Discussion Should there be referendums on whether or not developing and implementing AI further?

[noname223]

I think we in Germany don't have much impact on this development though. We could only regulate the implementation. This could be detrimental on our economy though. I am not sure how the people would decide.

I think if there was a referendum in favor of stopping the development of AI there had to be international treaties.

I read a culturally pessimistic analysis of the current state of the world. And the author criticized that noone asks the population whether or not they actually want AI. Technological "progress" isn't questioned. Per se it has to be good because there is hope for economical growth. Though, AI could change the way we live fundamentally. And our economy would transform. And if you don't welcome that you are considered outdated and a neanderthal.

What do you think?

 

[mushi_tamago]

I think we in Germany don't have much impact on this development though. We could only regulate the implementation. This could be detrimental on our economy though. I am not sure how the people would decide.

I think if there was a referendum in favor of stopping the development of AI there had to be international treaties.

I read a culturally pessimistic analysis of the current state of the world. And the author criticized that noone asks the population whether or not they actually want AI. Technological "progress" isn't questioned. Per se it has to be good because there is hope for economical growth. Though, AI could change the way we live fundamentally. And our economy would transform. And if you don't welcome that you are considered outdated and a neanderthal.

What do you think?

I think there should be regulation.

AI as we know it currently (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) is mostly a very sophisticated autocomplete, an LLM. But its good at producing an average or boilerplate template of how something is written. Of course, each company tweaks it to favor certain ways of speaking over others (and creates AI psychosis, an awful thing).

But there are multiple types of AI and even the term itself isn't really liked by its creator, John McCarthy. Tech journalist & MIT CS graduate Karen Hao even stated that its not an accurate term.

But there are some AIs being developed ofr things like therapy but they are not accessible to the general public because, of course, its a huge undertaking to make any LLM respond in a way a trained therapist would.

AI could be useful for mathematics, processing large amounts of data for scientific studies etc. But the push for that isn't there, unless we're talking about things like Palantir, which honestly are horrible. Why use an AI for warfare? Can you trust that it will win a war? What if it misfires at something and makes things worse, who is responsible.

But as it stands its just an even fancier algorithm machine that spews out slop and ads. And eats tones of energy and water.

It can be good but I hate what is actually IS.

 

[lucycelestia]

I think we in Germany don't have much impact on this development though. We could only regulate the implementation. This could be detrimental on our economy though. I am not sure how the people would decide.

I think if there was a referendum in favor of stopping the development of AI there had to be international treaties.

I read a culturally pessimistic analysis of the current state of the world. And the author criticized that noone asks the population whether or not they actually want AI. Technological "progress" isn't questioned. Per se it has to be good because there is hope for economical growth. Though, AI could change the way we live fundamentally. And our economy would transform. And if you don't welcome that you are considered outdated and a neanderthal.

What do you think?

I don't think it would hurt the economy much to suspend development or implementation of AI technologies, I haven't read much about it but as far as I can tell they so far have not made a meaningful positive impact in the economy at all. What would probably be a good idea is to prevent economic bubbles from forming somehow, as that is the one actual effect AI can have: the extreme overvaluation of it can cause an economic crisis, much like the stock market crash of 1929. But I don't know if it's even possible to fix that without upending much of the economic and especially financial system.

 

[Forever Sleep]

In an ideal world, it would be good if the general population got a say in where it was headed. But then- like you suggest- if most countries vote to develop it- will the ones who don't suffer economically? The problem with asking individuals is- they may not be thinking about the bigger picture.

It almost feels the same as nuclear weapons or industrialisation. Once a few countries start developing things, others feel the need also- so as to be able to compete or defend themselves.