5 ms·

I don't agree with the luddite-esque AI views like using ChatGPT makes you dumber and it thinks for you, but- this is a real case of why people are angry and wh

by awongh 1mo ago

I don't agree with the luddite-esque AI views like using ChatGPT makes you dumber and it thinks for you, but- this is a real case of why people are angry and why they should be concerned about deployment of AI. The article says it's basically to handle high call volumes maybe during some kind of widespread incident. But in those cases why would AI even be needed- if calls are flooding in for something and people need to be put on hold why do you need AI to ask them if they are calling about incident x? Just automate a voice for that and ask them that while they're on hold / when the system first picks up. This smells like a bandaid over an underfunded system, and a way to sneak in further cost-cutting in the future where the real calls will be actually answered by AI.

King-Aaron 1mo ago
> I don't agree with the luddite-esque AI views like using ChatGPT makes you dumber and it thinks for you I believe there are studies that indicate this to be true, however.
- refulgentis 1mo ago
  My $0.000002: You dont need a study to know delegating task X can make you worse at task X, nor do you need one to know its vacuously true and avoidable.
  - ColdStream 1mo ago
    Pretty much. I don't know the vast majority of phone numbers of family and friends because my phone remembers it for me. When you delegate demands, you reallocate your resources.
  - bulbar 1mo ago
    The world is more complex, though: maybe people delegate thinking in some areas to be able to have more resources to think about other areas that are more relevant to them?
    - dgellow 1mo ago
      Maybe, sure, in the sense that it’s possible. Is it plausible though?
  - wraptile 1mo ago
    This is not necessarily true if you spend more than 2 seconds thinking about it. If I'm raking leaves all day I eventually reach diminishing returns. My arms might even start to get tired and actually make me lose skill. Now I got a leaf raking robot which is not perfect but does 50% of the job and gives me free time to recover my hands and research new leaf raking techniques, maybe even invest into a leaf blower. Did I not become better at raking leaves? People are not calculators - all these simplistic takes are frankly insulting to human capability.
    - dgellow 1mo ago
      You don’t need to go to irrelevant analogies such as removing leaves. Humans develop expertise by overcoming their struggles. When you delegate thinking and engaging with source material to a software you’re skipping the actual thing that makes us improve intellectually speaking. Have you never had to learn a new language or a music instrument? AI can just translate a text into your native language, or tell you how the sentence should be built, but you have to actually actively engage with the low level process of trying to do yourself all the little boring things, a lot, for a long time, to develop the intuition and expertise
      - wraptile 1mo ago
        You're missing my point entirely. To counter you music example - grinding the same chord over and over does not make you a better musician more than watching youtube videos of other people playing. Skill growth is not as simple as it is in video games - you need variety and rest to actually grow your skill rather than mindless task repetition. This is where AI tools, when used correctly, can result to great growth.
        dgellow 1mo ago
        You need both, the task repetition and the resting. Even better if the task repetition isn’t mindless, I don’t know why you added that qualifier. And actually, grinding the exact same chord over and over can improve your music. You won’t become a grandiose composer, and even unlikely to become a descent musician from that alone, but you will definitely evolve from a messy play to something more comfortable over time. And likely get ideas and motivation for what to do next. I really don’t think AI tools are good to use as a non expert, they nudge you away from meaningful engagement
- awongh 1mo ago
  For the people who believe this, I think it deeply reflects how they think about all knowledge and the kinds of things they would use this technology for- "finding the answers to things without having to think about them"- that's only one way to use it, and the least compelling way, in my opinion.
  - palmotea 1mo ago
    Struggling with things is important for understanding and thinking about things, and AI gives you a way to bypass that struggle. People will take that bypass, because to resist it takes willpower. It makes it harder to follow the path you need to. It's sort of like exercise: it used to be required and unavoidable (you had to walk to get anywhere), now it's optional so most people don't do it with anywhere near enough regularity or intensity.
- yunnpp 1mo ago
  Can't be dumber if you're already dumbmaxxed.
- wraptile 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - dgellow 1mo ago
    Could we stop with the Luddite label? It’s such a lazy, vague way to gesture that you find some people dumb instead of using a more descriptive term to communicate who you’re referring to. Virtually nobody who would define as AI skeptic or anti-AI identifies as a Luddite
