I know this is unpopular as hell, but I believe that LLMs have potential to do more good than bad for learning, a long as you don’t use it for critical things. So no health related questions, or questions that is totally unacceptable to have wrong.

The ability to learn about most subjects in a really short time from a “private tutor”, makes it an effective, but flawed tool.

Let’s say that it gets historical facts wrong 10% of the time, is the world more well off if people learn a lot more, but it has some errors here and there? Most people don’t seem to know almost no history at all.

Currently people know very little about critical topics that is important to a society. This ignorance is politically and societally very damaging, maybe a lot more than the source being 10% wrong. If you ask it about social issues, there is a more empathetic answers and views than in the main political discourse. “Criminals are criminals for societal reasons”, “Human rights are important” etc.

Yes, I know manipulation of truth can be done, so it has to be neutral, which some LLMs probably aren’t or will not be.

Am I totally crazy for thinking this?

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    If people bring critical thinking skills to the table, AI is great! But “if” is doing some heavy lifting.

    Don’t know about other countries and generations, but as an American GenX dude, I only had two teachers through the end of high school that made the effort to teach critical thinking. I’d go as far as to say that lack is driving ALL of our political and societal issues.

    You would be bugfuck crazy to agree with me on everything, but FFS, most people can’t argue a point with facts. For that matter they can’t tell the difference between a fact and an opinion, and that’s where AI stands to hurt us.

    OTOH, AI can’t be worse than social media. For all the bitching about AI around here, LLMs get facts correct far above what FaceBook and Twitter are feeding us. I doubt the average lemming has really delved into those sites lately, me included! But it’s hard to overstate how poisonous they are to the average citizen.

    Look at Grok. LOL, that thing spits facts against it’s own creator, and he’s in total control!