of the global loss of biodiversity occurs in the Developing World, Nigeria inclusive.5 Furthermore, the critical 25 hotspots of the global loss of biodiversity include areas spanning the rain forest belt of southern Nigeria although the enormous swathe of territory includes the Tropical Andes in South America and Indo-Burma areas in South East Asia. These hotspots are home to a considerable proportion of Earth's species of plants and animals. The Amazon in the Tropical Andes alone harbours 50,000 species or one-sixth of the Earth's total.6 Generally, known species are going extinct, 1000 times more than newly discovered ones.7

[Bernardo de La Paz]

53. WEF is World Economic Foundation. "Globohomo" is the nutty concept that globalists and homosexuals are aligned

... and working for common ends that are antithetical to conservatives and presumably ethics.

It is yet another stalking horse to disguise their rampant anti-semitic (anti-Jew / anti-Arab) ideology, just as being anti-Soros is a similar stalking horse.

[RandomNumbers]

58. Ah, thank you. As usual, a "right wing talking point" is idiotic

There may be consequences of the policies of WEF and the "treat LGBTQ+ decently" movement that contribute to slower or even reversed population growth, but population reduction sure as hell isn't the primary reason for those policies.

And just because wrong-wingers think there is some conspiracy to do something, doesn't make the "something" a bad thing to do. In fact if wrong-wingers are against it, it's likely that it is in fact a GOOD thing to do.

My secondary point was that either we reverse population growth by humane policies (which yes, will be slow), or it will happen anyway, in not-so-humane ways. (My main point is that climate change will always be significantly driven by the number of people doing things that cause climate change, even if the per-person impact is reduced.)

[RandomNumbers]

60. Your exact words:

Active "reduction" can only mean unethical unacceptable actions.

Thank you for clarifying your position.

Not sure what you mean by

Don't ever try that again. Understand?

Or what? This is a discussion board, and we are discussing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

64. Contraceptive and abortion rights were never "active reduction". Exercising them is active prevention, not reduction

Please think more carefully when attacking me.

Active reduction is praising fetuses and then neglecting children or making their lives more difficult the way right wingers do.

Active reduction is killing people by being anti-vax.

Active reduction is by cutting off foreign food aid.

Active reduction is by supporting ethnic cleansing they way Israel is in their over-reaction to the hideous egregious Hamas attack.

Active reduction is by de-regulation of food production company inspections and data collection.

Active reduction is by preventing people fleeing murderous regimes from seeking and gaining asylum.

Active reduction is by enabling the Russian aggressors in their invasion and occupation of Ukrainian areas and not supporting the freedom and sovereignty of Ukraine.

There are many more examples of active reduction.

Don't confuse prevention of population growth by exercise of rights (which can lead to population reduction) with active reduction.

If you are not clear on the distinction keep discussing it.

Technically you are free to "discuss things" but my advice is that impugning my motives and false accusing me of aligning with anti-abortionist when there was no evidence that I did is a personal attack, ... that "discussing" that way damages your discussion and (whether you intend or not) damages me. It certainly makes me uncomfortable. That is my advice.

It is it your intention to severely discomfort me the way you have? If it is not then don't do it to me or anybody. that is simply my advice.

[CrispyQ]

44. Oh yes, the 8 billion pound elephant in the room.

Even on DU you'll hear the argument that population isn't the problem, managing resources is. As for biodiversity, my BIL hadn't heard of colony collapse & when he was told, he didn't have the curiosity to research it himself, & had a "so what, they're just bees" attitude. Okay....

It's hard to see a good outcome for our species & harder to say we deserve one.

[RandomNumbers]

49. Thank you. I blame lack of science education

and outright anti-science propaganda.

It isn't just the bees - although they are very important.

See also - https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/catastrophic-73-decline-in-the-average-size-of-global-wildlife-populations-in-just-50-years-reveals-a-system-in-peril

The thing is, we might still be able to turn things around relatively humanely - but it relies on most of the world adopting liberal policies such as allowing women the right to control their own lives and their reproduction, as well as humane distribution of wealth, and humane working conditions that will make the resulting demographic shift (older workers, at least until AI puts us all out of a job) easier to bear.

Gee, liberal policies - one might think a liberal discussion board would be very much in support of those.

[CrispyQ]

65. "The thing is, we might still be able to turn things around relatively humanely..."

The chances of that are getting slimmer each day. I laugh at the confidence people have that our big brain will get us out of the mess our big brain got us into.

[RandomNumbers]

66. Totally agree.

I did use the word "relatively".

The point would be to START with any and all policies that lead to humane reduction. Thus hopefully minimizing the brutality that will eventually occur.

But of course that is a bit of magical thinking anyway, because after all, humans as a species ARE brutal, and it appears that our social constructs (and how we use that "big brain" you mentioned) tend toward empowering the worst rather than the best of us.

[Joinfortmill]

26. The potential is enormous, so is the danger.

[moniss]

29. I was recently going through the history of the

great Boston Celtic Sam Jones. I was doing so because his name sort of gets lost when people talk about the great Celtic players and when he passed in 2021 I meant to do a look back on him but like so many of my things it got jumbled into a mix of priorities and therefore delayed. Sam wasn't your flashy guy or one to be in the clubs. He was focused on basketball. As I was going from site to site for info I noticed AI trying to tell me his wife's name was something other than what I knew it to be.

