And there’s the key. I often compare AI agents to chainsaws. If a chainsaw cuts off both legs of all the forest workers riding in a truck, is that the chainsaw’s fault?
Then again, guns help people kill far more efficiently than most other weapons that are commonly available, like a knife. Especially automatic rifles that were literally optimized for precisely that purpose, having been designed to do exactly that in the context of a war scenario.
Hence the argument gets into greater levels of subtly than merely “yes” or “no”. In this case, “AI” is merely a program rather than an agent capable of making choices, necessitating that most discussions about AI be more about “the use of LLMs in a specific context”, rather than about AI itself.
Similar to the analogy about guns above: very few to almost nobody is saying that guns should not exist (ofc, some few do but they are exceedingly rare), and rather that weapons of warfare, designed for mass destruction like ability to kill multiple tens of people in mere seconds, might not belong in a normal society setting during peacetime, without at least a modicum of control e.g. a special license indicative of having received training in proper usage of such a weapon.
Getting back to AI, there are times and places to use it, and other times it is ill-advised. Very few seem to want to truly understand the matter though, and mostly what I hear boils down to “AI [good|bad]”.
You’re saying “guns don’t kill people, people do,” when we should be thinking in terms of POSIWID: The Purpose of a System Is What It Does.
If chainsaws are cutting off the legs of every logger, maybe they’re shitty chainsaws. Or maybe we shouldn’t use them at all, if they can’t be made not shitty.
And there’s the key. I often compare AI agents to chainsaws. If a chainsaw cuts off both legs of all the forest workers riding in a truck, is that the chainsaw’s fault?
“guns don’t kill people, people kill people”
Then again, guns help people kill far more efficiently than most other weapons that are commonly available, like a knife. Especially automatic rifles that were literally optimized for precisely that purpose, having been designed to do exactly that in the context of a war scenario.
Hence the argument gets into greater levels of subtly than merely “yes” or “no”. In this case, “AI” is merely a program rather than an agent capable of making choices, necessitating that most discussions about AI be more about “the use of LLMs in a specific context”, rather than about AI itself.
Similar to the analogy about guns above: very few to almost nobody is saying that guns should not exist (ofc, some few do but they are exceedingly rare), and rather that weapons of warfare, designed for mass destruction like ability to kill multiple tens of people in mere seconds, might not belong in a normal society setting during peacetime, without at least a modicum of control e.g. a special license indicative of having received training in proper usage of such a weapon.
Getting back to AI, there are times and places to use it, and other times it is ill-advised. Very few seem to want to truly understand the matter though, and mostly what I hear boils down to “AI [good|bad]”.
You’re saying “guns don’t kill people, people do,” when we should be thinking in terms of POSIWID: The Purpose of a System Is What It Does.
If chainsaws are cutting off the legs of every logger, maybe they’re shitty chainsaws. Or maybe we shouldn’t use them at all, if they can’t be made not shitty.