this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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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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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I would agree with that if the cost of the tool was prohibitively expensive for the average person, but it’s really not.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (18 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 138 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago

This. It seems like they have tried to shoehorn AI into just about everything but what it is good at.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

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

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