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Comment by comfypotato | Hacker News Reader

How is AI different than any other technology in this respect?

As far back as the discovery of fire, new technology has enabled more positive outcomes than negative.

Some tech more so than others, I guess, but what makes you lean so negatively regarding AI? It’s already improved my life considerably. Just the basic ChatGPT web app has extended my capacity in multiple respects.

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Rule of thumb: reductionist arguments don't hold for technologies from the Internet onwards.

For example, the Internet is nothing like TV, so arguments like "we grew up on TV and ended up ok" don't hold.

Same holds in my opinion to AI-scams.

I disagree. Do you have examples to back that up?

> we grew up on TV and ended up ok

Not sure what you are comparing here, but we (people in early 30s) also grew up on the internet and mostly ended up ok. Some people who grew up on tv did not end up ok.

Quantity is a quality in itself.

If I catch a fish in a lake that's not problem.

If I catch all the fish in the lake we need to stock the lake again with fish.

If I catch 10^30 fish on the planet, fish are extinct.

> If I catch 10^30 fish on the planet, fish are extinct.

The entire planet is extinct

Oopsie, I turned the visible universe into paperclips.

I’m not sure I subscribe to this rule of thumb, but I definitely agree with the general idea that comparisons make weak arguments.

What makes me so negative is that it has a tremendous productivity boost regardless the intentions. ChatGPT saves you hours daily generating content, but it makes it as easy to generate convicing content on any subject, at scale.

It may be in your nature to question everything you see, hear or read. I'm pretty sure that's not the case for the vast majority of population. And as magical ChatGPT seems to all the tech and non-tech people, it is really difficult to predict what it will look like in 30 years from now. It may now take 100 trolls to spread fake news about Ukraine on Twitter.

In 5 years from now it might take one prompt and you will be able to cover every single social media on the planet in convicing information from many spectrums of the opinions. What you might see could be 10 people violently arguing on the internet, whilst its all bots whose only purpose is incite emotions and polarize people.

> It may be in your nature to question everything you see, hear or read. I'm pretty sure that's not the case for the vast majority of population.

But we have been here before. When radio first came out, it had an almost magical sway on people. People attribute the newness of radio as a significant factor in hitler's rise to power. Eventually we adapted to it though, and it lost its magic sway.

Its indeed interesting future ahead of us, curious what will come out of it.

Doesn't this remind you of ender's game? The two siblings manipulating social discourse by creating and then whipping up opposing sides?

We know that this already happens, but now its in the grasp of many people and thus much harder to pin down where its coming from and what that party's motive is. How can you 'follow the money' when - it requires almost no money to spam every social media channel - then get picked up by news bc they turn to social media for fast/new/relevant information

This seems like a difference in perspective (which is reasonable and probably won’t be changed with discussion).

I interpret your opening statement here positively. I tend to think most people work towards the good of mankind, so a boost in productivity for everyone is a net positive.

Using fire seems like an odd comparison to me. Fire exists in nature. Even if you can't create it, there is nothing to stop you from understanding and likely avoiding it. You can even extinguish it without understanding the creation of fire in most circumstances.

Systems like Chat GPT and other large models do not exist in nature that we know of.

Because it is digital. Other technology adoption was slow to spread, because it couldn't simply be cloned and integrate immediately with most pre-existing infrastructure.

AI can be copied and can integrate with a lot of existing infrastructure right out of the box. Combine this with the magnitude of the capabilities and our societal "immune system" doesn't stand a chance of being ready for whatever is about to emerge. That lack of time to learn and adapt is a massive difference.

What have nuclear weapons done for you lately?

The tech is the same tech used in nuclear reactors, and depending on how far you go certain therapies. Nuclear weapons are just one instance of the tech.

Simply put: no. This is just misinformation. Thermonuclear weapons derive their energy from fusion, not fission. The prompt criticality of the igniting fission weapon has nothing to do with the criticality seen in a nuclear reactor used for generating energy.

All fusion weapons use a fission core as the spark. This is why we need plutonium or uranium for nuclear warheads.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-nuclear-weapons-work

> Modern nuclear weapons work by combining chemical explosives, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion. The explosives compress nuclear material, causing fission; the fission releases massive amounts of energy in the form of X-rays, which create the high temperature and pressure needed to ignite fusion.

And if you'd read my post, you'd note I already covered that.

I disagree that it has nothing to do with it. All of this technology was being developed at the same time, and the most important part of the technology for both purposes is criticality.

The trinity nuclear test (a fission weapon) was 1945.

Gen III nuclear reactors like those being installed at Vogtle and other sites area 21st century design.

Yes, technology advances. We're no longer pedaling around on penny farthings or driving around on Benz Patent-Motorwagens, but the technology is the same basis in many ways, just evolved.

Is fusion weapon research informative of fusion reactor research, and vice versa?

Not even remotely useful. If it was, there would be no more research on fusion reactors. They'd just process the heaps of government data available from both full weapon tests & other research projects.

The grandparent asked about nuclear weapons, not specifically thermonuclear weapons.

Good point. I think it's fair to criticize instances of technology and innovation. So it would be fair to criticize all innovation that is specific only to weapons.

The Manhattan Project literally built the world's first nuclear fission reactor. The group that built that reactor later became Argonne National Laboratory which then built the first nuclear reactor that generated electricity. Nuclear weapons and nuclear power come from the same roots.

Not that I agree with op but you could make a solid argument that they're the reason we haven't had war between major powers. You could probably argue the whole Ukraine Russia issue is because Ukraine gave up it's nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise of peace (and other countries can take notes on the result of that)

Depends on how recently you mean.

Since their inception they have revolutionized modern biology, and by extension medicine [1]. Also they gave us the seismic monitoring network we currently use to understand the earth.

Of course it wasn't the weapons that did this, but rather the offshoot technologies. But like every technology the first use was blowing something up, the later uses were arguably more peaceful.

I would agree that these days there's a bit more divergence between weapons research and useful nuclear research. But there are still some things that might belong in both camps (e.g. inertial confinement fusion).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_medicine

Not exactly the thing you're asking, but smoke detectors rely on radioactive material as do many medial imaging technologies.

But yea, not nukes themselves, just the technology and innovations that they made along the way... were the real treasure?

I'm 500km from an ongoing armed conflict instead of 0km.

The nearest nuclear weapon is around 800km from my location, so you could say they're pretty effective at this.

That being said I don't believe it's mainly the nuclear weapons that let me live in peace, but I like to believe they're a component of that.

Thanks to nuclear deterrence I haven't been drafted into WW3 yet, so that is nice

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