Most U.S. adults don't believe benefits of AI outweigh the risks, new survey finds

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to Technology@lemmy.world – 516 points –
axios.com

The majority of U.S. adults don't believe the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks, according to a new Mitre-Harris Poll released Tuesday.

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Prime example. Atomic bombs are dangerous and they seem like a bad thing. But then you realize that, counter to our intuition, nuclear weapons have created peace and security in the world.

No country with nukes has been invaded. No world wars have happened since the invention of nukes. Countries with nukes don't fight each other directly.

Ukraine had nukes, gave them up, promptly invaded by Russia.

Things that seem dangerous aren't always dangerous. Things that seem safe aren't always safe. More often though, technology has good sides and bad sides. AI does and will continue to have pros and cons.

Atomic bomb are also dangerous because if someone end up launching one by mistake, all hell is gonna break loose. This has almost happened multiple times:

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

We've just been lucky so far.

And then there are questionable state leaders who may even use them willingly. Like Putin, or Kim, maybe even Trump.

…and the development and use of nuclear power has been one of the most important developments in civil infrastructure in the last century.

Nuclear isn’t categorically free from the potential to harm, but it can also do a whole hell of a lot for humanity if used the right way. We understand it enough to know how to use it carefully and safely in civil applications.

We’ll probably get to the same place with ML… eventually. Right now, everyone’s just throwing tons of random problems at it to see what sticks, which is not what one could call responsible use - particularly when outputs are used in a widespread sense in production environments.

If you're from one of the countries with nukes, of course you'll see it as positive. For the victims of the nuke-wielding countries, not so much.

That’s a good point, however just because the bad thing hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it wont. Everything has pros and cons, it’s a matter of whether or not the pros outweigh the cons.

I don't disagree with your overall point, but as they say, anything that can happen, will happen. I don't know when it will happen; tomorrow, 50 years, 1000 years... eventually nuclear weapons will be used in warfare again, and it will be a dark time.

No world wars have happened since the invention of nukes

Except the current world war.

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