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US experts who work in artificial intelligence fields seem to have a much rosier outlook on AI than the rest of us.

In a survey comparing views of a nationally representative sample (5,410) of the general public to a sample of 1,013 AI experts, the Pew Research Center found that "experts are far more positive and enthusiastic about AI than the public" and "far more likely than Americans overall to believe AI will have a very or somewhat positive impact on the United States over the next 20 years" (56 percent vs. 17 percent). And perhaps most glaringly, 76 percent of experts believe these technologies will benefit them personally rather than harm them (15 percent).

The public does not share this confidence. Only about 11 percent of the public says that "they are more excited than concerned about the increased use of AI in daily life." They're much more likely (51 percent) to say they're more concerned than excited, whereas only 15 percent of experts shared that pessimism. Unlike the majority of experts, just 24 percent of the public thinks AI will be good for them, whereas nearly half the public anticipates they will be personally harmed by AI.

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[-] TommySoda@lemmy.world 136 points 1 week ago

If it was marketed and used for what it's actually good at this wouldn't be an issue. We shouldn't be using it to replace artists, writers, musicians, teachers, programmers, and actors. It should be used as a tool to make those people's jobs easier and achieve better results. I understand its uses and that it's not a useless technology. The problem is that capitalism and greedy CEOs are ruining the technology by trying to replace everyone but themselves so they can maximize profits.

[-] faltryka@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago

The natural outcome of making jobs easier in a profit driven business model is to either add more work or reduce the number of workers.

[-] ferb@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 week ago

This is exactly the result. No matter how advanced AI gets, unless the singularity is realized, we will be no closer to some kind of 8-hour workweek utopia. These AI Silicon Valley fanatics are the same ones saying that basic social welfare programs are naive and un-implementable - so why would they suddenly change their entire perspective on life?

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[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Yes, but when the price is low enough (honestly free in a lot of cases) for a single person to use it, it also makes people less reliant on the services of big corporations.

For example, today’s AI can reliably make decent marketing websites, even when run by nontechnical people. Definitely in the “good enough” zone. So now small businesses don’t have to pay Webflow those crazy rates.

And if you run the AI locally, you can also be free of paying a subscription to a big AI company.

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[-] count_dongulus@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Mayne pedantic, but:

Everyone seems to think CEOs are the problem. They are not. They report to and get broad instruction from the board. The board can fire the CEO. If you got rid of a CEO, the board will just hire a replacement.

[-] Zorque@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

And if you get rid of the board, the shareholders will appointment a new one. If you somehow get rid of all the shareholders, like-minded people will slot themselves into those positions.

The problems are systemic, not individual.

[-] MangoCats@feddit.it 6 points 1 week ago

Shareholders only care about the value of their shares increasing. It's a productive arrangement, up to a point, but we've gotten too good at ignoring and externalizing the human, environmental, and long term costs in pursuit of ever increasing shareholder value.

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[-] pjwestin@lemmy.world 68 points 1 week ago

Maybe that's because every time a new AI feature rolls out, the product it's improving gets substantially worse.

[-] MangoCats@feddit.it 44 points 1 week ago

Maybe that's because they're using AI to replace people, and the AI does a worse job.

Meanwhile, the people are also out of work.

Lose - Lose.

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 week ago

Even if you're not "out of work", your work becomes more chaotic and less fulfilling in the name of productivity.

When I started 20 years ago, you could round out a long day with a few hours of mindless data entry or whatever. Not anymore.

A few years ago I could talk to people or maybe even write a nice email communicating a complex topic. Now chatGPT writes the email and I check it.

It's just shit honestly. I'd rather weave baskets and die at 40 years old of a tooth infection than spend an additional 30 years wallowing in self loathing and despair.

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[-] pjwestin@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

It didn't even need to take someone's job. A summary of an article or paper with hallucinated information isn't replacing anyone, but it's definitely making search results worse.

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[-] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 53 points 1 week ago

It’s not really a matter of opinion at this point. What is available has little if any benefit to anyone who isn’t trying to justify rock bottom wages or sweeping layoffs. Most Americans, and most people on earth, stand to lose far more than they gain from LLMs.

[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 45 points 1 week ago

This is like asking tobacco farmers what their thoughts are on smoking.

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

More like asking the slaves about productivity advances in slavery. "Nothing good will come of this".

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[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago

The first thing seen at the top of WhatsApp now is an AI query bar. Who the fuck needs anything related to AI on WhatsApp?

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

Who the fuck needs ~~anything related to AI on~~ WhatsApp?

[-] alphabethunter@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Lots of people. I need it because it's how my clients at work prefer to communicate with me, also how all my family members and friends communicate.

[-] alphabethunter@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Right?! It's literally just a messenger, honestly, all I expect from it is that it's an easy and reliable way of sending messages to my contacts. Anything else is questionable.

[-] Nuxleio@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

There are exactly 0 good reasons to use whatsapp anyways...

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[-] moonlight@fedia.io 23 points 1 week ago

Depends on what we mean by "AI".

Machine learning? It's already had a huge effect, drug discovery alone is transformative.

LLMs and the like? Yeah I'm not sure how positive these are. I don't think they've actually been all that impactful so far.

Once we have true machine intelligence, then we have the potential for great improvements in daily life and society, but that entirely depends on how it will be used.

