Rainy Day Thoughts on AI

A week ago I posted this here, on Mastodon, and on LinkedIn: In his essay on Salvador Dali, Orwell argued that because Dali was a repulsive human being, the right wouldn’t admit that he was a great artist; conversely, because he was a great artist, the left wouldn’t admit he was a repulsive human being. I’m seeing the same thing with AI: because it’s unethical, one side won’t acknowledge that it’s useful, but because it’s useful, the other side won’t acknowledge that it’s unethical. The responses have depressed me a bit, though to be fair, I’ve felt that way pretty much since I was laid off last October. Comments have gone like this: AI isn’t really intelligence. Yes, thank you, we know. AI isn’t useful. Thoughtful, intelligent people like Simon Willison, Jon Udell, Stefan Arentz, Sue Smith, and Sadie Lewis believe it lets them to do things in hours that would otherwise take days, or that they wouldn’t be able to do at all. I don’t think they’re easily fooled or lying to me. How can…