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Comment by yanis_t | Hacker News Reader

Or just use AI when it makes sense, and call your friends too. Why do we have to over-dramatize everything?

I think its fascinating how many people in tech think there's a clearly defined and agreed upon "right way" of using this technology that everyone knows and abides by. Paul Graham, for example: https://x.com/paulg/status/2058871512451412457

It's like we memory holed the last 20 years of social media that was supposed to be all upside; just democratic, global connectionism, empowerment, etc. I have too much exposure to people using AI in various, even sometimes subtle "wrong ways" to really agree.

I don't see anything over-dramatic. He's writing about a real problem affecting real people, and he's not exaggerating. Just because you believe you are balancing things properly doesn't mean everybody should just shut up about it.

>a real problem

Like him not getting his way? If you don't want to use AI, then don't. But I'll use it whenever I want, thank you very much.

Many people don't know "when it makes sense". This highlights when it does not make sense.

The problem is that we have incentivized efficiency over authenticity even in our inter-personal relationships. It's a systemic issue. It makes it very hard for most of us to resist the sirens of "let me just rephrase this important message so that it sounds more elegant/well-written/relevant/...". In the current cultural and societal context you need to swim against the current to _not_ be using AI for everything. So I don't think this is over-dramatization. Overall, on a societal level, we truly are moving in a direction where we are robbing ourselves of real, authentic moments by using AI because it's "convenient/efficient/easy/etc...". Even at work.

The same predictable comment comes up whenever there is a piece that isn't sanitized, blunted technical documentation. Why write long form literary pieces that take effort to digest when you can get a cliffs note. Why write poetry when you can write a tweet. Why have anything resembling anything with humanity when there are summaries and machine written slop.

This sort of comment plays exactly into the thrust of the piece.

"Ten scenarios that I invented in which AI is making my life miserable."

Or you could use AI to explain to you how you missed the point.

I'd have thought people that are technologists at heart would have understood the benefit of the next Industrial Revolution but all anyone wants to do is whine about it.

I see this false equivalency argument everywhere. Just because one revolution had one effect does not mean they'll all be the same.

Nor does it mean people negatively affected at the time were wrong to fight for the quality of their family's lives. Anybody would do that. Also, the unfolding of inevitable changes can be managed by governments to reduce harm (they just usually don't because that would mean a slower increase in profit, directly or indirectly).

Turbulence and change always hurt quality of life. If the people fighting the Industrial Revolution were successful in shutting it down, humanity would have been far worse off.

So I understand, but can't excuse, people that fight the next Industrial Revolution simply to save their jobs. No one's job is more important than what is to come. I'd gladly give mine up for AGI. No individual takes priority over all future humans.

even if this stuff is the "next Industrial Revolution", the Industrial Revolution was famously Not Good for many, many people

The Industrial Revolution was Not Good in the short term. In the long term it was the single biggest step change in quality of life in human history.

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