I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of pro-AI posts on this platform.
Various posts with titles similar to “When will people stop being afraid of AI” or “Can we please acknowledge AI was very needed for X”
Can’t tell if its the propaganda machine invading, or annoying teenage tech-bros who are detached from reality.
This might be a bit of a hot take, but I don’t really see anything inherently wrong with this. The scientists and engineers will continue doing their serious work regardless of public opinion, and while some of them may have tangentially benefited from from increased interest and funding in the field, most of it is going to these corporate LLM models which are taking up all the oxygen in the room.
That’s a bubble that needs to burst. I think it’s more important to keep public sentiment rightfully focused in that direction. Let’s face it, you’re really not going to be able to educate the general public on these nuances. The field at large will persist regardless.
If you don’t differentiate and keep the two in the same pot you won’t be able to fund research into the useful stuff. It’s true that consumer hype and research funding decisions are not the same, but they may be indirectly linked. A public fund may fear public outrage if it continues funding X millions of AI projects even if they’re not LLM related.
So the reputation damage may affects viable, net positive applications.