AI - A force for Good or Bad?

[Stubby]

8 hours ago, Welshfred said:

I believe ai personal assistants are bad news. 

 

Also they don't have nice tits . 

[openspaceman]

15 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

a train to the cliff - too dramatic.

I don't know. I won't see it, you might.

[AHPP]

[tree-fancier123]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

Also they don't have nice tits . 

yet

[sime42]

9 hours ago, openspaceman said:

That's what the Luddites and Saboteurs said.

 

Think about all those clerks who sat in rows and columns of desks with mechanical calculators summing up bank accounts, electricity bills etc. All jobs automated by data processing.

 

Look at the service industries that grew with the labour which came available.

 

Loss of jobs was never the issue because the problem comes from the wealth of the  people that own the capital that grew the systems taking humanity on a train to the cliff at ever increasing speed.

 

I'm a self confessed Luddite. 

 

Point taken about the applications for labour always shifting in the past. This feels like a bigger step change, more fundamental though. It greater than just automation. Also, service industries are a mixed blessing. They've not been good for this country in the last 50 years. 

 

Last paragraph: completely agree. 

 

[Steven P]

2 hours ago, Stubby said:

Also they don't have nice tits . 

 

Only a matter of silicone

 

[tree-fancier123]

26 minutes ago, Steven P said:

 

Only a matter of silicone

 

 

US approves lab-grown CHICKEN: Stores and restaurants can now legally sell man-made poultry | Daily Mail Online

WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

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The US Department of Agriculture gave the green light to sales of the meats Wednesday after reviewing the meat's manufacturing...

 

 

[openspaceman]

24 minutes ago, sime42 said:

I'm a self confessed Luddite. 

So am I, more so as I got older and can't see the benefits in automating and mechanising  everything. Physically doing things is satisfying and mostly good for the body.

 

AI is good at recognising patterns, in fact a digital computer only compares things, it can't even do binary adding but uses a quirk of ANDing to look like it's adding. I had great hopes of AI when a guy from Logica  explained how a computer programmed to be "intelligent" could recognise objects in unfamiliar surroundings and that was in 1987.

 

I had expected an AI triage system at a hospital or GP's; breathe into a machine to analyse metabolites in your breath, similar for blood, urine and faeces and check them for DNA of foreign microbes. After all there are more viruses and bacteria in you than you have cells of your own.

[sime42]

2 hours ago, openspaceman said:

So am I, more so as I got older and can't see the benefits in automating and mechanising  everything. Physically doing things is satisfying and mostly good for the body.

 

AI is good at recognising patterns, in fact a digital computer only compares things, it can't even do binary adding but uses a quirk of ANDing to look like it's adding. I had great hopes of AI when a guy from Logica  explained how a computer programmed to be "intelligent" could recognise objects in unfamiliar surroundings and that was in 1987.

 

I had expected an AI triage system at a hospital or GP's; breathe into a machine to analyse metabolites in your breath, similar for blood, urine and faeces and check them for DNA of foreign microbes. After all there are more viruses and bacteria in you than you have cells of your own.

 

Interesting. I want to ask for a more in-depth explanation of the ANDing masquerading as adding thing. Guessing it's not something that fits neatly in a nutshell though. I was fascinated by Logic Gates when I was taught them all to briefly.

 

Pattern recognition. A friend of mine was developing software to be used in a chicken nugget factory, or some such, around the turn of the century. It's purpose was to recognise and reject wrong or damaged ones by looking at their shape. AI wasn't even on the horizon then, it was just pattern recognition. He now works at GCHQ, something to do with policy, (that's all he's allowed to say). 

 

 

[sime42]

On 29/10/2025 at 10:32, Squaredy said:

The educational establishment (especially universities) have really been caught napping by AI.  Apparently most universities have no policy or method of determining how much of students’ work is their own.  And when you add to that the fact that most assessments are now course based (very few degrees need exams now according to my ChatGpt) it is quite a pickle.

 

I had a chat with my own son’s maths teacher last year about the system they are made to use for maths homework (when he was in Year 10 so age 14).  I pointed out to the teacher that because of the way the system (Sparx maths) works it encourages pupils to cheat.  
 

He assured me it was impossible for kids to cheat as they all get set different questions.  I had to inform him that most likely every kid in his class knows exactly how to cheat using a whole variety of apps, all of which are literally in front of them on the same screen as they are using to do the homework.  Even Google lense gives the answer to all these problems, with all the correct workings to copy down for the workbook.  My twelve year old now uses Sparx Maths, and sure enough all his mates know how to cheat.

 

This raises one of the critical points.  Organisations have to very quickly come up to speed and work out what impact AI could have and how they will manage it.  Right now schools and universities are clueless as to what the impacts are, or what they need to do.

 

Students cheating is the least of our worries when it comes to children and AI. 

 

Teenage boys using ‘personalised’ AI for therapy and romance, survey finds | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Male Allies UK worries rise in chatbot ‘girlfriends’ will leave boys unable to socialise and respect boundaries

 

 

"The research, based on a survey of boys in secondary education across 37 schools in England, Scotland and Wales, also found that more than half (53%) of teenage boys said they found the online world more rewarding than the real world."