Comment by saulpw
8 days ago
Thank you, I feel similarly. We've become gods of computing through global-scale invention, production, supply-chains, and finance, and we're apparently going to use that power to "improve productivity" which in the best case means cheaper apps that make people more money. I've not heard a single actual use-case for the modern AI/LLM that helps us with our actual national and global problems.
That is because those problems aren’t being fixed not because they are not technically fixable, but because as a society we would need to agree on what ‘fixed’ means.
And that triggers the culture war, because Urban/Rural and other major factions have wildly different experiences, incentives, and goals on these fronts. And anyone trying to tackle those real problems who is noticed by one side or the other will inevitably get attacked.
And rather than sit down and really consider what we (as a nation!) want overall, make compromises, and agree to work together, we’d rather sit in our comfortable air conditioned places and stab each other in the back over the internet - or just check out into a comfortable bubble.
And unfortunately that means that the real problems are escalating.
I mean there are plenty of people using AI/LLMs to help with the actual problems, but it's about the same level of proportionality of people generally speaking working on those problems (vs. against or mostly just indifferent). So thus most of AI/LLM use is not in those areas, sadly.