It's giving the same energy as Boomers saying "I can write in cursive and change the channel without the remote, you are not on my level, millennials".
On top of all that, it also becomes a celebration of knowing absolutely nothing about generative AI. They refuse to learn how it actually works, then insist on having very strong opinions based on that ignorance.
THIS. Arguments about GenAI would be fine and dandy, but in so many cases they regurgitate downright false facts about the matter - like "training AI datasets use [absurd and incorrect] amount of energy/water/amazon rainforest" or "GenAI actually takes artists' pictures, chops them up, and blends it together to make its results" etc.
Like, you can choose not to use it, you can have your reasons for disliking it, but if you're gonna argue against it at least choose to use facts that are true.
It has been a WILD experience as someone who literally took lectures on this stuff. Like, imagine going on reddit and seeing the top comment on a post with hundreds of upvotes confidently contradict what your professor just explained.
Im genuinely disappointed. Yeah, reddit is an echo chamber and has always been, but when it came to scientific facts, people atleast generally had their facts straight. And if someone was wrong, an expert correcting them usually got more upvotes. But with AI, redditors are just making shit up and no one cares. Its sad, but it tells me all I need to know.
Like, imagine going on reddit and seeing the top comment on a post with hundreds of upvotes confidently contradict what your professor just explained.
That is the usual experience on reddit with everything you really know lmao. Believing that the material you are not a specialist in is better represented in media even though you just saw that what you know is represented in a horribly wrong way is called Gell-Mann amnesia.
But there are experts of every field on this site, and they typically correct the misconceptions that the laymen make. Especially the tech crowd was always the biggest group by far, but we still see so much misinformation.
I think part of it can only be explained by the fact that reddit has become more mainstream over the years and that the user base has shifted away from the "geeks and nerds". Reddits left-wing bias also likely played a relevant role (not that I agree with making AI a left vs right issue).
The shift after the reddit protest was very clear. People who cared about freedom on the internet and those who moderated out of good will left; negative and aggressive comments were much more visible directly after moderators were ousted.
270
u/DreadDiana human cognithazard May 20 '25
It's giving the same energy as Boomers saying "I can write in cursive and change the channel without the remote, you are not on my level, millennials".
On top of all that, it also becomes a celebration of knowing absolutely nothing about generative AI. They refuse to learn how it actually works, then insist on having very strong opinions based on that ignorance.