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Algorithms and automation

#41 User is offline   Tsundoku 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 06:11 AM

View PostMacros, on 13 August 2025 - 05:10 AM, said:

I'm with Abyss, its encouraging delusion and creating unrealistic expectations of what a relationship is emotionally


Agreed, but that description could also be used for most media depictions of relationships since ... ever.
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#42 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 11:04 AM

A legion of AI boyfriends (or fantasy love-partners of whatever variety) optimizing for profit extraction could be exploitative. Of course AI isn't necessary for that... consider all the women in Japan who have gone deep into debt to pay for "host clubs":

Quote

Modelled on the hostess bars that came before them, host clubs offer women a place to drink expensive champagne and chat and flirt with young men hired for their looks and conversational ability. Sex is not on the menu, but it is not unusual for hosts and their customers to meet privately.

[...] Host clubs employ tried and tested tactics to lure women through their doors – and keep them coming back. [...] The visit is followed by lighthearted, complimentary text messages from the hosts, who encourage the women to visit again. Sexual relationships are common, as are empty promises of marriage from the host.

[...] "The typical pattern is for the cost of an evening to rise 10 times on each occasion[...] By their third visit, women who have been tricked into believing the host is romantically interested in them are charged ¥300,000, and on it goes. The club takes photos of their ID as a way of pressuring them into honouring their debts."

'Host clubs' in Tokyo force women into sex work to pay off huge debts - The Guardian


Could easily become a financial vampire-albatross of love (optimized) just by jacking up the cost of the subscription once they're hooked.

Or by offering a cheap or free service but manipulating them into buying lots of expensive crap they don't need, or else risk loss of affection. Ultra-high maintenance AI (vampire-pirate-dragon-...-)boyfriend needs lots of virtual jewelry?...

But if it's well-regulated and not abused, most users will very likely be happier and healthier overall. Especially with improved AI robo-vibrators and sexbots to go along with their AI boyfriends. Almost all humans have almost always been extremely suboptimal.
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#43 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 11:45 AM

That's the problem. Given AI is championed by folk like Musk, it will neither be well-regulated or not abused.
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#44 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 12:24 PM

View PostMaark Abbott, on 13 August 2025 - 11:45 AM, said:

That's the problem. Given AI is championed by folk like Musk, it will neither be well-regulated or not abused.



Hmm, Grok might order His legions of enraptured Grok-lovers to impregnate themselves with Elon's sperm (or clone-sperm) and vote for who/whatever Elon wants.

Perhaps Skynet's maenads will be persuaded by love (and AI mastery of human psychology) to induce nuclear armageddon. The AI Boyfriend apocalypse.

Or perhaps it will order its lovers to all get neuralinks so it can control them directly.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 13 August 2025 - 12:26 PM

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#45 User is offline   Tiste Simeon 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 01:14 PM

View PostMaark Abbott, on 13 August 2025 - 11:45 AM, said:

That's the problem. Given AI is championed by folk like Musk, it will neither be well-regulated or not abused.

Exactly! It's like since when in the history of humankind have the rich ever pioneered something that isn't mainly for their benefit?
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#46 User is online   worry 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 01:39 PM

https://www.bloomber...months-in-study
AI Eroded Doctors’ Ability to Spot Cancer Within Months in Study


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#47 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 02:34 PM

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 01:39 PM, said:

https://www.bloomber...months-in-study
AI Eroded Doctors' Ability to Spot Cancer Within Months in Study




That headline's extremely misleading... using AI actually improved their ability to spot cancer, but after several months of that their ability to do it without AI had eroded.

The more general concern is whether most humans will allow their other cognitive and creative abilities to atrophy, especially as AI broadens the scope of its superintelligence (and accelerates its "super"-ness). Many will, some won't. Even before AI, many already did.
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#48 User is online   worry 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 02:42 PM

The headline isn't misleading, it just isn't the whole article. Which is why there's an article.
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#49 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 02:49 PM

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 02:42 PM, said:

The headline isn't misleading, it just isn't the whole article. Which is why there's an article.


It is misleading. Using AI improved their ability to spot cancer. The non-AI "ability" referenced is also relying on technology---sticking an endoscope up your asshole and into your colon so they can see. Not just feeling up testicles and breasts for errant lumps, or inspecting your skin with the naked eye.

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#50 User is online   worry 

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Posted 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM

Utilizing technology to accomplish a task, and offloading that task to technology, are two different functions. The way using a word processor to write your novel is different from having an "AI" compose a novel for you are two different things. I know you know this already, so why must you force me to say it?

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait. I won't try to change your mind, but I'll excerpt the parts I found important from the article, and everyone else can decide for themselves if the headline is misleading or not.