    - wraptile 1mo ago
      [flagged]
      - jazzyjackson 1mo ago
        Then you want Lemming, not Luddite. But even then those animals were tossed off a cliff, not blindly following.
      - amiga386 1mo ago
        Actually, it's an apt label because the machine looms were brought in by factory owners so they could employ less skilled operators who commanded a much lower wage, and the factory owners pocketed the difference. Skilled weavers were up in arms and smashed the machines. Today, the purpose of AI is not to get a machine to do your job, it's to look good enough to persuade your boss to sack you and split your salary between the boss and the AI company.
        wraptile 1mo ago
        > Skilled weavers were up in arms and smashed the machines. And how did that work out of them? People conveniently ignore that part of history which seems to clearly indicate that outright destruction rarely leads to progress. With AI, I'd argue that we have much more opportunity to steer than to destroy, and the latter is not even a viable option so - why even entertain it at all? It's just raging for raging sake.
refulgentis 1mo ago
> Just automate a voice for that and ask them that while they're on hold / when the system first picks up. Is this criteria satisfied if we swap the titular “AI” with our inoffensive “automating the voice”?
- awongh 1mo ago
  If they are using a true agentic TTS / LLM setup then this is just a first pass for them to implement fully AI answered 911 calls. Otherwise I can code this state machine condition for you in 10 minutes.
  - refulgentis 1mo ago
    Im a bit daft today, getting over strep throat, and this went over my head: is an equivalent to this “Yes, but it’s scary because it might turn from automating voice to no more humans answering ever?”
wolfi1 1mo ago
several things: AI won't make it cheaper, an automated voice system will invariably lead to frustration. conclusion: have emergency protocols where you can staff your call centers appropriately
acdha 1mo ago
> This smells like a bandaid over an underfunded system, and a way to sneak in further cost-cutting in the future where the real calls will be actually answered by AI. I think there’s also an aspect of accountability-washing: when regular 911 makes mistakes, managers and politicians get hauled into the spotlight to explain the failure (my city has that now due to the outgoing mayor’s decision to put an unqualified crony in charge). I will bet that the first time this fails badly it’ll be blame shifting and assurances that some huge tech company has fixed the problem and it’ll never happen again, with as little talk about oversight responsibility as they can get away with.
- awongh 1mo ago
  The other thing with the AI debate is that it's nothing new- these kinds of failures are the same kind that have been going on for a long time, for the exact same reasons. Any time a local government fails people these same kinds of incentive misalignments are at the real heart of it. The fact that it has the word AI in it just gives it that cool cyberpunk dystopian sheen, where you call 911 and the AI says something about mechahitler instead of trying to help you.
bko 1mo ago
Having someone answer and provide updates or screen for new information is valuable. For instance someone calling can know exactly where the shooter is. Or it could be something related. Information is valuable. What's the alternative? Not have someone pick up the phones? No matter how much you over staff there will be times where peak volume will be more than you can support
- bediger4000 1mo ago
  This assumes that LLMs can do those things. Given day to day experience with "chat bots", they can't. The LLM eii be circular do nothing of value then route your call to a number where nobody picks up.
  - dheatov 1mo ago
    All party in the deal understands this. They are just convinced they will no longer be around when things go wrong, hence won't be held accountable for this particular decision.
reitzensteinm 1mo ago
What about cases where e.g. there's an earthquake with thousands of incidents and you need to triage help to the worst? It's not common, but there are absolutely cases where small amounts of intelligence applied in parallel is a genuine advantage.
beloch 1mo ago
Knowing the way in which bureaucracies work, I suspect there is zero (or likely negative) money available for new humans or old-school systems, but heaps available for anything with AI in the title. A manager who increases human staff will be blamed for causing bloat, but any manager who manages to replace humans with AI is an efficiency guru and promising future leader (even if the AI sucks and winds up costing more than what it replaces).
dzhiurgis 1mo ago
> This smells like a bandaid over an underfunded system, and a way to sneak in further cost-cutting in the future where the real calls will be actually answered by AI. I don't get why are people so against cost cutting and use of AI in government services? So much of my tax money is already wasted on bullshit. If you are in Europe - it's majority of your work, being set on fire by bureaucrats.

