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159

Bernie Sanders criticizes AI as ‘the most consequential technology in humanity’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 hours ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

US senator Bernie Sanders amplified his recent criticism of artificial intelligence on Sunday, explicitly linking the financial ambition of “the richest people in the world” to economic insecurity for millions of Americans – and calling for a potential moratorium on new datacenters.

Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democratic party, said on CNN’s State of the Union that he was “fearful of a lot” when it came to AI. And the senator called it “the most consequential technology in the history of humanity” that will “transform” the US and the world in ways that had not been fully discussed.

“If there are no jobs and humans won’t be needed for most things, how do people get an income to feed their families, to get healthcare or to pay the rent?” Sanders said. “There’s not been one serious word of discussion in the Congress about that reality.”

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

People forget that a very short time ago, there was no internet and knowlege and fast communication was rare and slow.

Nothing in the last 500 years has changed our society so much, in such a short time.

AI has been around for decades now. The main recent breakthrough has been in its ability to immitate a human conversation. Untill a similar breakthough happens in its ability to reason and understand, it will continue to stagnant.

Right now AI development needs the current bubble to pop before significant progress can be made.

[–] deacon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

I sincerely believe that our advancement in technology has outpaced our evolution and we are simply not equipped to wield it yet.

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The thing is that technology is not linear.

That could happen tomorrow.

It might never happen.

It likely isn't going to happen with LLMs but the next big breakthrough could happen at any time. Or never.

[–] Ach@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I very respectfully but firmly disagree.

Human progression isn't just advancing, it's accelerating. If you were born in 1700 and died in 1775, basically everything at the time of your death was identical to the time of your birth.

If you were born in 1900 and died in 1975, you were born to horse-drawn carriages and died after seeing a man walk on the moon.

Now, even though our "AI" isn't real AI and just language models, it can still crunch numbers historically faster. So the acceleration is objectively going to accelerate.

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I sincerely don't understand how anything you wrote with disagrees with my comment about technological advancement not being linear.

[–] Ach@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Fair point, sorry - I didn't word it well. My bad.

You seem to think something bad might happen, I think that stone is already moving and can't be stopped.

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 1 points 45 minutes ago (1 children)

It might or it might not.

I agree that it will likely will given the insane progression in ai models of every kind and the absurd amount of money being invested into it, but it's not a certainty.

LLMs are likely a dead end but anyone that thinks the buck stops there is an idiot.

[–] Ach@lemmy.world 1 points 39 minutes ago* (last edited 38 minutes ago) (1 children)

I'd have to disagree that LLM are a dead end. They aren't actual AI, but they can crunch data at a rate that will make them a bridge to actual AI. I guess I see this is a very dangerous and inevitable stepping-stone.

LLM will be able to crunch raw numbers to make actual AI possible IMHO.

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 1 points 36 minutes ago (1 children)

You keep saying number crunching - gpus "crunch numbers" cpus "crunch numbers" ai models ARE numbers.

[–] Ach@lemmy.world 1 points 1 minute ago

Are you denying that it can be done faster now? And that even if it can't, people with money believe it can and are funding it?

This is moving fast my dude. Look at how fast a term from Terminator made it into our daily lives.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 43 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

“If there are no jobs and humans won’t be needed for most things, how do people get an income to feed their families, to get healthcare or to pay the rent?” Sanders said. “There’s not been one serious word of discussion in the Congress about that reality.”

Because if people could think more than 2 months ahead we wouldn't be in this spot to begin with...

Resource scarcity makes you lose long term planning though, which is why we keep getting squeezed so hard. If people had time to step back and realize where we're headed, we'd change direction really fucking quick.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

We haven't done it on climate change, why the hell would people change for ai?

[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Yeah but we did it on the ozone

[–] Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Username checks out. I'm so tired, Givesomefucks, so very tired.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

On the bright side this the most optimistic I've been in 30 years, except like 6 months after Obama won the first time.

It's a catch-22 where the people legitimately won back the DNC, but the masses are still ignorant of it because the billionaires who own are media don't want anyone to hear about it.

The DNC is giving insane levels of money back to state parties after neoliberals robbed them for a decade with the victory fund grift. We're already seeing the results of that, and midterms are going to be huge.

Then we'll get a fair primary for the presidential, with a very very good chance of a progressive getting in with huge majorities in the House and Senate.

Like, shits bad now. But it's still not as bad as the Great Depression, and that shit got us FDR.

There's a very good chance we're about to hit a massive upswing.

We just got to remember that the peaceful option of FDR and policy wasn't the only option on the table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

Just like Martin wouldn't have won without Malcolm, peaceful societial change almost always requires at least the threat of hypothetical violence along with it.

We were damn close to a civil war right when FDR got elected.

When shit gets bad enough, the best short term plan for the majority is often "gang up on the people that have everything". Because that's the only people who have anything

[–] JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 hours ago

I would disagree. Many other technologies have eliminated more jobs, caused more damage to society and the environment, and been more generally consequential. AI has been bad kn all those ways, but is by no means the worst of them all. Let's not forget that we're still dealing with the social damage and ripple effects of the invention of the atomic bomb, and that previous video and audio manipulation tools had already severely damaged social trust in media. LLMs have just worsened those already significantly damaged systems.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 2 points 4 hours ago

Kid named steam engine:

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz -1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

And the senator called it “the most consequential technology in the history of humanity”

The wheel. Fire. The steam engine. Easy access to porn. I could go on.

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

man was not meant to see bukkake gangbangs in their teens, it sets expectations way too high