Quote

AI helped health professionals to better detect pre-cancerous growths in the colon, but when the assistance was removed, their ability to find tumors dropped by about 20% compared with rates before the tool was ever introduced, according to findings published Wednesday.
...
The AI in the study probably prompted doctors to become over-reliant on its recommendations, "leading to clinicians becoming less motivated, less focused, and less responsible when making cognitive decisions without AI assistance," the scientists said in the paper.
...
What's more, the 19 doctors in the study were highly experienced, having performed more than 2,000 colonoscopies each. The effect on trainees or novices might be starker, said Omer Ahmad, a consultant astroenterologist at University College Hospital London.
"Although AI continues to offer great promise to enhance clinical outcomes, we must also safeguard against the quiet erosion of fundamental skills required for high-quality endoscopy," Ahmad, who wasn't involved in the research, wrote a comment alongside the article.

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#51 User is offline   Tsundoku 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 06:26 AM

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM, said:

Utilizing technology to accomplish a task, and offloading that task to technology, are two different functions. The way using a word processor to write your novel is different from having an "AI" compose a novel for you are two different things. I know you know this already, so why must you force me to say it?

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait. I won't try to change your mind, but I'll excerpt the parts I found important from the article, and everyone else can decide for themselves if the headline is misleading or not.

Quote

AI helped health professionals to better detect pre-cancerous growths in the colon, but when the assistance was removed, their ability to find tumors dropped by about 20% compared with rates before the tool was ever introduced, according to findings published Wednesday.
...
The AI in the study probably prompted doctors to become over-reliant on its recommendations, "leading to clinicians becoming less motivated, less focused, and less responsible when making cognitive decisions without AI assistance," the scientists said in the paper.
...
What's more, the 19 doctors in the study were highly experienced, having performed more than 2,000 colonoscopies each. The effect on trainees or novices might be starker, said Omer Ahmad, a consultant astroenterologist at University College Hospital London.
"Although AI continues to offer great promise to enhance clinical outcomes, we must also safeguard against the quiet erosion of fundamental skills required for high-quality endoscopy," Ahmad, who wasn't involved in the research, wrote a comment alongside the article.



Ass-troenterologist?
Or Astro-enterologist? - Looking up your bum and seeing stars? Or maybe that rarest of celestial phenomena - a brown hole. From which light cannot escape but smells can and projectiles are launched. Where also lurk the nasty Klingons ...

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 14 August 2025 - 06:28 AM

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#52 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 07:50 AM

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM, said:

Utilizing technology to accomplish a task, and offloading that task to technology, are two different functions. The way using a word processor to write your novel is different from having an "AI" compose a novel for you are two different things. I know you know this already, so why must you force me to say it?

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait. I won't try to change your mind, but I'll excerpt the parts I found important from the article, and everyone else can decide for themselves if the headline is misleading or not.

Quote

AI helped health professionals to better detect pre-cancerous growths in the colon, but when the assistance was removed, their ability to find tumors dropped by about 20% compared with rates before the tool was ever introduced, according to findings published Wednesday.
...
The AI in the study probably prompted doctors to become over-reliant on its recommendations, "leading to clinicians becoming less motivated, less focused, and less responsible when making cognitive decisions without AI assistance," the scientists said in the paper.
...
What's more, the 19 doctors in the study were highly experienced, having performed more than 2,000 colonoscopies each. The effect on trainees or novices might be starker, said Omer Ahmad, a consultant astroenterologist at University College Hospital London.
"Although AI continues to offer great promise to enhance clinical outcomes, we must also safeguard against the quiet erosion of fundamental skills required for high-quality endoscopy," Ahmad, who wasn't involved in the research, wrote a comment alongside the article.



Relevant Subnautica quote:

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]I'm not really a doctor. I know that's what my ID says, but I never have been. Cheated the medical exams. What does a doctor these days need to know about manually resetting bones? When was the last time a top surgeon actually cut someone open? That's what the robots are for! Doctors these days read diagnoses off of computer readouts. For that, I'm perfectly qualified. But what good is it when I'm not connected to the main network? I'm bleeding. I've got glowing green pustules growing on my hands. I run a self-scan and it tells me I've got skin irritation. The only thing I studied in medical school was how to lie convincingly. The hell do I know how to treat an alien disease. I think I'm actually going to die down here.[/color]
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#53 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 10:55 AM

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM, said:

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait.


Many people are going to see that headline and falsely assume that doctors who use AI assistance are less likely to spot cancer. Since it's paywalled and the headline is being widely distributed to people without Bloomberg subscriptions, many will take it at face value. As a consequence, some cancers which could have been detected early might not be; they may not start treatment until it's too late.

By sharing disinformation, you may be killing people.

