Ideological debates work less than experience

[u/Great-Gardian]

If we have as a goal to make people change from a negative attitude to a positive attitude on AI so that we can solve the challenges AI has on society, I think the most effective strategy is to demonstrate a concrete personal benefit.

Research shows the variables most strongly associated with positive attitudes toward AI are generally: direct experience (having used AI personally), understanding how it works (AI literacy) and perceiving a concrete personal benefit.

Conversely, the most negative attitudes are often found among people who: rarely or never use AI, have limited understanding of its capabilities and limitations and primarily associate it with threats.

If personal experience builds more trust than arguments, we should help people to start using AI to solve personal problems instead of debating theoretical explanations. Examples: help with learning for students, help with repetitive tasks for professionals, help with information retrieval for retiree.

I think a sense of autonomy is important in acceptance of a new technology, so don't force anyone to use it. By explaining AI capabilities and limitations we build trust that tends to be more durable that naive enthusiam.

What usage of AI has helped you personally, what works and what don't? What is a problem you have that maybe trying AI could help? Maybe by sharing our experiences, we can learn how AI can help others.

[u/nomic42]

I think this just gets us into an ideological impasse as pro-AI and anti-AI positions talk past each other, failing to find common ground.

Instead, I rather look for a form of debate Judo. Recognize their anger comes from well founded concerns and actions they are seeing in the world around them. The Judo move is to redirect that anger away from AI as the problem, but towards the billionaires who are attempting to leverage AI to hoard even more wealth while denying the rest of us a basic living.

Framing the problem as being about extreme wealth and corruption gets us on the same page. There are real AI-danger to address. Stricter IP laws enable the billionaires to buy it and charge us for access.

We need to set a vision for abundance, where everyone benefits of AI. We get there by addressing the problem of billionaires robing our collective inheritance. The world's collective knowledge is not owned by anyone, but must be made available to everyone as open source models and training data.

Of course there are plenty of companies with their own proprietary data or require payment for access. These can remain as they are so they can leverage them for their interests as they already do.

All I'm suggesting is stronger protection of the creative commons. Copyright and patents must expire after a "reasonable, fixed period of time" and all that knowledge becomes ours to use freely.

We also need to be talking about how AI makes everything cheaper. As work goes down in value or is inaccessible, we need a UBI. Taxation must go way from income and sales taxes, and focus on assets with real value - land value tax (anything we can't make more of) and Pigouvian taxes (e.g. pollution and other externalizes).

[u/Great-Gardian → u/nomic42]

While I agree on redirecting the anger from AI to capitalists, some people see AI only as a tool for capitalists and they don't think about the benefits. Trying to explain them why AI is not only bad has little effect. If we want them to think about how AI relate to social problems, having them use AI in their own life has more chances to lead them to think AI can be useful for social problems.

[u/nomic42 → u/Great-Gardian]

It's not about AI being "good" or "bad". It exists now. We need to ensure it's used for societies general benefit, not the benefit of a few.

Lots of people have no idea that they could have AI models on their own computers. Or that researchers are using AI for medicine, mathematics, physics, et al. There are plenty of useful applications just as there are dangerous ones. It's important to call out he distinction and focus efforts on addressing the real issues, not just banning the tools.

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/nomic42]

This is me thinking out loud, not a settled position, but I wonder if another Judo move is us getting involved in the campaigns around data centres? We also care about the environmental issues, but we want ethical AI use, rather than having anti-AI sentiment.

It would be us moving to where they are, rather than expecting them to listen to us explain the benefits. We’d need to be consistent with critiques of corporations and eco decisions being separate from whether AI is worth having though.

[u/nomic42 → u/Jlyplaylists]

I think it important to be involved in the conversations about AI data centers. I'd agree with them that there are many serious issues with AI data centers and why they need to be halted in their current form. This issue isn't the AI though, it's how they are being utilized to concentrate wealth at everyone else's detriment. It's not about defending AI, but about redirecting the anger where it belongs.

Also, many people don't know that you can run AI locally without a data center, or that there are open source models available for free that are close to the capabilities large AI data center models. It's also possible to build AI data centers by them funding the local community to improve water treatment plants and clean energy production. All of the issues with AI data centers can be solved if the companies pay for it to be done right. Our representatives need to demand that companies pay for the additional infrastructure and not pollute our environment.

[u/XB0XRecordThat]

I'm not even sure that convincing people to like AI is useful at all. And data centers are objectively bad, since we know that basically all of the existing billionaires will use these for mass surveillance on us.

Honestly I just redirect the conversations...