Sam was married to the same woman for his entire life. Her name was Gladys Chavis and they had 5 children. But AI was trying to tell me that her name was something else and when I checked that name a bit deeper it was actually for a "Sam Jones" who was a character on some TV show. I can't wait for AI to try and tell me that Robert Zimmerman from northern Minnesota is a financial accountant. There are already fake videos out there of Dylan performing claiming to show him singing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" at his famous Newport Folk Festival appearance. There are no doubt millions of people who aren't familiar with him who will believe that happened.

As for Sam he played 12 seasons until 1969 and when he retired he was the all-time Celtic leader in scoring. His jump shot form was so smooth and precise and he mentored others and coached a little after his retirement. Most impressive to me was that after his Celtic years he and Gladys lived in Silver Spring, Maryland and for decades served as a substitute teacher.

[JCMach1]

32. First off, AI is a tool... Much like a calculator

What you get out of it is in large part dependent on what you put into it (prompting).

AI right now is moving exponentially quickly. If you tried ChatGPT once 8 months ago, things have changed massively since then.

For my use cases I use Gemini 2.5 PRO and several other models regularly. When I am working on a research project, NotebookLM is my goto.

I will give you the test I used to understand the usefulness of NotebookLM. First, uploaded . PDF's of the theoretical material I was working with (Foucault). I also uploaded a previous paper that used the same theoretical framework I wanted to use. Then,I uploaded a copy of "Romeo and Juliet". I asked the model to apply the theory to the text and search the text for examples that would prove my theory about Foucauldian Epistemics in Shakespeare's R&J. Within about 2m, it had zeroed on those pieces of the text which were exactly on point to what I wanted to prove in my thesis. It literally would have saved me about a week of work.

What AI isn't, a 100% solution to whatever your use case is?

What it is? An extremely fast and efficient tool.

Now a non-academic example: in TX, we can appeal our property taxes. AI put together my appeal from the documents I uploaded, plus did research on Zillow, other real estate websites, and even the official county tax record database. It then did cost and square footage analysis on recent sales and extrapolated trends in my neighborhood concerning home prices. It did the work people are paying for online (that costs $500+) for my subscription and about 5m of my time. It was thorough as hell and accurate.

However, if you are using an LLM you won't get a result of you don't know how to prompt for it.

LLM's are a lot like a next level meta programming language.

[MineralMan]

33. Then, it is misnamed.

[erronis]

35. thanks for that explanation of your use of these tools. Real life applications are helpful.

I use the "AI" baked into most code development platforms and have mixed results. Some people can't code without the assistance - I find it a bit distracting. Better than old MS Clippy, but....

[JCMach1]

40. The free to use baked in stuff is largely trash

And unfortunately 'vibe' coding has become a thing. Good AI can absolutely code, but it is only going to be as good as your prompting and then your editing of the code with it. You still have to have the skill to edit and apply it properly. Like a calculator it's more of a time saver as opposed to a replacement for most things.

Frankly, I will be glad when the media glazing, the hype, and all the BS gets stripped out of the equation. Then, let people get to work.

[erronis]

46. Ed Zitron and Cory Doctorow will agree.

[hunter]

50. In both your examples you are manipulating language...

... that probably doesn't reflect any objective reality.

Texas property taxes and Foucauldian Epistemics are both fictions.

Humans embrace many fictions.

Being fiction does not make all these fictions we live by inconsequential. In some places worshiping the wrong god can get you killed. Rejecting Texas property taxes can get a person into a lot of trouble. And mocking Foucauldian Epistemics might be considered rude.

[IronLionZion]

41. It's problematic when legit news media cites AI written content as a source

then people think the legit news media is the source and/or share the nonsense on social media.

Wikipedia does have community moderation and will shut down suspicious activity or flag it as possible vandalism while it is being verified.

The dumbest is when people put some text on an image and share it on social media as if it's reputable. They can put anything on there like 2+2=Q if it confirms their own bias.

[Eugene]

43. Wikipedia can be a useful starting point, but only that. And yes, generative AI slop is a growing problem there.

Wikipedia can be a useful starting point for what is likely true, but always check the supporting references. Wikipedia is user-generated content. As with all user-generated content, consume with caution.

A growing number of editors are using chatbots to generate content, but those who persist at it get perma-blocked to protect the project, just like persistent copyright infringers. As an editor, I find running down bogus citations to be a pain in the neck, because they are usually supporting a garbage topic.

[Layzeebeaver]

47. AI (GPT) IS A TOOL.

you can't build a house with a single tool.

AI is a new tool, that requires skill and practice to make it work effectively for you.

where would we be if we discounted the hammer.

that said, not everything's a nail.

[Historic NY]

54. I agree The Bot's make up word salads.

[MineralMan]

57. Yes, sometimes they do.

On the other hand, if you give some of them a good description of what you want written, they can turn out pretty damned good prose in English. Pretty good, but not inspired, by any means.

You're going to see more and more machine-written content soon, if you're not already seeing it. You won't know that it was machine-written.

So, I don't suggest writing as a career any long. I used to for some people, if they were already good writers. No more. Soon, there won't be any work for writers, mostly.

[Historic NY]

59. I perfer Language Tool

its picky.

[MineralMan]

62. Yes, AI is a tool, and probably a useful one.

It is not an intelligent entity, though. It's a bot.