Please share any fear(s) you might have regarding Artificial Intelligence

[just me]

Talked with my Sister today about AI. She said her granddaughter is using AI at school. She is very wary of this. My biggest concern is the teachers that are allowing this. I like it but feel the teachers should ask for at least a second opinion other than AI with proper footnotes. Why? I do not want to see the generations behind us lose their curiosity. I do not wish to see them always using shortcuts to learn. Critical thinking must be taught in schools. Checking the AI source with other sources should be part of the learning so people do not lose critical thinking. With AI, we can set our own boundaries with it. This also should be taught and used. What say ye?

 

[QuickTwist]

AI is good for some things, but it is still prone to being very wrong about some things as well.

AI tries to give information, but it also tries to cater to the person talking to it. So, you can convince it to give you answers that are simply not true.

Example:

 

[ErikAlberto]

My oldest daughter is about to go into kindergarten, @just me, and I’ve reflected a lot on the problems of AI integration into the education system.

We seriously need developers to create AI specifically designed for educational environments, where there are strict parameters and boundaries built into the framework. It should also be highly adjustable for various grade levels, and citation capabilities need to be beefed up.

Additionally, when it comes to the type of assistance students can get from such an AI, it should never default to rewriting anything. In fact, I lean towards thinking it should never be allowed to rewrite anything for a student at all.

I would like to see AI in education function primarily as a teaching tool—providing guidance on writing and math questions by offering adjacent examples, providing critique, and asking questions that steer students toward the answer rather than simply giving it to them.

And lastly, incorporating AI into education in its current form concerns me very much. I don’t agree with it.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

Besides dumbing down society that is already brain rotted to the max it would be either corporate or the state abusing it as tools for societal enslavement such as social credit systems real time control over the financial system such as freezing accounts as a means of punishing people etc. They could do a lot more with this like disabling people's cars (the latest models) to enforce lockdowns.

 

[TomasM]

I have no fear of AI because it is an incredible tool but just like any tool it needs to have guardrails for protection. For example, I wouldn’t go sticking my fingers near a circular saw or a grinder without safety.

That said, I don’t trust people who own and operate AI to behave in a moral and ethical manner. It’s not much different than the ring Frodo carried in LOTR. Power and greed can corrupt a mind and that is where the real problem resides.

 

[SlowUpTake]

Power and Greed do corrupt. I see vast potential for disrupting the zeitgeist's perception of what is real and shaking the foundations of what is generally held to be "the good". Other then that its great... https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-revolution-in-math-has-arrived-20260413/

 

[aeon]

No fear of AI, only fear of my fellow human beings.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[aeon]

 

[aeon]

 

[Lao Tzunami]

I worry AI is the beast in revelation that people decide to worship and the whore of Babylon that rides on the beast's back is cat girl ai-girlfriends here to enslave all of mankind XD

jk, I think its going to be fine, just fiine...

 

[Lao Tzunami]

But real talk, the thing I worry about is the rate of change. I feel like culture can adapt in 1-3 generations of parents trying their best, getting some right, and then the children take what worked, but also decide to not make the mistakes their parents did. AI could create a time of constant change, so once an intergenerational adaptation has developed, the environment has changed so much that you are still not adapted. We can use this rapid change to destroy the outdated and corrupt institutions of power, but we also risk losing our spiritual root to our ancestors.

Also, nature can evolve, but at large time scales. Humans rapidly changing the environment is going to kill a lot of species if we are not careful. However, I have a lot of optimism. The problem with our understanding of ecosystem and holistic health is all the variables and interaction effects. Western science is great at identifying a mechanism of a single problem, and doing something to make that problem better, but often with side effects and un intended consequences. With AI statical modeling, we have a change to factor all of that in, and also integrate all the scientific sensor data we are collecting of the earth. Personalized medicine, and ecology AI is coming, and it is going to be great.

I work with a lot of techno-optimists, and their basic attitude is the problems we are creating now will be solved by future advancements. If we don't slow the ecosystem change, the two things we can do is accelerate evolution with bio-engineering to help ecosystems adapt, or geo-engineering, like putting a big sun shield in space to cool the earth. Our previous attempts to "improve" ecosystems have been a disaster, and all the geo-engineering solutions create a massive vulnerability if societal structures collapse and without maintaining the fix, the earth's climate snap to the natural equilibrium so fast, it kills most species.