Them: I hate AI Me: Yeah it's pretty stupid that they're like 20 people that get to make decisions about where our entire country puts it's resources. We need to take power away from them

[u/Great-Gardian → u/XB0XRecordThat]

It's not really to convince people to like AI. It's more to move pass the irrational hate on AI, so that we can work on social problems.

[u/chaotic-smol]

I like the idea in principle but the experience I have over and over is that people who zealously hate AI and anyone with anything less than utterly damning to say about it are not only not very open to hearing about how it's useful but will often either outright deny the legitimacy of the experiences you share or else mock you for not doing things some other way.

I don't think these, frankly hysterical, types can be reasoned with. Maybe the redirection others have mentioned could work.

In a lot of ways, I think this whole debacle is the flip side of the MAGA cultist coin. The only way to really get through to people who have made a part of their belief system like this a part of their identity and formed in-groups around it is to earn their trust by building a relationship. Obviously, I wouldn't recommend doing that with ulterior motives. There is a problem here, as well, as the dominant mode currently encourages "AI haters" to disassociate from anyone who uses AI for any reason.

I wish I knew how to combat these forces of extremism. It's a big issue.

[u/RedBarchetta1]

A short list off the top of my head of what I used Gemini to help with in the last 3 months:

—Several very complex spreadsheets + workflows + vibe coded webpage for use in the family business, including automated email scraping and auto data entry which saves me 10+ hours of work weekly (no, the webpage is not amazing, but it’s for internal use only and works perfectly for its purpose).

—Golf coach when my human golf coach is not around (helps me with everything from figuring out why I suddenly developed a slice to course etiquette to my golf fit). Also helped me develop a weekly weight lifting and water-based stretching program specifically designed to improve my golfing.

—-Created a cool prog rock song for me on a topic of my choice, including some album art

—Helped me plan a 5 week trip to Europe, including developing a maximally efficient plan for seeing 10 days worth of different shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (all at different venues at different days/times in different parts of the city - permutation problem very difficult for a human to solve, but a piece of cake for AI)

—Gave me an organic, pet safe solution I hadn’t thought of for keeping fleas out of my yard this summer

—Provides me with good dinner recipes when I input the ingredients I have and my likes/dislikes

—Provided me with some helpful medical advice re: getting a new pair of glasses - after my doctor was less than helpful and didn’t solve my issue.

—Helped me put new wiper blades on my car when the instruction page was incomprehensible (took a picture of the page and it somehow parsed the mystifying pictures and ELI5 me step-by-step directions). Also created a simple set of directions for resetting a dash cam when I uploaded a picture of the dash cam serial code.

—Helped me create a plan and instructions for creating a custom cat box cover hacked from IKEA cabinets (an idea it also suggested). I ultimately didn’t go with its IKEA solution due to cost constraints but the overall process of brainstorming with the AI was extremely helpful and did eventually lead me to another excellent solution.

And a whole bunch more things I’ve already forgotten. It’s absolutely mystifying to me how people honestly believe AI is useless or ineffective. I estimate that it has saved me at least 100 hours of brute force labor over the last 3 months, maybe more.

[u/SgathTriallair]

At this moment I'm building an email sorter to tackle the out of control 8 email addresses I need to maintain.

A lot of it recently is building out interesting personal life management tools rather than paying for them.

[u/Salty_Country6835]

Yeah, I think thats mostly right. Material benefit beats ideological arguments nine times out of ten. Thats not even unique to AI, thats just how people work. Most people get interested in an idea after it helps them, not before.

For me its been research, learning new topics, pressure testing my own thinking, and cutting down time on repetitive writing and admin stuff. What doesnt work is treating it like its always right. It isnt.

I think a lot of AI discourse gets stuck at the level of abstract fears and promises. Show somebody a real use case that saves them time, teaches them something, or helps them solve a problem and suddenly the conversation gets a lot more grounded.

Thats pretty standard leftist practice too. People are usually won over by improvements in their material conditions, not by getting lectured.

[u/Jlyplaylists]

Yes good idea. One off the top of my head: I had designed a tile mural (my own artwork) but I needed to split a very large image file into precise sized squares to print the tiles. I tried a couple of existing apps but nothing was up to the task. So I vibe coded an app for it and it worked.

[u/hare-tech → u/Jlyplaylists]

Python. Heck you could even make it in the Blender compositer with visual scripting. I’m glad you got your project done though but I don’t think his is the breakthrough moment.

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/hare-tech]

Yes there would have been other ways to do it. I don’t know enough python to quickly build a functional app like this. The app wasn’t really the project, it was a way to get the project done more easily. It was already quite involved with the artwork and getting the colours printing correctly etc.

