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@shavixmir saidFreaking blows my mind how many movies and books have been written on this topic over the last decade, combined with the dire warnings issued by the CEOs of these companies about dangers, and yet how darn quickly the law enforcement and militaries of the world are all like "how quickly can we hook this thing up to guns and long range weapons?"
Every wargame ends with AI causing a nuclear war.
Most of our “greatest thinkers” deem it dangerous.
So… do the maths…
The warnings weren't intended to be prophesies, right?
@wildgrass saidNonsense and fantasy. I already gave you a list of advancements in technology where the doomsday forecasts proved to be wrong. You nutcases have a fear of technology Google Says :The fear of technology is called technophobia. Technophobia is an irrational or persistent fear, anxiety, or dislike of advanced technology and complex digital devices like computers and smartphones.
Freaking blows my mind how many movies and books have been written on this topic over the last decade, combined with the dire warnings issued by the CEOs of these companies about dangers, and yet how darn quickly the law enforcement and militaries of the world are all like "how quickly can we hook this thing up to guns and long range weapons?"
The warnings weren't intended to be prophesies, right?
The humble calculator suffered through the same harassment, and their story sounds similar to AI. Here is their story from Clude AI:
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Q : Was the use of calculators condemned in schools when it came out, and were the naysayers correct in the end?
A: Yes, calculators were genuinely condemned when they entered classrooms in the 1970s-80s — and the research verdict on the naysayers is fairly clear: mostly wrong on the empirical claim, partly right on a narrower underlying concern.
The condemnation was real and sustained, not fringe:
Handheld calculators hit the US market around 1970-71. Within a few years, teachers were pushing back hard — a 1976 Princeton administrator worried about schools avoiding the issue while kids had calculators anyway, and a 1977 Texas editorial described calculators "invading" classrooms with a teacher warning that students' "skills may deteriorate." Some US states required calculator use on exams in the 1980s while others banned them outright — a genuine, fought-over split.
The peak resistance came in 1986, when educator John Saxon led a public demonstration at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) annual meeting, arguing reliance on calculators would stunt mental math skills. Even the SAT banned calculators entirely until 1994.
Were the naysayers correct?
Mostly no, on their core empirical claim:
The specific prediction — that calculator use would cause basic numeracy/computation skills to decline — has not been supported by the research. A 1994 review by Sparrow et al. found no evidence in the research to support the assertion that children's numeracy skills would decline from calculator use. NCTM's own 1980 "An Agenda for Action" had already recommended calculator use at all grade levels based on the evidence available, well before the debate even peaked. Studies through the 1980s-90s generally found computational benefits and no harm to broader mathematical understanding when calculators were properly integrated.
Where the naysayers had a legitimate, narrower point:
The core defensible concern wasn't really "calculators are bad" — it was that if a student uses a tool before understanding the underlying operation, the tool can mask a weakness rather than extend real knowledge. That's a fair pedagogical point that survived the debate: it's why most curricula still teach manual arithmetic before introducing calculators, rather than replacing the foundational teaching entirely. So the caution about sequencing — learn the concept first, then use the tool — proved reasonable; the doomsday framing of "skills will deteriorate" did not.
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@Rajk999 saidYeah… calculators or AI… same thing… 🙄
Nonsense and fantasy. I already gave you a list of advancements in technology where the doomsday forecasts proved to be wrong. You nutcases have a fear of technology [i]Google Says :The fear of technology is called technophobia. Technophobia is an irrational or persistent fear, anxiety, or dislike of advanced technology and complex digital devices like computers and smartph ...[text shortened]... asonable; the doomsday framing of "skills will deteriorate" did not.
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@shavixmir saidThe principle is the same. Throughout the history of mankind, there has been a group of negative, backward-thinking, stagnant naysayers and forecasters of doomsday, who have attempted to derail advancements. It never works and these people end up looking stupid.
Yeah… calculators or AI… same thing… 🙄
I gave a long list of events [in another thread], where these things occurred.
@AverageJoe1 saidYou could use seawater. Nuclear subs do, but on land people would not like salt water falling on their cars and trucks. It would be nice if they could distill the water to desalinate it. Maybe that would be too expensive.
You might debate Sonhouse on this . I know not much science. Maybe I will later if there is money in it.
Sonhouse will tell you BTW, water is ever used up. We have the same amount of water on this planet as has been there since time.
In some of our genius, inventors and innovators, which most countries do not have, certainly Finland Norway, or that other plac ...[text shortened]... a way to make seawater usable for the cooling purpose. Maybe that's where I will make my investment.
The powers that be want data centers so bad they are starting to call anybody that protests against them eco-terrorists.
@wildgrass saidI like drift of your post, but could you finish it? Libs do not finish posts. Wht does this mean, for instance? Who does the figuring. Would it be you? Would it be Mott?
Don't use AI if you want to actually think and retain information.
I think a moratorium on AI makes sense until we can figure out what responsible use and abuse looks like, think more carefully about where the data centers are going in, why and how they're getting built, and build effective safeguards against the surveillance and hacking AI that is taking over everything ...[text shortened]... the world and rid us of the burden of voting and making our own decisions. Does that not scare you?