 

[Snow601]

Effects on schooling—devaluing of an award’s merit through many cheating the education system: students may continue to over-rely on AI, under the stressors placed by tertiary education, and cheat more, and may look at all the work they’ve done and think they’re actually under-qualified for their award, which could lead to a trend where these awards mean less, and I’m not sure how that would work economically especially in the education industry—much more people will become better educated, but the value of these awards will decrease perhaps. There’s many effects on tertiary education, and I think we’re at the tip of the iceberg.

Effects on employment—more jobs and markets will terminate and be near dead than be opened.

Effects on the environment—data centres take a scary amount of natural resources in order to operate and pollute and toxify the towns in which they’re built. Energy is being prioritised for data centres over humans, screwing those affected over—money > humans and the world.

Deep fakes will be more harmful to young girls.

The tech oligarchy profiting the most off of AI are people I wouldn’t let my children 1 kilometre near. Peter Thiel doesn’t even care if the whole human race was eradicated. Crazy, socially disconnected, movie villain-esque characters—maybe they’ll be the new kings.

AI weapons. They’re probably building mass murderers underneath the skeleton of AI robots. A fight to the bottom between major powers.

 

[Jack Snow]

I think the biggest danger is that people don't question what AI tells them - at all. It comes from a computer and computers are always right. I play guitar as a hobby and of course, AI can tell you how to improve your songs (or even write them for you). AI may be great at technical things, but when it comes to analyzing a song, it's just spewing complete nonsense. But people don't question it. Same with psychology. This creates a huge problem because when it comes to political stuff, there is an obvious bias programmed into AI. It's the ultimate "defer to an authority figure" and don't do any thinking yourself (not that most people were thinking in the first place). Seems like most US news is pure propaganda these days, and this is just another step in that direction.

Besides that, it will just make everything more expensive. First it was cloud computing - you used to be able to buy a program for say $75, and it was permanently on your computer and you could use it forever. Now you can rent that same program for $15/month, along with 10 others you have absolutely no use for, and now with these fabulous new AI features (that no one wants) we're raising the price again.

 

[aeon]

Besides that, it will just make everything more expensive. First it was cloud computing - you used to be able to buy a program for say $75, and it was permanently on your computer and you could use it forever. Now you can rent that same program for $15/month, along with 10 others you have absolutely no use for, and now with these fabulous new AI features (that no one wants) we're raising the price again.

This is quite fair, but I would like to share some real numbers to provide a sense of scale.

In 1987, I purchased Adobe Illustrator. In 2026 dollars, I paid $2,928.58.

In 1991, I purchased Adobe Photoshop. In 2026 dollars, I paid $2,442.64.

For the next several years in the 1990s, I paid, on average, $1,380.48, each time I needed to upgrade either one of them.

In 1994, I purchased Luc de Groot’s Thesis typeface families. In 2026 dollars, I paid $11,233.25.

In 1999, I purchased Adobe InDesign. In 2026 dollars, I paid $1,996.92.

You get the picture. I didn’t mention a number of other programs, some of which became Adobe applications, or died when superseded by Adobe applications.

Things improved in the aughts. In 2007, you could purchase the entire Adobe Master Suite. In 2026 dollars, I got everything, and only paid $4,174.35.

Mind you, I am not complaining, because those were all tools which enabled work such that they paid for themselves, and many other things besides.

In 2026, Adobe Creative Cloud ranges from just over $200 dollars, to just over $900 dollars per year. For that price, one gets every application—regularly updated for no charge—as well as thousands of licensed typefaces which can be utilized for desktop, online, and apps—and more besides—for that single price.

People bitch and moan about subscription services for applications, Adobe Creative Cloud more than any of the others. They are angry because of the price.

Well, from where I have been, and where I am sitting, I think Adobe Creative Cloud is about the best deal going, no sarcasm. Lowered costs, increased functionality, and a fixed cost over time?

Back in the day it was painful when Illustrator and Photoshop got updated in the same year.

Subscription services for software. Sign me the fuck up.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Jack Snow]

I was mostly talking about things like Microsoft Word, which I use occasionally but have to pay something like $15/month for along with a bunch of other stuff I don't use. Also a whole lot of music programs I use that one used to purchase but now you have to rent. I'm sure there are some good deals out there, but there are plenty of terrible ones as well.