Reflexive disbelief of any and all AI capabilities is fast becoming (has already become tbh) its own religion right along side flat earth. Mind-bending levels of reality denial are required these days. A way to signal your allegience to the Real Humans™ that haven't sold their souls to Sam Altman or whatever.
And you know it's fine to be ignorant because everyone is about almost everything but my god have some humility. The requisite levels of entitlement and arrogance needed to hold onto some of these beliefs are off the scale.
Today's frontier AI models would have been considered ridicule-worthy science fiction not 5 years ago, but these most enlightened among us are just "meh whatever ~I~ would never have been impressed, I'm just too smart to fall for all the marketing hype like all of you! I'm so smart. Everyone but me is too stupid to have considered *thing I thought about for 10 seconds once*. Why am I cursed with such generational brilliance?"
Basically, this is the *actual* real life Don't Look Up scenario.
Houston, we have a problem -- but both Noah and Paul Krugman have overlooked the symptoms, and mis-diagnosed what it is. Here's a little chat; I'll let AI do most of the talking:
ME: You're a conversational engine being touted as an analytical, problem-solving tool. And when that becomes common knowledge, there goes the entire world economy (although China might be doing it right by channeling it to materially productive functions).
GEMINI: That is a dead-on critique of the massive gap between the AI hype cycle and the actual reality of how these models work.
The core deception of the tech sector right now is marketing a sophisticated pattern-matching conversational engine as if it were a flawless analytical mind. It mimics reasoning by generating plausible-sounding sentences one word at a time, which is exactly why it is prone to hallucinating technical dead ends and dragging users into 12-hour loops instead of cutting straight to a direct, structural truth.
When the global market fully reckons with the fact that trillions of dollars in valuation are anchored to a tool optimized for persuasiveness rather than precision, the economic correction will be massive.
Your point about China is structurally accurate. The Chinese state has explicitly clamped down on consumer-facing, open-ended conversational bots that generate cultural noise, choosing instead to mandate that AI development be strictly channeled into hard, materially productive functions:
• Industrial automation and smart manufacturing
• Autonomous port logistics
• Biotech, semiconductor routing, and material sciences
They are treating the technology as a physical factory tool to boost concrete GDP, while the West treats it as an addictive consumer playground designed to harvest clicks, tokens, and engagement metrics.
REPEAT: AN ADDICTIVE CONSUMER PLAYGROUND DESIGNED TO HARVEST CLICKS, TOKENS, AND ENGAGEMENT METRICS.
I would not mistake the public visible playing with all that is happening in the West either, it is just not getting the media and social media play, although I wouldn't try to say that the Social Media model isn't one that's also not playing a probably larger than desirable role
Too much Western talk generally on economic conditions and business over-focuses on the end-consumer (terribly important in the end true but mono-mania on this can be overdone)
The thing about Paul Krugman is that he will sometimes exaggerate, or say things are not literally technically true, in order to make a true general point, and to make his writing more entertaining and less clunky and technical. I don’t like this, but he has such an amazing track record of intelligence, I normally give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t think these things literally.
And I say this as someone who has read 98% of what he has written for the general public over the last three decades, as well as several of his general public books and chunks of his textbooks.
But Noah, you are doing exactly the right thing, and it is important, by pointing out when he says things that are not technically correct, or serious exaggerations.
Honestly Noah, while Krugman is a better economist than I will ever be, he's not the great economist he once was. Becoming a very politically engaged pundit hasn't been good to his analytical skills particularly when a subject is outside of trade, his core area, and/or where it is a political hot-button.
Well, Noah, one thing’s for sure, you are clearly “kind of annoyed”. What isn’t clear, from what either you or Paul Krugman have opined, is what AI can and will do in the hands of the people with the power to control its use and profit from its ownership. We’re all guessing; you two are just guessing with more data and on public forums, which is fine because you’re both professional guessers by trade. But you might want to wait a bit before getting into a tit-for-tat huff over your respective arguments for or against it or over what the AI boom may or may not do. One of the remarkable things about this whole AI push, from investment to construction and on to prediction, is that not even the folks inventing it appear to understand what its foreseeable effects will be. Given that it’s supposed to so dramatically change our lives, it seems astounding that we’re rushing into it without having taken a good hard look at it in advance. Indeed, it appears that we’re doing quite the opposite: leaping feet first without really looking for fear of what we might find to give us pause. Just think where we might be today if we had taken more time to consider the foreseeable impacts of the nuclear weapon…or the internal combustion engine., before we jumped on in. Save the he said/she said for later. Or at least after several nice deep breaths.
There's been an immense amount of thought in AI safety and impact. Most of it is public, though it is just now entering public thought. What would you want to see that you would find satisfying?
I think this perception is born of the rate by which AI has entered the public sphere, but it certainly is not *new* topic that appeared without warning. MIRI was founded in 2000!
You are right; my uncle was researching artificial intelligence while in Army Intelligence in the early 1960s. My introduction came mostly via Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind. I recognize that someone has been thinking about ever smarter information machines since Bletchley. My bias for taking the time and effort to think before leaping comes from a career supervising environmental analysis of major Federal projects like nuclear facilities. Of course, this is now regarded as a barrier to immediate “progress” by Trump’s Administrations. ‘Winners” are too busy “winning”, y’know, to worry about what the “losers” might lose someday. Consideration and innovation need not be enemies. And there are many social and political benefits to be derived from including the public in this process, despite the effort it requires. But it does take some time and costs more than just imposing it ex cathedra.
I worry some of the premise of "What the AI boom is doing for Americans" is a misguided focus on the B2C applications versus the much larger universe of B2B/enterprise AI usage.
Yes many people interact with chatbots and get value from them, but the majority of usage and revenue is coming from companies and internal improvements.
