this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2026
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I'm not an AI techie and I'm not well educated on LLMs/AI in general. The issue I'm having is the dichotomy between how people talk about it. I've heard completely opposite ends of the spectrum. From AI is quickly becoming advanced enough to threaten human society, all the way to its a glorified dictionary/search engine that can't really do much of anything. I know Lemmy has a steep anti-AI slant. But, can someone talk about this in a way I can wrap my head around why the divide seems so big?

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[–] HumbleExaggeration@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

My Problem is: Even if your take on AI is true, we give an unreliable piece of software access to the internet and more and more systems and infrastructure. Even if it is not a malicious AI, it can be so unreliable, it might kill us by incompetence. a Sme can be said about some presidents...

[–] Mondez@lemdro.id 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It won't kill us as a species, but its use may lead to disasters that were unintended and didn't need to happen. Much of the regulation in other industries is due to that kind of thing happening. Worse, the companies making them are trying to get regulation to curtail other parties development for economic advantage rather than regulation on use which will steer the entire industry.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 2 points 1 day ago

disasters that were unintended and didn’t need to happen.

As you say, every "scientifically based" industrial innovation / breakthrough has had the potential to cause new kinds of mayhem, and most of them did to some degree or another. Burning rivers and CO2 overload in the atmosphere spring to mind, but industrial "accidents" are part and parcel of industrial activity, always have been.

[–] FRYD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

LLMs are not intelligent. They lack morals, knowledge, and intent. The only remote risk of extermination is if a company with absolute impunity and endless resources told an LLM to hack the nuclear weapons and if knowledge of how to do that was already published online and processed as training data.

LLMs cannot do anything new, they can only regurgitate information thats already been stolen.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 30 minutes ago

The only remote risk of extermination is if a company with absolute impunity and endless resources told an LLM to hack the nuclear weapons

Absolutely a huge risk.

and if knowledge of how to do that was already published online and processed as training data.

extremely naive to not understand existing capabilities of 100s of probings and planning based on probings, and multiple strategies, in a swarm working towards a goal.

Still to your first point, the organizations with the budget and impunity, seeking the most powerful tools, are then the ones who will use them for evil, at expense of others, power maximization.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 1 points 15 hours ago

Or if the military put an LLM in charge of nuclear weapons. But surely nobody would be stupid enough to do that!

[–] ricdeh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

That is simply counter-factual. LLMs can absolutely do things that have not been published before, and they can access knowledge that is not in their training data through RAG. Intelligence is debatable, but reasoning models can reliably imitate "thinking" to a degree, and recursive self-improvement might lead to an autonomous advancement of intelligence. That LLMs allegedly "only regurgitate information" is simply wrong.

[–] isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're confusing morals, knowledge, intent, and intelligence with capability. An atomic bomb has no will of its own either.

[–] No1@aussie.zone 1 points 5 minutes ago

idk, every atom bomb I've met has one purpose.....

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 2 points 1 day ago

can be so unreliable, it might kill us by incompetence.

Same can be said of Homer Simpson manning the console at a nuclear power plant.

AI is a tool, irresponsible use of a tool is... irresponsible. Just like people puttting "not-self-driving" cars into "supervised driving assistance mode" and taking a nap at the wheel at 80mph.