The AI dooooooom thread

[Josquius]

Have to say with this Deepseek stuff it is quite funny to see the American AI companies crying foul about China stealing from them.

I have not had this pleasure.  Can you share a link or two with me so that I can share in the humor?

Really?
Odd you think there's a gotcha here. Its widely reported.
e.g.
https://www.ft.com/content/a0dfedd1-5255-4fa9-8ccc-1fe01de87ea6
https://opentools.ai/news/openai-accuses-chinese-ai-firm-deepseek-of-tech-theft-a-new-ai-cold-war

[Admiral Yi]

Thanks.  I hadn't heard about that.

Don't get the joke though.

[Josquius]

Thanks.  I hadn't heard about that.

Don't get the joke though.

A key source of AI controversy is they use other people's work for their training data.
https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2024/01/op-ed-ai-art-is-art-theft-and-should-be-a-crime
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/14/british-novelists-criticise-government-over-ai-theft

[Maladict]

Here is a desperate but I think feasible attempt at positivity: AI mass-producing fake news, images etc. will mean the death of the social media-based news-consuming of the population and it will push toward the reestablishment of respect and demand for centralised, dependable news sources.

A lot of people, especially among the younger generations, are now used to not being able to tell if any given thing is real. I don't see how we can undo this.

[Tamas]

Here is a desperate but I think feasible attempt at positivity: AI mass-producing fake news, images etc. will mean the death of the social media-based news-consuming of the population and it will push toward the reestablishment of respect and demand for centralised, dependable news sources.

A lot of people, especially among the younger generations, are now used to not being able to tell of any given thing is real. I don't see how we can undo this.

I don't know exactly how to get to that point (especially since we have just recently abandoned it) but this is exactly why news verified to high standards should eventually become valued again.

Essentially people need to realise that something on social media is not (necessarily) better than hearing it from a random guy they sit next to at the bar. Then again of course many people got their news like that in the past and there is that subsection you will never be able to help. The rest should eventually pivot back if we don't burn the world down by then.

[Maladict]

Here is a desperate but I think feasible attempt at positivity: AI mass-producing fake news, images etc. will mean the death of the social media-based news-consuming of the population and it will push toward the reestablishment of respect and demand for centralised, dependable news sources.

A lot of people, especially among the younger generations, are now used to not being able to tell of any given thing is real. I don't see how we can undo this.

I don't know exactly how to get to that point (especially since we have just recently abandoned it) but this is exactly why news verified to high standards should eventually become valued again.

Essentially people need to realise that something on social media is not (necessarily) better than hearing it from a random guy they sit next to at the bar. Then again of course many people got their news like that in the past and there is that subsection you will never be able to help. The rest should eventually pivot back if we don't burn the world down by then.

The problem is you can't pivot back to something you've never known. Some of my friends' kids are between 15 and 20 and have never read a newspaper, even though their parents do. They get all their news from random websites and social media, without any critical thought as to sources or trustworthiness. And that's not even going into algorithms and echochambers. It's absolutely terrifying.

[crazy canuck]

Tamas, the other problem is high quality news reporting requires financial resources.  That is why most newspapers have died or transformed into something resembling social media reporting. Unless something happens to redirect eyes to non clickbait serious reporting, I don't know where the funding is going to come from.

The other problem is where are the professional journalists going to come from - traditionally it takes a number of years to train someone to become an effective professional journalist. We are losing/have lost those training grounds. As a side note a lot of the great reporters got their start in local newspapers, news radio and local tv news.  Almost all of that news infrastructure has gone.

[mongers]

Here is a desperate but I think feasible attempt at positivity: AI mass-producing fake news, images etc. will mean the death of the social media-based news-consuming of the population and it will push toward the reestablishment of respect and demand for centralised, dependable news sources.

A lot of people, especially among the younger generations, are now used to not being able to tell of any given thing is real. I don't see how we can undo this.

I don't know exactly how to get to that point (especially since we have just recently abandoned it) but this is exactly why news verified to high standards should eventually become valued again.

Essentially people need to realise that something on social media is not (necessarily) better than hearing it from a random guy they sit next to at the bar. Then again of course many people got their news like that in the past and there is that subsection you will never be able to help. The rest should eventually pivot back if we don't burn the world down by then.

The problem is you can't pivot back to something you've never known. Some of my friends' kids are between 15 and 20 and have never read a newspaper, even though their parents do. They get all their news from random websites and social media, without any critical thought as to sources or trustworthiness. And that's not even going into algorithms and echochambers. It's absolutely terrifying.

Indeed.

My hope is the changes in the way history is now taught in schools might help; back in my day your were presented with books of fact, to be regurgitate during GCSE exams, later at A level intepreting those historical 'facts ' became a focus.

Yet for the last 20-25 years, in mainstream schools consideration of the sources has been a feature of the cirriculum and some examination questions. So maybe in that sense today's teenagers are better equipped to reason about history and politics?

Oh drat history is no-longer a mandatory subject across much of the school cirriculum.