I am cautiously optimistic about how many people are seeing through the AI hype - I've (consciously) been through a few tech hype cycles and I've never seen folks catch on to the grift this quickly before
(Not saying that my arguing shifted the public opinion, rather that's just my time reference point)
@joepie91 maybe because it's very easy to get hands-on, DIY illustration of it's shortcomings very quickly, without investing all your money and waiting two years or so to lose it?
@hllizi I don't think that fully explains it either - NFTs dropped hilariously in value within a matter of months and that still persisted for quite a few years
@joepie91 hm, right. But maybe you could still tell yourself, well, yeah, this needs to catch on and then it'll go through the roof. LLMs came with a shock start that could make you (and at first made me) think: ok, the Turing test is taken. And from there on, maybe the improvements haven't been able to compensate for the disappointments while you watch these things drown the web in their excrement. That'll hardly keep people happy.
@hllizi I definitely think the widespread (and fast!) negative externalities play a role, yeah - I also suspect that the complaints from artists in particular have helped a lot with that
Like, for comparison, with the cryptocurrency grift I'd been arguing against it for like 7 years (ie. since it became a Problem) before I noticed the broader public opinion shifting? Whereas with LLMs and the like it seems to have only taken 2 years or so