Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI?
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@commonst @ShaulaEvans if privacy is your concern, are you ok with self hosted models? it’s easy to download whisper and have it transcribe an mp3 without requiring remote servers
@eljojo @ShaulaEvans I have lots of concerns about AI, that is just one example. I would rather the only thing listening to my therapy sessions be my therapist.
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Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI? Not about big picture concerns like ethics, environmental impact, etc., but about the more immediate harms to the person, like inaccurate responses and the risk of AI psychosis.
I need to have a gentle, informative conversation in a non-shaming way with someone dear to me, and I'd love to learn from anyone who has done this successfully.
*AI Booster replies will be blocked.
@ShaulaEvans
I had limited success by pushing #aislop infatuated people to make a supervised session asking their lover questions in their very field of expertise. Agrotechnologist asked about the wheat treatments, hydrologist about the volumetric asessments of retention capacity and so on. Usually they initially said "Thats wonderful, it is almost correct". I then dig into the "almost" pushing one to do a dissection of the answer/summary and point where the "almost" is, and to correct all "almosts".Only then they start to grasp the levels of misinformation.
Final question usually is: will you allow "almost" trained ai robotic surgeon to open your chest? And why not.
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Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI? Not about big picture concerns like ethics, environmental impact, etc., but about the more immediate harms to the person, like inaccurate responses and the risk of AI psychosis.
I need to have a gentle, informative conversation in a non-shaming way with someone dear to me, and I'd love to learn from anyone who has done this successfully.
*AI Booster replies will be blocked.
@ShaulaEvans
I think listening to them first is crucial.If they feel heard and not judged, they'll be way more open to hear you as well.
Of course, this is extremely hard: The more we disagree, the less we want to hear their reasons.
But that opposition is the same for them, and the main obstacle to having productive discussions
I try to mentalize myself "This person has a good reason for thinking differently than me." and ask questions until I find what that is.
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@eljojo @ShaulaEvans I have lots of concerns about AI, that is just one example. I would rather the only thing listening to my therapy sessions be my therapist.
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@ShaulaEvans
I think listening to them first is crucial.If they feel heard and not judged, they'll be way more open to hear you as well.
Of course, this is extremely hard: The more we disagree, the less we want to hear their reasons.
But that opposition is the same for them, and the main obstacle to having productive discussions
I try to mentalize myself "This person has a good reason for thinking differently than me." and ask questions until I find what that is.
@DecksDark This is very grounded, thoughtful, caring advice. Thank you.
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@ShaulaEvans
I had limited success by pushing #aislop infatuated people to make a supervised session asking their lover questions in their very field of expertise. Agrotechnologist asked about the wheat treatments, hydrologist about the volumetric asessments of retention capacity and so on. Usually they initially said "Thats wonderful, it is almost correct". I then dig into the "almost" pushing one to do a dissection of the answer/summary and point where the "almost" is, and to correct all "almosts".Only then they start to grasp the levels of misinformation.
Final question usually is: will you allow "almost" trained ai robotic surgeon to open your chest? And why not.
@ohir @ShaulaEvans That's a good idea. That said, what's especially frightening is that this is only something that'll probably only work for a short time yet. As you've described it, the exercise already requires a subject-matter expert with plenty of time.
But what happens when LLMs get a bit better, like completely accurate for hours of testing? Whatever people say about human error, AI chatbots still fail in completely different ways from people. LLMs are undergoing gradual improvement, but many expect immediate results. Like, I want to be enthusiastic about the prospect of AI improving, but we've moved seamlessly from them being to hoodwink almost nobody with their head screwed on, to being able to mislead almost all of the population, with only subject matter experts being able to tell. What happens in the next stage, when even the subject matter experts are no longer able to tell AI apart from their peers in the field, but the LLMs continue to produce subtly dangerous output?
I have no answers, just fear...
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@ohir @ShaulaEvans That's a good idea. That said, what's especially frightening is that this is only something that'll probably only work for a short time yet. As you've described it, the exercise already requires a subject-matter expert with plenty of time.