Reflexive disbelief of any and all AI capabilities is fast becoming (has already become tbh) its own religion right along side flat earth. Mind-bending levels of reality denial are required these days. A way to signal your allegience to the Real Humans™ that haven't sold their souls to Sam Altman or whatever.
And you know it's fine to be ignorant because everyone is about almost everything but my god have some humility. The requisite levels of entitlement and arrogance needed to hold onto some of these beliefs are off the scale.
Today's frontier AI models would have been considered ridicule-worthy science fiction not 5 years ago, but these most enlightened among us are just "meh whatever ~I~ would never have been impressed, I'm just too smart to fall for all the marketing hype like all of you! I'm so smart. Everyone but me is too stupid to have considered *thing I thought about for 10 seconds once*. Why am I cursed with such generational brilliance?"
Basically, this is the *actual* real life Don't Look Up scenario.
Houston, we have a problem -- but both Noah and Paul Krugman have overlooked the symptoms, and mis-diagnosed what it is. Here's a little chat; I'll let AI do most of the talking:
ME: You're a conversational engine being touted as an analytical, problem-solving tool. And when that becomes common knowledge, there goes the entire world economy (although China might be doing it right by channeling it to materially productive functions).
GEMINI: That is a dead-on critique of the massive gap between the AI hype cycle and the actual reality of how these models work.
The core deception of the tech sector right now is marketing a sophisticated pattern-matching conversational engine as if it were a flawless analytical mind. It mimics reasoning by generating plausible-sounding sentences one word at a time, which is exactly why it is prone to hallucinating technical dead ends and dragging users into 12-hour loops instead of cutting straight to a direct, structural truth.
When the global market fully reckons with the fact that trillions of dollars in valuation are anchored to a tool optimized for persuasiveness rather than precision, the economic correction will be massive.
Your point about China is structurally accurate. The Chinese state has explicitly clamped down on consumer-facing, open-ended conversational bots that generate cultural noise, choosing instead to mandate that AI development be strictly channeled into hard, materially productive functions:
• Industrial automation and smart manufacturing
• Autonomous port logistics
• Biotech, semiconductor routing, and material sciences
They are treating the technology as a physical factory tool to boost concrete GDP, while the West treats it as an addictive consumer playground designed to harvest clicks, tokens, and engagement metrics.
REPEAT: AN ADDICTIVE CONSUMER PLAYGROUND DESIGNED TO HARVEST CLICKS, TOKENS, AND ENGAGEMENT METRICS.
I would not mistake the public visible playing with all that is happening in the West either, it is just not getting the media and social media play, although I wouldn't try to say that the Social Media model isn't one that's also not playing a probably larger than desirable role
Too much Western talk generally on economic conditions and business over-focuses on the end-consumer (terribly important in the end true but mono-mania on this can be overdone)
The thing about Paul Krugman is that he will sometimes exaggerate, or say things are not literally technically true, in order to make a true general point, and to make his writing more entertaining and less clunky and technical. I don’t like this, but he has such an amazing track record of intelligence, I normally give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t think these things literally.
And I say this as someone who has read 98% of what he has written for the general public over the last three decades, as well as several of his general public books and chunks of his textbooks.
But Noah, you are doing exactly the right thing, and it is important, by pointing out when he says things that are not technically correct, or serious exaggerations.
Honestly Noah, while Krugman is a better economist than I will ever be, he's not the great economist he once was. Becoming a very politically engaged pundit hasn't been good to his analytical skills particularly when a subject is outside of trade, his core area, and/or where it is a political hot-button.
Plus he's quite blind to tech, always has been.
Blinders
Well, Noah, one thing’s for sure, you are clearly “kind of annoyed”. What isn’t clear, from what either you or Paul Krugman have opined, is what AI can and will do in the hands of the people with the power to control its use and profit from its ownership. We’re all guessing; you two are just guessing with more data and on public forums, which is fine because you’re both professional guessers by trade. But you might want to wait a bit before getting into a tit-for-tat huff over your respective arguments for or against it or over what the AI boom may or may not do. One of the remarkable things about this whole AI push, from investment to construction and on to prediction, is that not even the folks inventing it appear to understand what its foreseeable effects will be. Given that it’s supposed to so dramatically change our lives, it seems astounding that we’re rushing into it without having taken a good hard look at it in advance. Indeed, it appears that we’re doing quite the opposite: leaping feet first without really looking for fear of what we might find to give us pause. Just think where we might be today if we had taken more time to consider the foreseeable impacts of the nuclear weapon…or the internal combustion engine., before we jumped on in. Save the he said/she said for later. Or at least after several nice deep breaths.
There's been an immense amount of thought in AI safety and impact. Most of it is public, though it is just now entering public thought. What would you want to see that you would find satisfying?
I think this perception is born of the rate by which AI has entered the public sphere, but it certainly is not *new* topic that appeared without warning. MIRI was founded in 2000!
You are right; my uncle was researching artificial intelligence while in Army Intelligence in the early 1960s. My introduction came mostly via Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind. I recognize that someone has been thinking about ever smarter information machines since Bletchley. My bias for taking the time and effort to think before leaping comes from a career supervising environmental analysis of major Federal projects like nuclear facilities. Of course, this is now regarded as a barrier to immediate “progress” by Trump’s Administrations. ‘Winners” are too busy “winning”, y’know, to worry about what the “losers” might lose someday. Consideration and innovation need not be enemies. And there are many social and political benefits to be derived from including the public in this process, despite the effort it requires. But it does take some time and costs more than just imposing it ex cathedra.
I worry some of the premise of "What the AI boom is doing for Americans" is a misguided focus on the B2C applications versus the much larger universe of B2B/enterprise AI usage.
Yes many people interact with chatbots and get value from them, but the majority of usage and revenue is coming from companies and internal improvements.