""we can figure out what responsible use and abuse looks like,"""
Huh?
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@Rajk999 saidIf you read the last paragraph of this AI-generated content, you would see the core analogy broken down. You've labeled everyone saying anything negative about technology as technophobes, but that's not what's happening. No one here is expressing a general fear of technology, they are expressing specific concerns with how the technology is being used, the potential for real harm without regulation, and how the infrastructure itself has negative consequences. All of these concerns you seem willing to ignore.
Nonsense and fantasy. I already gave you a list of advancements in technology where the doomsday forecasts proved to be wrong. You nutcases have a fear of technology [i]Google Says :The fear of technology is called technophobia. Technophobia is an irrational or persistent fear, anxiety, or dislike of advanced technology and complex digital devices like computers and smartph ...[text shortened]... asonable; the doomsday framing of "skills will deteriorate" did not.
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@AverageJoe1 saidSimple commonsense stuff. Probably the only reason why this hasn't happened yet is because the industry bought all the politicians (except Bernie).
I like drift of your post, but could you finish it? Libs do not finish posts. Wht does this mean, for instance? Who does the figuring. Would it be you? Would it be Mott?
""we can figure out what responsible use and abuse looks like,"""
Huh?
- new data centers must generate their own power, sustainably.
- new data centers must NOT use up the area's clean drinking water.
- AI should be restricted to purposes of work and entertainment, and banned from most education environments.
- AI should never be used as a replacement for human decision making in life-or-death military purposes.
- It should be illegal to pretend that AI-generated content was human-generated. This is just a basic plagiarism problem.
- strict enforceable financial penalties for AI used to hack or collect personal information of law-abiding citizens.
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@wildgrass saidThe last paragraph has nothing to do with AI. Its is specific to the calculator issue.
If you read the last paragraph of this AI-generated content, you would see the core analogy broken down. You've labeled everyone saying anything negative about technology as technophobes, but that's not what's happening. No one here is expressing a general fear of technology, they are expressing specific concerns with how the technology is being used, the potential for real ...[text shortened]... e infrastructure itself has negative consequences. All of these concerns you seem willing to ignore.
Regulations will come if and when they are necessary. You labelling AI dangerous and calling it to be stopped is pure irrational nonsense, which nobody is going to listen to.
The harm to which you refer is grossly exaggerated.
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@Rajk999 saidNice try. Tech leaders are saying its extremely dangerous. Among the best Sam Altman (Founder of OpenAI) quotes“I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world." and then "“Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,”
The last paragraph has nothing to do with AI. Its is specific to the calculator issue.
Regulations will come if and when they are necessary. You labelling AI dangerous and calling it to be stopped is pure irrational nonsense, which nobody is going to listen to.
The harm to which you refer is grossly exaggerated.
If the leaders of the companies who are producing AI are saying it's dangerous, and the leading minds in tech are raising alarms that it is dangerous, and we have decades of literature and research which highlight specific dangerous scenarios, and simple logic also suggests potential for harm, then why do you think its NOT dangerous? Why do you think Sam Altman is wrong?
Are there similar quotes from calculator alarmists stating that they might cause human extinction?
@wildgrass saidHere is what experts said about computers a few decades ago.
Nice try. Tech leaders are saying its extremely dangerous. Among the best Sam Altman (Founder of OpenAI) quotes“I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world." and then "“Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,”
If the leaders of the ...[text shortened]...
Are there similar quotes from calculator alarmists stating that they might cause human extinction?
• Thomas Watson (IBM) is widely quoted as saying in 1943,
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" — this one has decent documentation, though some historians dispute the exact wording and context.
• Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp, said in 1977:
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home" — reasonably well-documented, from a speech to the World Future Society.
• A 1957 Prentice Hall business-books editor reportedly said data processing was
"a fad that won't last out the year."
Thankfully the world went ahead and ignored these fake experts.
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@Rajk999 saidCan you provide a quote from any expert of any previous technology (other than nuclear weapons) that presented it as a potential extinction-level technology?
Here is what experts said about computers a few decades ago.
• Thomas Watson (IBM) is widely quoted as saying in 1943,
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" — this one has decent documentation, though some historians dispute the exact wording and context.
• Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp, said in 1977:
"There is no reason for any ind ...[text shortened]... ad that won't last out the year."
Thankfully the world went ahead and ignored these fake experts.
@wildgrass saidAnd yet Sam Altman is still working with AI.
Nice try. Tech leaders are saying its extremely dangerous. Among the best Sam Altman (Founder of OpenAI) quotes“I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world." and then "“Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,”
If the leaders of the ...[text shortened]...
Are there similar quotes from calculator alarmists stating that they might cause human extinction?
How do you reconcile this?
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@AThousandYoung saidI dunno man. People do stuff for all kinds of reasons. Bill Gates also penned a recent essay that was very concerning, about AI and he's making gobs of money from it. Not knowing everything about Sam's motivations, I still don't think it's very prudent to downplay the risks of a new technology if the developers of that technology are talking about the potential for it to cause human extinction.
And yet Sam Altman is still working with AI.
How do you reconcile this?