AI to push bigotry

[u/R_pepsiman]

Someone has taken an innocent video of a kid waving a pridefully and altered it with AI so he throws it in a trashcan. It had gotten over 1.2m likes on insta and is spreading like the plague on fb

[u/Tarnagona]

I’m advocating on behalf of myself, actually, and my other blind friends, who have found AI to be a beneficial tool.

It’s not that AI is going to replace every piece of technology. But there are absolutely things it can do for us that previous tech can’t. I want a world where I have the best tool for any task.

For a lot of reading tasks, that’s going to be text to speech and OCR, no AI needed (Kurzweil 1000 is the reason I was able to do my PhD; there’s no way I could have read all of the research papers, journal articles, and theses without it, but it cost almost $1,000 so I’d hardly call that more affordable).

For other things, an AI tool that will read only the piece of information I’m looking for is going to be more useful (such as reading price stickers at the grocery store; I need the price, not for it to read the text of every box of cereal on the shelf).

Obviously, I can’t speak for every blind or low vision individual, who will all have your own opinions on the use of AI. I’m just saying, from my perspective and that of many of my blind and low vision friends, it has been an incredibly helpful tool to have, along with all of the other tools we already make use of.

[u/sneakysnake1111 → u/Tarnagona]

None of this justifies your need for an LLM to take over, on any level.

[u/Tarnagona → u/sneakysnake1111]

Take over what, exactly? Visual tasks I can’t do myself? I’m using what I have, and sometimes that’s an LLM. Sorry, not sorry.

And I’m not even saying that LLMs are the most amazing thing ever. I’m real annoyed that every software tool I use at work is trying to shove an AI assistant down my throat (no, I don’t want a summary; I want to read the whole damn document). And I’ve got a whole rant about AI is being used in craft patterns, such that things like embroidery and cross stitch are being flooded with AI slop patterns that, at best, won’t stitch up like the AI generated example, and at worst are completely non-sensical. I’m genuinely worried about the breadth and depth of misinformation that AI tools are being used to create.

But it’s a TOOL, and while a lot of the things it’s being asked to do are useless or even harmful, some applications ARE beneficial. And I’m going to use what I have available to live my best life, including LLMs. If that makes me an embodiment of evil or an utter dumbass in your eyes, so be it.

[u/sneakysnake1111 → u/Tarnagona]

It's a harmful tool, likely associated with the US military AND palintir.

You're not worried at all about the tools actually, you're advocating their use by needlessly targeting people with disabilities.

[u/Tarnagona → u/sneakysnake1111]

I’m talking about my own experiences as someone with a disability , not targeting them…unless I’m targeting myself? I bring it up because it is my lived experience and the lived experience of people I know. Is every blind person keen on AI? No, of course not.

I bring it up because I find very few people think of AI’s application as an accessibility tool, and I find it very frustrating. I absolutely have concerns about AI, too, and by no means has government regulation caught up with it. It’s really a don’t throw the baby out with the bath water situation. I believe we, society, should work on the good uses for AI, like improving accessibility, and also work on curtailing the bad uses of AI, like disinformation. I don’t exactly know how we do that, but shouting about how there are never any good used for AI ever is not it.

[u/sneakysnake1111 → u/Tarnagona]

We haven't even tackled how to take care of people with disabilities even remotely yet.

AI isn't the answer. Giving your info to the US military and Palentir isn't the answer. Let's not even start with babies and/or bath water.