Some AI papers have a finding so good you just want to quote it everywhere. But many turn out to be trash. They’ve got bad statistics, they’ve got bad methodology, they’re really sales pieces, or t…
  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    402·
    13 days ago

    Interesting. Why would more manipulative people and ones with more focus on self-interest use AI more than other people? Because they’re more likely to take shortcuts while doing stuff? Or is there any other direct benefit for them?

    • owenfromcanada@lemmy.caEnglish
      482·
      13 days ago

      I imagine there are a few reasons. An LLM is a narcissist’s dream–it will remain focused on you and tell you what you want to hear (and is always willing to be corrected).

      In addition, LLMs are easy to manipulate, and sort of mimic a person enough to give you a sense of power or authority. So if you’re the type of person who gets something from that, there’s likely a draw to that kind of person.

      Those are just guesses, though. I don’t use LLMs myself, so I don’t really know.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        102·
        13 days ago

        Thanks, that sounds reasonable. Especially the focus/attention.

        Maybe it’s the same as with other games or computer games… Some people also really get something out of fantasy achievements and when they win and feel like the main character… in a weird way…

    • sleepundertheleaves@infosec.pubEnglish
      22·
      13 days ago

      I’m just spitballing here, but I suspect it’s for the same reason people with “dark triad” traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) are more successful in business and politics than the average person.

      Dark triad types give quick, confident, and persuasive answers, and aggressively challenge anyone who disagrees with them. But they don’t actually care if the answers are true as long as they can win the debate or argument they’re having. This lets them be totally confident and persuasive in any situation - whether they know the answer or not - and so demonstrate more “leadership skills” than people who are less willing to bullshit.

      Same with policies - a dark triad type is going to confidently and aggressively support policies that make him look good or benefit him personally in other ways. He doesn’t actually care whether they are good policies or bad policies, whether they’ll be good for the organization or the people or not - the dark triad type will lie, cheat, or steal to make sure his policies look successful, get himself promoted upwards, and blame his successor for the long term failure of the policy.

      (If you were a dark triad type, you might, for example, enact policies that crash the economy and drive inflation through the roof while making yourself and your cronies incredibly rich, then cancel all the reports that track inflation, hunger, unemployment, etc, to conceal the impact of your policies, and go on a social media blitz claiming the economy is better than ever and any problems are someone else’s fault. Just as a hypothetical example.)

      I’m kind of not surprised people who care more about persuasiveness than honesty, and more about results than processes, would find AI tools appealing.

    • V0ldek@awful.systemsEnglish
      8·
      13 days ago

      My completely PIDOOMA take is that if you’re self-interested and manipulative you’re already treating most if not all people as lesser, less savvy, less smart than you. So just the fact that you can half-ass shit with a bot and declare yourself an expert in everything that doesn’t need such things like “collaboration with other people”, ew, is like a shot of cocaine into your eyeball.

      LLMs’ tone is also very bootlicking, so if you’re already narcissistic and you get a tool that tells you yes, you are just the smartest boi, well… To quote a classic, it must be like being repeatedly kicked in the head by a horse.

      • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPMEnglish
        1·
        13 days ago

        increasing number of social media responses which come across as they think they’re giving clarifying orders to a chatbot

  • self@awful.systemsEnglish
    361·
    13 days ago

    if you post a thread about intolerable dickheads, the most intolerable dickheads on Lemmy will post some shit like “intolerable dickhead checking in, how fucking dare you”

    it’s like catnip for the Reddit-brained, and by catnip I mean meth

  • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.worldEnglish
    261·
    13 days ago

    The only thing that drives me to AI is the extreme uselessness of modern search engines. This is not an endorsement of hallucination engines as much as it is a condemnation of late stage enshittification of search engines and the internet in general. I miss the days when I could google something and actually find what I was looking for.

  • Elvith Ma'for@feddit.orgEnglish
    101·
    13 days ago

    science shows as true what you thought was only 99% true

    Still a way higher accuracy than LLM output, so…

  • Dagamant@lemmy.worldEnglish
    145·
    13 days ago

    I love technology and seeing what I can and can’t get to work. I have a self hosted image generator and Lon (stable diffusion and ollama). It was fun for a little while, generating images of whatever popped in mind and using the llama for code completion, grammar checks, and rewording things. I even started working on something like that AI streamer, Neuro. It’s all garbage though. The whole stack has been relegated to sending welcome messages on a discord server. It’s a neat toy but anything past that is just adding a whole layer of inaccuracy to whatever you’re using it for and way too many people don’t realize that.

      • Devolution@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        12 days ago

        My wife uses Chat gpt constantly. She said it as a joke but she knows how I feel about AI. I detest it, refuse to use it, and am teaching my 10 year old to do things without.

      • Devolution@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        10 years ago I would have been the one who wanted AI. I love Sci fi and futuristic things. But seeing how it’s abused and the devastation it is doing to the planet? No.

        And it’s just not reliable unless I am desperate when it comes to helping my kiddo with math.

  • Wronnay@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    12 days ago

    Until this article I wasn’t sure how big the AI bubble is…

    But seeing that more than 99% of the public don’t really use AI and then comparing that to tech stocks makes me sure the bubble is just like in the 2000s

    Of course some stuff will stick just like in the 2000s but with these high valuations and 99% of people not using it, it will take a long time till break-even

  • howrar@lemmy.caBanned from communityEnglish
    04·
    13 days ago

    This got me curious about where I fall in the distribution. Checked my browser history between the start of October and today and I got 1.4%. I would’ve thought my usage would fall in the high end, but apparently, their threshold for high is over 4%. Interestingly, there’s at least one person who was above 15%.

    The paper gives an interesting definition of Machiavellianism

    Machiavellians are characterized by strategic thinking and a desire for control and influence over their environment

    This sounds like it should describe any human being that has (or is trying to get) their shit together, no? The Oxford Languages definition (and how they use it in the rest of the paper) is more in line with how I would use the word:

    cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous behavior or character.

    Also, you can’t be surprised that people come in to defend themselves when you call them unpleasant asshats. Especially so when the paper doesn’t say that. They compared high usage vs low usage individuals, not users vs non-users.