by awongh 1mo ago

King-Aaron 1mo ago

> I don't agree with the luddite-esque AI views like using ChatGPT makes you dumber and it thinks for you I believe there are studies that indicate this to be true, however.

refulgentis 1mo ago
My $0.000002: You dont need a study to know delegating task X can make you worse at task X, nor do you need one to know its vacuously true and avoidable.
- ColdStream 1mo ago
  Pretty much. I don't know the vast majority of phone numbers of family and friends because my phone remembers it for me. When you delegate demands, you reallocate your resources.
- bulbar 1mo ago
  The world is more complex, though: maybe people delegate thinking in some areas to be able to have more resources to think about other areas that are more relevant to them?
  - dgellow 1mo ago
    Maybe, sure, in the sense that it’s possible. Is it plausible though?
- wraptile 1mo ago
  This is not necessarily true if you spend more than 2 seconds thinking about it. If I'm raking leaves all day I eventually reach diminishing returns. My arms might even start to get tired and actually make me lose skill. Now I got a leaf raking robot which is not perfect but does 50% of the job and gives me free time to recover my hands and research new leaf raking techniques, maybe even invest into a leaf blower. Did I not become better at raking leaves? People are not calculators - all these simplistic takes are frankly insulting to human capability.
  - dgellow 1mo ago
    You don’t need to go to irrelevant analogies such as removing leaves. Humans develop expertise by overcoming their struggles. When you delegate thinking and engaging with source material to a software you’re skipping the actual thing that makes us improve intellectually speaking. Have you never had to learn a new language or a music instrument? AI can just translate a text into your native language, or tell you how the sentence should be built, but you have to actually actively engage with the low level process of trying to do yourself all the little boring things, a lot, for a long time, to develop the intuition and expertise
    - wraptile 1mo ago
      You're missing my point entirely. To counter you music example - grinding the same chord over and over does not make you a better musician more than watching youtube videos of other people playing. Skill growth is not as simple as it is in video games - you need variety and rest to actually grow your skill rather than mindless task repetition. This is where AI tools, when used correctly, can result to great growth.
      - dgellow 1mo ago
        You need both, the task repetition and the resting. Even better if the task repetition isn’t mindless, I don’t know why you added that qualifier. And actually, grinding the exact same chord over and over can improve your music. You won’t become a grandiose composer, and even unlikely to become a descent musician from that alone, but you will definitely evolve from a messy play to something more comfortable over time. And likely get ideas and motivation for what to do next. I really don’t think AI tools are good to use as a non expert, they nudge you away from meaningful engagement
awongh 1mo ago
For the people who believe this, I think it deeply reflects how they think about all knowledge and the kinds of things they would use this technology for- "finding the answers to things without having to think about them"- that's only one way to use it, and the least compelling way, in my opinion.
- palmotea 1mo ago
  Struggling with things is important for understanding and thinking about things, and AI gives you a way to bypass that struggle. People will take that bypass, because to resist it takes willpower. It makes it harder to follow the path you need to. It's sort of like exercise: it used to be required and unavoidable (you had to walk to get anywhere), now it's optional so most people don't do it with anywhere near enough regularity or intensity.
yunnpp 1mo ago
Can't be dumber if you're already dumbmaxxed.
wraptile 1mo ago
[flagged]
- dgellow 1mo ago
  Could we stop with the Luddite label? It’s such a lazy, vague way to gesture that you find some people dumb instead of using a more descriptive term to communicate who you’re referring to. Virtually nobody who would define as AI skeptic or anti-AI identifies as a Luddite
  - wraptile 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jazzyjackson 1mo ago
      Then you want Lemming, not Luddite. But even then those animals were tossed off a cliff, not blindly following.
    - amiga386 1mo ago
      Actually, it's an apt label because the machine looms were brought in by factory owners so they could employ less skilled operators who commanded a much lower wage, and the factory owners pocketed the difference. Skilled weavers were up in arms and smashed the machines. Today, the purpose of AI is not to get a machine to do your job, it's to look good enough to persuade your boss to sack you and split your salary between the boss and the AI company.
      - wraptile 1mo ago
        > Skilled weavers were up in arms and smashed the machines. And how did that work out of them? People conveniently ignore that part of history which seems to clearly indicate that outright destruction rarely leads to progress. With AI, I'd argue that we have much more opportunity to steer than to destroy, and the latter is not even a viable option so - why even entertain it at all? It's just raging for raging sake.

