Noah Smith, an economist-turned-blogger who writes the Noahpinion newsletter, wrote an essay titled, "I love AI. Why doesn't everyone?"
Fast forward a few decades, and I actually have that little robot friend I always dreamed of. It's not exactly like any of the AI portrayals from sci-fi, but it's recognizably similar. As I go through my daily life, GPT (or Gemini, or Claude) is always there to help me. If my water filter needs to be replaced, I can ask my robot friend how to do it. If I forget which sociologist claimed that economic growth creates the institutional momentum for further growth,2 I can ask my robot friend who that was. If I want to know some iconic Paris selfie spots, it can tell me. If I can't remember the article I read about China's innovation ecosystem last year, my robot buddy can find it for me.
It can proofread my blog posts, be my search engine, help me decorate my room, translate other languages for me, teach me math, explain tax documents, and so on. This is just the beginning of what AI can do, of course. It's possibly the most general-purpose technology ever invented, since its basic function is to memorize the entire corpus of human knowledge and then spit any piece of it back to you on command. And because it's programmed to do everything with a smile, it's always friendly and cheerful — just like a little robot friend ought to be.
When he posted the same sentiment on social media, many people wrote him angry messages:
Noah's tweet:
I love Al. I spent my whole youth wishing I had a little robot friend who could teach me a bunch of stuff and help me out. Now it's real, and I'm not going to hate it just because you hate 'tech bros' and you need something to whine about on social media.
Responses:
"I am a man child."
Jesus Positronic Christ, what an infantile, exhausted, puerile, dumbshit strawman to build. Even for you.
I feel for people who have led sad, lonely lives. I'm happy they have found closure in something that is built on data theft and will probably lead to environmental and social collapse. I found closure in alcohol and I've caused a lot of pain and suffering with it. God Bless
Regular Al use makes people stupider. Al has already started to chill the labor market for junior white collar jobs. Al has already made it impossible to rely upon photographic evidence.
He then goes on to argue that the "AI uses lots of water" claim doesn't, er, hold water:
A) almost all of the water AI uses is actually used by power plants generating electricity to power AI, and B) most of the water that gets "used" by AI is actually just run through the system and returned to the original source, instead of being used up.
No matter where you stand on AI, Noah's essay is worth reading.
Previously:
• I had AI write a memoir based on my life
• Authors leaving AI prompts and responses in their novels
