> Humans like to insult by comparing the target to something perceived to be inferior. AI is perceived to be inferior humans for most tasks, so we can be prejudice against AI (and without the discrimination societal pushback.)
AI is inferior for most tasks, the "perception" is of that reality (e.g.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/nyregion/avianca-airline-...).
Software engineers love their technology, and often get defensive on its behalf and their sci-fi hopes for it.
> Wait till AI catches up, then "a Japanese knockoff" becomes a complement.
I hope for your and my sake it doesn't, because the best outcome of that is most people become useless and waste away on welfare. Because not only will their labor be irreverent, their cultural production will be too.
The more likely outcome is economic immiseration for all those who have had their labor devalued, because that's what our social system is designed to create in those kinds of circumstances. And there's little hope that social system will chance for the better: if "AI" is effective enough that it "becomes a complement," it will be a powerful instrument of social control on behalf of the powers-that-be, and far more useful to them than to any insurgent.