From Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI? by Amanda Gefter:
“I have two really big concerns,” she said. “One, that it’s being used to create fake information that’s destroying our whole information environment. And two, people are trusting them to do things that they shouldn’t be trusted to do. We overestimate their capabilities. There’s a lot of magical thinking about AI. But it must be said that if you let these systems loose in the real world and they have access to your bank account, even if they’re just role-playing, it could still have catastrophic effects.”
The emphasis above is mine. Calling content generated by an LLM “AI” was a marketing stroke of genius. The problem is people have bought into the fiction. That’s the power of a good story.
It might be near impossible to turn back from this perception and belief now, but we have to try. We need an even more powerful story. I appreciate that Gefter is trying.
Found this via Greg Egan on Mastodon.