But what happens when LLMs get a bit better, like completely accurate for hours of testing? Whatever people say about human error, AI chatbots still fail in completely different ways from people. LLMs are undergoing gradual improvement, but many expect immediate results. Like, I want to be enthusiastic about the prospect of AI improving, but we've moved seamlessly from them being to hoodwink almost nobody with their head screwed on, to being able to mislead almost all of the population, with only subject matter experts being able to tell. What happens in the next stage, when even the subject matter experts are no longer able to tell AI apart from their peers in the field, but the LLMs continue to produce subtly dangerous output?
I have no answers, just fear...
@ohir @ShaulaEvans oh, and to respond to this:
will you allow "almost" trained ai robotic surgeon to open your chest?
Depends on how desperate for the operation I am. Destroying entire professional specialisms economically in order to later replace them with substandard slop machines is already a page in the AI-peddlers playbook. Lots of 2D digital artists I follow have already basically said they're suffering the results of that process at this very moment.
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@eljojo @ShaulaEvans I have lots of concerns about AI, that is just one example. I would rather the only thing listening to my therapy sessions be my therapist.
@commonst @ShaulaEvans are these concerns something that you’re interested in addressing? or just good excuses to reject AI?
what are your other concerns? maybe, just like “where the servers are”, something can be done about them.
what do you mean when you say AI “listens” to conversations, is that different than your smartphone “listening” for you to say “hey google”? do you turn your phone off during therapy?
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Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI? Not about big picture concerns like ethics, environmental impact, etc., but about the more immediate harms to the person, like inaccurate responses and the risk of AI psychosis.
I need to have a gentle, informative conversation in a non-shaming way with someone dear to me, and I'd love to learn from anyone who has done this successfully.
*AI Booster replies will be blocked.
@ShaulaEvans @beandreams I've had a couple of productive conversations with professors and classmates about inaccurate responses and how important it is to me that I not boost the signal of AI slop. It's been harder w/classmates and professors who are younger, though. And it was *really* challenging when I discovered 2 classmates were feeding our group project into chatGPT for their contribution -- that convo ended in me being shut out, unfortunately. So, uh, I have maybe a 10% success rate?
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@commonst @ShaulaEvans are these concerns something that you’re interested in addressing? or just good excuses to reject AI?
what are your other concerns? maybe, just like “where the servers are”, something can be done about them.
what do you mean when you say AI “listens” to conversations, is that different than your smartphone “listening” for you to say “hey google”? do you turn your phone off during therapy?
> "or just good excuses to reject AI?"
Sorry, you're off topic and being rude and trollish to someone in my mentions. You're blocked.
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Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI? Not about big picture concerns like ethics, environmental impact, etc., but about the more immediate harms to the person, like inaccurate responses and the risk of AI psychosis.
I need to have a gentle, informative conversation in a non-shaming way with someone dear to me, and I'd love to learn from anyone who has done this successfully.
*AI Booster replies will be blocked.
@ShaulaEvans I’m a statistician so I have mostly not tried to convince people, but rather just share what I know about how they do and don’t work. I think a lot of misplaced trust comes from the obfuscation about what these algorithms are. When people have a better mental model, they can use LLMs better, less, more…whatever makes sense for them.
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@ShaulaEvans @beandreams I've had a couple of productive conversations with professors and classmates about inaccurate responses and how important it is to me that I not boost the signal of AI slop. It's been harder w/classmates and professors who are younger, though. And it was *really* challenging when I discovered 2 classmates were feeding our group project into chatGPT for their contribution -- that convo ended in me being shut out, unfortunately. So, uh, I have maybe a 10% success rate?
@crystalvisits @beandreams Ten percent is higher than the people who don't try -- and probably higher than a lot of the people who do, too.
All we can do is try, right?
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Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI? Not about big picture concerns like ethics, environmental impact, etc., but about the more immediate harms to the person, like inaccurate responses and the risk of AI psychosis.
I need to have a gentle, informative conversation in a non-shaming way with someone dear to me, and I'd love to learn from anyone who has done this successfully.