It could be a bridge to post-scarcity, but under capitalism it's much more likely it will erode the working class further and exacerbate inequality.

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[-] SSNs4evr@leminal.space 19 points 1 week ago

The problem could be that, with all the advancements in technology just since 1970, all the medical advancements, all the added efficiencies at home and in the workplace, the immediate knowledge-availability of the internet, all the modern conveniences, and the ability to maintain distant relationships through social media, most of our lives haven't really improved.

We are more rushed and harried than ever, life expectancy (in the US) has decreased, we've gone from 1 working adult in most families to 2 working adults (with more than 1 job each), income has gone down. Recreation has moved from wholesome outdoor activities to an obese population glued to various screens and gaming systems.

The "promise of the future" through technological advancement, has been a pretty big letdown. What's AI going to bring? More loss of meaningful work? When will technology bring fewer working hours and more income - at the same time? When will technology solve hunger, famine, homelessness, mental health issues, and when will it start cleaning my freaking house and making me dinner?

When all the jobs are gone, how beneficial will our overlords be, when it comes to universal basic income? Most of the time, it seems that more bad comes from out advancements than good. It's not that the advancements aren't good, it's that they're immediately turned to wartime use considerations and profiteering for a very few.

[-] briever@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

For once, most Americans are right.

[-] Sibshops@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago

No surprise there. We just went through how blockchain is going to drastically help our lives in some unspecified future.

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 16 points 1 week ago

AI has it's place, but they need to stop trying to shoehorn it into anything and everything. It's the new "internet of things" cramming of internet connectivity into shit that doesn't need it.

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[-] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

I do as a software engineer. The fad will collapse. Software engineering hiring will increase but the pipeline of new engineers will is dry because no one wants to enter the career with companies hanging ai over everyone's heads. Basic supply and demand says my skillset will become more valuable.

Someone will need to clean up the ai slop. I've already had similar pistons where I was brought into clean up code bases that failed being outsourced.

Ai is simply the next iteration. The problem is always the same business doesn't know what they really want and need and have no ability to assess what has been delivered.

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[-] sheetzoos@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

New technologies are not the issue. The problem is billionaires will fuck it up because they can't control their insatiable fucking greed.

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[-] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

AI is mainly a tool for the powerful to oppress the lesser blessed. I mean cutting actual professionals out of the process to let CEOs wildest dreams go unchecked has devastating consequences already if rumors are to believed that some kids using ChatGPT cooked up those massive tariffs that have already erased trillions.

[-] applemao@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Yet my libertarian centrist friend INSISTS that AI is great for humanity. I keep telling him the billionaires don't give a fuck about you and he keeps licking boots. How many others are like this??

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[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Experts are working from their perspective, which involves being employed to know the details of how the AI works and the potential benefits. They are invested in it being successful as well, since they spent the time gaining that expertise. I would guess a number of them work in fields that are not easily visible to the public, and use AI systems in ways the public never will because they are focused on things like pattern recognition on virii or idendifying locations to excavate for archeology that always end with a human verifying the results. They use AI as a tool and see the indirect benefits.

The general public's experience is being told AI is a magic box that will be smarter than the average person, has made some flashy images and sounds more like a person than previous automated voice things. They see it spit out a bunch of incorrect or incoherent answers, because they are using it the way it was promoted, as actually intelligent. They also see this unreliable tech being jammed into things that worked previously, and the negative outcome of the hype not meeting the promises. They reject it because how it is being pushed onto the public is not meeting their expectations based on advertising.

That is before the public is being told that AI will drive people out of their jobs, which is doubly insulting when it does a shitty job of replacing people. It is a tool, not a replacement.

[-] rockettaco37@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

All it took was for us to destroy our economy using it to figure that out!

[-] kreskin@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Its just going to help industry provide inferior services and make more profit. Like AI doctors.

[-] carrion0409@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Because it won't. So far it's only been used to replace people and cut costs. If it were used for what it was actually intended for then it'd be a different story.

[-] Naevermix@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They're right. What happens to the workers when they're no longer required? The horses faced a similar issue at the advent of the combustion engine. The solution? Considerably fewer horses.

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[-] CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago

Just about every major advance in technology like this enhanced the power of the capitalists who owned it and took power away from the workers who were displaced.

The amount of failed efforts the ruling class has made to corner ai shows me that it is a democratizing force.

I reap benefits from it already.

I can create local models with zero involvement from billionaires.

It scares them more than us.

And it should. It shows how evil they are. It’s objectively true. Ai knows it.

[-] nadram@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

But you're using these billionaires' ai models are you not? Even if you use the free models they still benefit from your profile and query data

Nope :)

Deepseek GitHub fork ftw

Tax billionaires til they don’t exist ! Or some other way!

[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Yep you can run models without giving $$ to tech billionaires!

Now we are giving it to the power billionaires! unless you own your own power sources.

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[-] SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

There is a BIG difference between what you can do and what you should do.

We have ZERO understanding on the long term effects this new technology will have on our civilization.

Why is everybody so eager to go "all in"?

We have zero understanding of the long term effect of any new tech on our civilization

But we know those who adopt early and gain mastery quickly are set up better for success in the future.

Every time.

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this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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