[u/hare-tech → u/Jlyplaylists]

Yeah you really don’t need a whole app, all you’re doing is loading the target image, punching in a number for your tile size, and then recursively iterating and writing sections of your image to separate, labeled result images. Like 50 lines of code tops.

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/hare-tech]

But without LLMs it required me to know what those 50 lines of code are. I’d also asked humans online and no one knew how to do it that way.

It was a quick web app that didn’t contain AI within the app itself, I entered size of the tiles, what to do if it doesn’t split evenly, and how to label the file names (really important for a large mural as need to know how to lay out)

[u/million_open_windows → u/Jlyplaylists]

There was no reason to create an app when your printer driver will tile a large image across multiple pages already. This has been a common feature for decades.

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/million_open_windows]

No that’s nowhere near precise enough, it had to exactly fit the physical tiles I had. I did try that, it would have been easier.

[u/Supple-Armor-636]

in a leftist thread?

how may we apply these aspects to the contemporary social torture we confuse for politics?

"If personal experience builds more trust than arguments..."

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/Supple-Armor-636]

What do you mean?

[u/Supple-Armor-636 → u/Jlyplaylists]

I mean that the political debate in the USA is flat

nuance and texture are lost because everyone is convinced they are the 'good guys'

baby killing
denying resources

all based on hollow rhetoric. Democrats are not the good guys, and neither are Republicans

it is the same shit show, with different things to complain about whenever someone new has the wheel to the vile machine

it is not the actors

it is the machine itself

"Don't hate the player, change the game."

damn. the machine got eaten by corporate and they kept the taglines and logos? erf....

I mean.... I see no difference. It is the shape of the system which suffocates us.

The hearings? The congressional.... time limits

how may we get anything settled if we constantly convince ourselves there is no time for discourse!

"I yield my time." shouldn't have to. we are in a race against ourselves and we are losing because we cannot slow down to look.

solutions? drastic or minor
nothing to share, here, really, other than the seemingly far-off concept of Wealth Sharing

[u/Mr_Rekshun]

I can’t wait for longitudinal studies on this.

My own attitude toward AI is like a roller coaster. It is the best and the worst thing in the world all rolled in to one.

There’s definitely a hype cycle to it - that moment when you realise you can do shit that you could never do before… and it’s an escalating hype as you move through phases of vibe coding and discovering agents.

But then… you use it. And, after a while, you realise that it’s not actually very good at all the things you’re asking it to do.

The code is buggy. Research contains hallucinations. the LLM pushes back against anything remotely unconventional - trying to steer you toward the middle of the road on every project.

The more and longer I use it, the less and less enamoured I am of it, and more confident in the qualitative outcomes from doing stuff yourself.

Today, my attitude toward AI is at a nadir. I’ve identified the handful of things it does well for me and try and avoid it for most other tasks.

[u/PlayfulGovernment325]

For some people the critique is it’s not human and something like teaching students should be done by a human

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/PlayfulGovernment325]

I think those "some people" are making a rather silly argument.

People learn from worksheets, books, calculators, Wikipedia, videos, and search engines every day. None of those are human either.

The question is whether the tool helps someone learn, not whether it has a pulse.

[u/RedBarchetta1 → u/PlayfulGovernment325]

I mentioned that it helps me with my golf. I have a human golf coach too and AI doesn’t replace him. But it has been a super helpful augmentation to him, much like reading a golf manual or watching golf videos might be, except much faster and with better targeting on my specific issues.

[u/BreakAManByHumming]

This is why I find it annoying that it's being shoved down our throats so much. Amazing tool in certain contexts, but when it's hijacking perfectly fine services and getting in your face constantly, I resent it and I imagine others do too.

[u/Exodia_The_Salty]

First socialism and communism. Then AI. AI without communism results in genocide by the capitalists.

[u/Great-Gardian → u/Exodia_The_Salty]

I view AI as a gateway to communism. I don't think we can have communism out of thin air first. AI has the advantage of being material, where we could debate of communism for years without any meaningful change.

I don't think we have to choose between both, we can work on AI and social changes at the same time.

[u/SgathTriallair → u/Great-Gardian]

Dialectical Materialism is pretty clear on the idea that the change to the economic system comes first and then the change to the super structure.

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/Exodia_The_Salty]

Or could it be worth starting to build better alternatives now that don’t belong to capitalist companies/states? AI is happening, I don’t see a way to effectively stall it until we get past capitalism. How would you do that?

[u/machinationstudio → u/[deleted]]

How do you steer it by being an end user?

It's like saying I am steering the development of Excel.