*AI Booster replies will be blocked.
@ShaulaEvans Ok I'm not sure what counts as productive exactly, but I have had conversations where I shared my concerns about AI and everyone felt good afterwards.
Some angles I can remember people being interested in:
- gen AI tools are going to get much more expensive soon, so it is risky to start depending on them
- chatbots grab your attention using the same "slot machine" loop as social media feeds: they only give you what you want sometimes, at unpredictable intervals
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@ShaulaEvans Ok I'm not sure what counts as productive exactly, but I have had conversations where I shared my concerns about AI and everyone felt good afterwards.
Some angles I can remember people being interested in:
- gen AI tools are going to get much more expensive soon, so it is risky to start depending on them
- chatbots grab your attention using the same "slot machine" loop as social media feeds: they only give you what you want sometimes, at unpredictable intervals
@ShaulaEvans More angles on AI that have been interesting to non-tech folks:
- humans see faces in clouds, it doesn't take much to convince us something seems like a person. don't fall for it!
- chatbots don't understand or know anything-- they convert all your input words into ID numbers and do statistics on them, that's all
- I wish they would automate my laundry and dishwashing instead of replacing art, am i right?
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@commonst @ShaulaEvans if privacy is your concern, are you ok with self hosted models? it’s easy to download whisper and have it transcribe an mp3 without requiring remote servers
@eljojo
https://www.theregister.com/ai-ml/2026/05/14/ontario-auditors-find-doctors-ai-note-takers-routinely-blow-basic-facts/5240771 - local model helps with some concerns, but not all.Also these are generally paid tools people are using to try to save time. Fussing with local tools with more rough edges are not what the therapist is likely looking for.
@commonst @ShaulaEvans -
@ShaulaEvans More angles on AI that have been interesting to non-tech folks:
- humans see faces in clouds, it doesn't take much to convince us something seems like a person. don't fall for it!
- chatbots don't understand or know anything-- they convert all your input words into ID numbers and do statistics on them, that's all
- I wish they would automate my laundry and dishwashing instead of replacing art, am i right?
@ShaulaEvans Less interesting to most people I have talked to about AI concerns:
- LLMs are built by surveillance companies to entice you to share personal thoughts and details
- All the large-scale ethics (stolen data, environmental disaster, enriching fascists)
- These tools don't just filter information like a search engine or a social media algorithm, they also give you a narrative about it. that is an escalation in propaganda strength
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@ShaulaEvans Less interesting to most people I have talked to about AI concerns:
- LLMs are built by surveillance companies to entice you to share personal thoughts and details
- All the large-scale ethics (stolen data, environmental disaster, enriching fascists)
- These tools don't just filter information like a search engine or a social media algorithm, they also give you a narrative about it. that is an escalation in propaganda strength
@beandreams Thanks for all of this, Sarah.
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@beandreams Thanks for all of this, Sarah.
️@ShaulaEvans Good luck! I think your stated intentions of being productive and treating the person as dear and important are so auspicious
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@ShaulaEvans Good luck! I think your stated intentions of being productive and treating the person as dear and important are so auspicious
️@beandreams It's someone very dear to me who is intelligent and caring but isolated and under-supported.
They are also, for other reasons I won't specify, probably at a higher than average risk of AI psychosis.
But it's someone who cares about me and respects me, so I have some ground to stand on in the conversation, at least.
I would like to prevent problems in this situation now rather than respond to a crisis later, if I can.
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Have you ever had a *productive* conversation with someone you care about regarding the pitfalls of AI? Not about big picture concerns like ethics, environmental impact, etc., but about the more immediate harms to the person, like inaccurate responses and the risk of AI psychosis.
I need to have a gentle, informative conversation in a non-shaming way with someone dear to me, and I'd love to learn from anyone who has done this successfully.
*AI Booster replies will be blocked.
@ShaulaEvans
Have you seen https://youtu.be/y85nqc2zm7M ?I think the main take-away though is basically share concerns but don't shame which it sounds like is already your plan