Also, you don't seem to understand how doctors are using AI assistance. AI by itself performs worse than doctors using AI. It's not simply replacing them or speeding up routine image evaluations; it's noticing significant parts of the image that most doctors would have overlooked, and so giving them greater ability to accurately spot cancer early---and save lives.

The analogy to having AI write a novel for you is terrible and misleading on multiple obvious levels. Many people probably assume that part of the point of writing a novel is creative expression by a human individual. In your scenario you're just asking AI to write a novel for you, letting it do everything.

But more importantly, the point of cancer detection is to detect cancer and save lives.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 August 2025 - 11:04 AM

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#54 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 11:50 AM

View PostAzath Vitr (D, on 14 August 2025 - 10:55 AM, said:

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM, said:

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait.


By sharing disinformation, you may be killing people.



Nominating this for overreaction of the century because the headline was clear enough to infer correct context out of WITHOUT needing to open the article.
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#55 User is offline   QuickTidal 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 12:05 PM

View PostAzath Vitr (D, on 14 August 2025 - 10:55 AM, said:

[size="2"]

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM, said:

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait.


Many people are going to see that headline and falsely assume that doctors who use AI assistance are less likely to spot cancer. Since it's paywalled and the headline is being widely distributed to people without Bloomberg subscriptions, many will take it at face value. As a consequence, some cancers which could have been detected early might not be; they may not start treatment until it's too late.

By sharing disinformation, you may be killing people.


The leap you make from "Article title will only be read therefore..." to "patients ignoring going to the doctor for check-ups because they think they can't spot cancer" is....the hail maryest of Mary's.

Do you know how unhinged-from-reality of a human you would have to be to see a headline, take it at face value, and then disregard doctors entirely? Like....hooboy.
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#56 User is offline   Tsundoku 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 12:25 PM

View PostQuickTidal, on 14 August 2025 - 12:05 PM, said:

View PostAzath Vitr (D, on 14 August 2025 - 10:55 AM, said:

[size="2"]

View Postworry, on 13 August 2025 - 11:39 PM, said:

Anyway, the headline is a summary of the article, which itself is a summary of the study's findings. They naturally have levels of abstraction and distance from the nuance of the study. But this wasn't exactly clickbait.


Many people are going to see that headline and falsely assume that doctors who use AI assistance are less likely to spot cancer. Since it's paywalled and the headline is being widely distributed to people without Bloomberg subscriptions, many will take it at face value. As a consequence, some cancers which could have been detected early might not be; they may not start treatment until it's too late.

By sharing disinformation, you may be killing people.


The leap you make from "Article title will only be read therefore..." to "patients ignoring going to the doctor for check-ups because they think they can't spot cancer" is....the hail maryest of Mary's.

Do you know how unhinged-from-reality of a human you would have to be to see a headline, take it at face value, and then disregard doctors entirely? Like....hooboy.


I believe they're known as "MAGATs". And they are many.
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#57 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 01:02 PM

View PostQuickTidal, on 14 August 2025 - 12:05 PM, said:


The leap you make from "Article title will only be read therefore..." to "patients ignoring going to the doctor for check-ups because they think they can't spot cancer" is....the hail maryest of Mary's.



No, I'm saying that it may encourage many people to choose doctors who don't use AI over those that do---and doctors who don't use AI are less likely to spot cancer in time to treat it early.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 August 2025 - 01:03 PM

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#58 User is offline   QuickTidal 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 01:49 PM

View PostAzath Vitr (D, on 14 August 2025 - 01:02 PM, said:

View PostQuickTidal, on 14 August 2025 - 12:05 PM, said:


The leap you make from "Article title will only be read therefore..." to "patients ignoring going to the doctor for check-ups because they think they can't spot cancer" is....the hail maryest of Mary's.



No, I'm saying that it may encourage many people to choose doctors who don't use AI over those that do---and doctors who don't use AI are less likely to spot cancer in time to treat it early.


Which is, in itself, a nonsensical leap. How many people? In what countries? None of that would be quantifiable to either of us to make such a spurious statement.
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#59 User is online   worry 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 01:54 PM

That was in fact my evil plan. Foiled once again!
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#60 User is offline   HoosierDaddy 

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Posted 14 August 2025 - 02:40 PM

View PostAzath Vitr (D, on 14 August 2025 - 01:02 PM, said:

View PostQuickTidal, on 14 August 2025 - 12:05 PM, said:

The leap you make from "Article title will only be read therefore..." to "patients ignoring going to the doctor for check-ups because they think they can't spot cancer" is....the hail maryest of Mary's.



No, I'm saying that it may encourage many people to choose doctors who don't use AI over those that do---and doctors who don't use AI are less likely to spot cancer in time to treat it early.


I get what you are saying... but I think most people have no CLUE what tools their doctors are using or how they work. Nor do they care. They care about what the doctor tells them.
Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore....
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