I disagree with the premise. The cited survey says:
Thinking now about AI (A-I), that is artificial intelligence …
Q28 In general, would you say… (ROTATE) +
The benefits outweigh the risks of AI ............. 34
The risks outweigh the benefits of AI ............. 57
A little of both (VOL)............................. 2
Not sure .......................................... 7
+ Results shown reflect responses among registered voter
That's all well and good, but the question is very broad.
I think when pushed, the reason people hate AI is that a lot of "AI" solutions have been rolled out before the technology was mature. Even now, for end-user facing things most applications are pretty bad, even as the models have gotten more powerful.
You're increasingly pushed to use AI by every online service, and every interaction with retail pushes AI in your face, and importantly, ALL OF THEM ARE JUST TERRIBLE. Amazon has their shopping assistant which is, astonishingly, WORSE than their regular search, which is a hell of a bar.
But people who use ChatGPT or Claude to answer questions on their own are thrilled with the technology. They'll occasionally laugh at the R's in strawberry, or try to torture the AI (this might be more of a teenager thing) but it is remarkable how well-liked it is, as opposed to Google's search-integrated AI for example.
> You're increasingly pushed to use AI by every online service, and every interaction with retail pushes AI in your face, and importantly, ALL OF THEM ARE JUST TERRIBLE.
I think there's much truth to this.
Personally, the only impacts I have personally witnessed or experienced from these technologies have been, on the whole, negative. I mean, I have seen some upside in fairly niche areas, but they are dwarfed by the downsides. At least so far.
I think a rather large part of the reason (but certainly not the only reason) why this technology is generally viewed in a negative light is because the downsides are actually real and being felt by a very large percentage of people, but the upsides remain mostly in the realm of aspirational statements.
I called USAA for a good reason. AI on the phone system, told it I'm calling about "Auto Insurance" so naturally it then asked "is this a checking or savings account". I said "checking" and then I was asked if I'm the landlord or the tenant. "landlord" I replied. Eventually I got to a human who was very confused about my call, transferred me to the right department, which had to bounce me into another AI powered prompt that just kept saying "please repeat" then hung up on me. I made two more attempts, the system behavior was different.
What should have been a 15 minute process took 80 and is still not resolved, so I'm trying again today.
andrewla · · focus · HN ↗
I think when pushed, the reason people hate AI is that a lot of "AI" solutions have been rolled out before the technology was mature. Even now, for end-user facing things most applications are pretty bad, even as the models have gotten more powerful.
You're increasingly pushed to use AI by every online service, and every interaction with retail pushes AI in your face, and importantly, ALL OF THEM ARE JUST TERRIBLE. Amazon has their shopping assistant which is, astonishingly, WORSE than their regular search, which is a hell of a bar.
But people who use ChatGPT or Claude to answer questions on their own are thrilled with the technology. They'll occasionally laugh at the R's in strawberry, or try to torture the AI (this might be more of a teenager thing) but it is remarkable how well-liked it is, as opposed to Google's search-integrated AI for example.
JohnFen · · focus · HN ↗
I think there's much truth to this.
Personally, the only impacts I have personally witnessed or experienced from these technologies have been, on the whole, negative. I mean, I have seen some upside in fairly niche areas, but they are dwarfed by the downsides. At least so far.
I think a rather large part of the reason (but certainly not the only reason) why this technology is generally viewed in a negative light is because the downsides are actually real and being felt by a very large percentage of people, but the upsides remain mostly in the realm of aspirational statements.
edoceo · · focus · HN ↗
What should have been a 15 minute process took 80 and is still not resolved, so I'm trying again today.