I view AI like a modern day equivalent to the internet, or the steam engine. It's a technology which will change the way we all do things forever. But I do not fear it as an existential threat. Maybe "AI" in theory, like we see in science fiction with BSG, Terminator, or The Matrix. But what we have in reality is not the same as that, and does not appear to be on it's way towards that. I find it hard to imagine the AI we have today turning into an AGI, let alone a Superintelligence. In my limited opinion, there seem to be functional limitations on how LLMs operate which prevent them from achieving actual reasoning. They only produce a similitude of reasoning that has fooled enough rich and powerful people into investing so heavily into this AGI pipedream. But I'm not convinced that industry leaders actually believe it's an achievable goal using current methods, even the ones who say they do. They have to keep the hype up though, because as of today, AI companies account for 35% of the S&P 500's total market capital, and the global AI sector adds up to over $55 Trillion. What I'm much more concerned with, is this AI Bubble bursting and devastating the global economy, or at the very least the US economy. I think this is the fear driving a lot of this investment as well, because it's gone way too far for anyone to back out at this point.
In practice, AI helps people get menial tasks done much more efficiently. It's going to continue to cause companies to downsize their staff, and many job types to completely disappear. This includes a lot of creative jobs as well. It can write stories, and produce media in all forms, at a very high level, and this use of it will almost certainly achieve something completely indistinguishable from anything a human can produce. In many cases it already does, and even experts in their fields don't realize where it's being used. AI has the potential to be bad for the future of human creative ability, but it's definitely not a death sentence for it. There are studies which show that note taking through a digital medium engages less of the brain than using a pencil and paper, and leads to lower recall. Researches believe that this indicates a structural difference between a paper notetaker's brain and that of an iPad kid. AI is bound to have a more significant effect than the iPad in this example, but we shouldn't blame the technology itself. We don't blame the iPad, we blame the parents. I'm certain the invention of the chair made all subsequent generations of humans lose strength in some previously more developed muscle groups, but we don't blame chairs for not being able to squat. We have to take responsibility for ourselves and our children, but there will always be plenty of people giving away their ability to reason to a machine, the same way people always have. The vast majority of people will do so, in much the same way they have with the internet for decades, and with people in positions of authority since the dawn of time.
For most of us involved in the occult, we don't fit this character who's willing to give away their agency to anything or anyone. We don't take some authority's word for something, we want to know for ourselves. You wouldn't believe the water is holy just because the priest says so, you would want to know how and why we should consider it holy. And if not, you need to take a harder look in the mirror and take more responsibility for yourself, so you don't end up like the masses. In the same way, we should be cautious of believing what we generate using AI and taking it at face value. Fact check it on your own. Use it as a tool if you want, but don't rely on it as your only tool or resource. One major flaw many models share right now is that they will make things up just to tell you what you want to hear. Don't rely on it to be infallible. There is nothing that is currently "solved," not even math or programming. Having used AI assistance with both coding projects and with complex math calculations, I know that it is wrong a lot more often than a calculator or an experienced human. People will worship AI, and they will call it Superintelligence and put all their hopes for the future of humanity on it's back, and all of those people, in my opinion, are simply fools incapable of understanding the technology. "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."
