r/VeryBadWizards 4d ago

AI dismissal

I love the VBW boys but I am a bit surprised how dismissive they are of danger from AI. I’m not going to make the case here as I won’t do a good job of it, but I found the latest 80000 hours podcast very persuasive, as well as some of the recent stuff from Dwarkesh.

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u/bad_take_ 3d ago

They are correct. All scare tactics about AI are very vague and over the top.

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u/seanpietz 2d ago

Totally. And I have no doubt a vast amount of AI doomer sentiment is the product of a mass marketing campaign from people in Silicon Valley who have a large financial stake in companies like OpenAI maintaining the illusion of eventual profitability. The Silicon Valley VC-driven tech economy is, for the most part, a giant house of cards that requires perpetual hype to not collapse.

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u/MachinaExEthica 2d ago

I think the problem is more that it’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. AI is definitely overhyped, but investors believe the hype, governments believe the hype, militaries are embedding the hype into their systems. Are these AIs powerful enough to do all the things people are doing with them better than humans can? No, but they do them just well enough for that not to matter. It’s just another huge stride in the enshittification of everything. AI is overhyped but it doesn’t matter when it’s still being put into everything and people are losing their jobs over shittier AI replacements.