refulgentis 1mo ago

> Just automate a voice for that and ask them that while they're on hold / when the system first picks up. Is this criteria satisfied if we swap the titular “AI” with our inoffensive “automating the voice”?

awongh 1mo ago
If they are using a true agentic TTS / LLM setup then this is just a first pass for them to implement fully AI answered 911 calls. Otherwise I can code this state machine condition for you in 10 minutes.
- refulgentis 1mo ago
  Im a bit daft today, getting over strep throat, and this went over my head: is an equivalent to this “Yes, but it’s scary because it might turn from automating voice to no more humans answering ever?”

wolfi1 1mo ago

several things: AI won't make it cheaper, an automated voice system will invariably lead to frustration. conclusion: have emergency protocols where you can staff your call centers appropriately

acdha 1mo ago

> This smells like a bandaid over an underfunded system, and a way to sneak in further cost-cutting in the future where the real calls will be actually answered by AI. I think there’s also an aspect of accountability-washing: when regular 911 makes mistakes, managers and politicians get hauled into the spotlight to explain the failure (my city has that now due to the outgoing mayor’s decision to put an unqualified crony in charge). I will bet that the first time this fails badly it’ll be blame shifting and assurances that some huge tech company has fixed the problem and it’ll never happen again, with as little talk about oversight responsibility as they can get away with.

awongh 1mo ago
The other thing with the AI debate is that it's nothing new- these kinds of failures are the same kind that have been going on for a long time, for the exact same reasons. Any time a local government fails people these same kinds of incentive misalignments are at the real heart of it. The fact that it has the word AI in it just gives it that cool cyberpunk dystopian sheen, where you call 911 and the AI says something about mechahitler instead of trying to help you.

bko 1mo ago

Having someone answer and provide updates or screen for new information is valuable. For instance someone calling can know exactly where the shooter is. Or it could be something related. Information is valuable. What's the alternative? Not have someone pick up the phones? No matter how much you over staff there will be times where peak volume will be more than you can support

bediger4000 1mo ago
This assumes that LLMs can do those things. Given day to day experience with "chat bots", they can't. The LLM eii be circular do nothing of value then route your call to a number where nobody picks up.
- dheatov 1mo ago
  All party in the deal understands this. They are just convinced they will no longer be around when things go wrong, hence won't be held accountable for this particular decision.

reitzensteinm 1mo ago

What about cases where e.g. there's an earthquake with thousands of incidents and you need to triage help to the worst? It's not common, but there are absolutely cases where small amounts of intelligence applied in parallel is a genuine advantage.

beloch 1mo ago

Knowing the way in which bureaucracies work, I suspect there is zero (or likely negative) money available for new humans or old-school systems, but heaps available for anything with AI in the title. A manager who increases human staff will be blamed for causing bloat, but any manager who manages to replace humans with AI is an efficiency guru and promising future leader (even if the AI sucks and winds up costing more than what it replaces).

dzhiurgis 1mo ago

> This smells like a bandaid over an underfunded system, and a way to sneak in further cost-cutting in the future where the real calls will be actually answered by AI. I don't get why are people so against cost cutting and use of AI in government services? So much of my tax money is already wasted on bullshit. If you are in Europe - it's majority of your work, being set on fire by bureaucrats.