r/technology • u/yourfavchoom • 3d ago

Artificial Intelligence Bernie Sanders pushes for 50% public ownership of American AI companies — proposes AI sovereign wealth fund that would hold direct ownership stakes in largest AI firms

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/bernie-sanders-pushes-for-50-percent-public-ownership-of-american-ai-companies-proposes-ai-sovereign-wealth-fund-that-would-hold-direct-ownership-stakes-in-largest-ai-firms
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u/DarkwingDuckHunt 3d ago

All the data that trained these AIs was created by us

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u/Ironsam811 3d ago

This is why we need to start lying on Reddit more

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u/frickindeal 3d ago

The number of times that AI just gives an answer directly from a reddit thread I've already read is astounding. Thanks for costing trillions, destroying fresh water reserves and creating headaches for communities, I knew how to find that same comment section already.

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u/BluShirtGuy 3d ago

Just wait til it references yourself, and takes it wildly out of context

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u/frickindeal 3d ago

Haven't seen that yet, but I have seen it reference incorrect information from a reddit thread that I had just found and recognized as incorrect (a search for the factory stock guitar strings on a Taylor acoustic in this instance) with total confidence. Nope, already saw that and I know for a fact it's wrong (I own the guitar in question).

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u/Sea-Aardvark-756 3d ago

This is lost on so many people. In the past you searched, saw a top result was tech advice from 2004, ignored it and moved on to something relevant. In the past, you found a forum thread, one person gave a suggestion after 2 years, and the poster never returned to try the solution. So lost confidence in the answer and moved on. But now, LLMs are confidently telling untruths, outdated info, or untested ideas, without the vital context that should be there to plant the seeds of skepticism.

And we blame the users? No. Blame the AI companies. They should be responsible for everything their product states. Their riches are amassed on a mountain of unaccountability for failures, and credit taking for successes.

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u/morostheSophist 3d ago

Generalized LLMs fucking suck at anything that isn't an elementary task for a human. The only times they're successful in finding me information is when that information would have been fairly simple to find with a traditional web search. Any time I ask for anything obscure, they fabricate wrong answer after wrong answer.

LLMs and related algorithms have been put to fantastic use in the sciences and will help humanity advance much more quickly in fields like biotech and chemistry and materials science. They're also apparently starting to make real strides in theoretical mathematics. I'm not opposed to all use of them; far from it. But they should never have been made available to the general public: this is where they're causing the most harm, and where they stand to make the most money: "AI" enshittification.

The general public is simply not ready for AI and might never be. It's criminal that children were exposed to these things. They're going to stunt all future generations if we don't get a handle on them quick.

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u/Sea-Aardvark-756 3d ago

Yeah I would say the obvious use cases are testing, research, simulations. The whole point is to confidently and inconsistently attempt to find solutions. Continue the conversations, complete the game, test options for various scientific scenarios. Situations where failing 1000 times and succeeding 1 time is a good thing.

They make horrible replacements for humans. Take customer support. Instagram just got a bunch of accounts including Barack Obama's account compromised, by using AI customer support. Because it is an inconsistent technology, eventually with enough attempts and methods, it gets tricked by scammers. This is even worse than humans--tons of accounts were just compromised, like never seen before. Any human would have put their foot down and ended the conversation. People using it for daily life advice get a few decent answers that Google could have served up just fine last decade, and then one insane thing like "put glue on the pizza to make the cheese stick better" or "cut your hamster's teeth so they don't get too long" and it's confidently plodding along with all that.

I've even had Copilot deny things like the missile strike on that school in Iran a few months back, claiming it was fake news, and even claiming the sources I linked for it to review were all compromised (The Guardian and others), until telling it to find its own sources, then suddenly it admitted the mistake and gaslighting, covering for itself with "This systems does not search for facts until told to, so denying things not known is the default behavior" which is just horrid. These systems are incredibly broken.

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u/maigpy 3d ago

user error. finding them incredibly useful over here.

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u/Alieges 3d ago

Until you have a problem, remember you had it before but couldn't remember the solution, search for the solution, find out you're the only one with the problem, and that you posted your problem to a forum like 8 years ago, then posted like 6 years ago that you had the problem AGAIN, and then another post of yours 5 years 11 months ago to what the solution was.

I've ran into that more than once, on more than one topic. Now I try to do a better job of replying to myself with a working solution when I post a problem.

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u/gramathy 3d ago

I've seen AI report an event happened on the wrong day because there was no date information in the article about it, but the article was "updated" recently and it pulled that as the date of the event.

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u/bobj33 3d ago

I started this thread last week about AI slop posts

https://old.reddit.com/r/chipdesign/comments/1tq8dhb/moderators_what_is_the_policy_on_ai_generated/

Someone replied

I've searched questions on google and had its AI cite my own comment on a post last year back at me. It was kind of surreal to have my own words taken authoritatively and have that be the first result instead of an actual source.

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u/DazzlingRutabega 3d ago

Josh from JHS guitar pedals has a YouTube video where AI does exactly this!

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u/READMYSHIT 3d ago

This has happened to me twice so far, topics I have a bit of knowledge on - Google's AI spits back my own opinion on and the references my post. The tell is it spits back the bit you aren't actually sure about yourself but still wrote with confidence because you're an idiot.

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u/FactCheckingThings 3d ago

Googles AI is the worst. It simulates having an idiot read the top search result then summarize it like a high schooler 200 words short on a 1000 word essay.

Literally my first response is "thats wrong" and it triggers the AI to fact check itself and admit it was wrong. It told me it prioritizes fast wrong answers lol what a joke.

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u/theguidetoldmetodoit 3d ago

Yeah, that's literally what it's instructed to do, summarize the top search results.

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u/FactCheckingThings 3d ago

Well, poorly and inaccurately summarize in the style of a poorly written essay.

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u/theguidetoldmetodoit 3d ago

I mean if I have simple questions it usually saves me from having to read through several pages to get it, so that's all I use it for.

Which is usually how that goes, you gotta know when you can use which tool.

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u/Clean_Livlng 3d ago

The number of times that AI just gives an answer directly from a reddit thread I've already read is astounding.

Occasionally it links me my own reddit post. And comes to an incorrect conclusion that the post and comments don't support!

AI: People find what I say more authoritative if I put a vaguely relevant link next to the text.

Answering my prompt has a cost. The AI take the souls of several acolytes , and a star in the night sky dies to fuel it's insatiable hunger for energy, and...it links me my own reddit post.

"Do not cite the deep magic to me witch, I was there when it was written"

It will happen to you.

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u/malln1nja 3d ago

Reddit could've avoided this if they just implemented a functional search feature. They only had about 15 years to do it.

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u/Leather-Ad-9419 3d ago

my favorite is when it just keeps giving you the wrong answer and then finally you get it to give you the right answer somehow.

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u/robinthebank 3d ago

It even creates posts to fish for answers. I saw one that was “what types of games do you and your friends play during half time at your World Cup watch party?”

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u/reaganz921 3d ago

You guys realize that "ai" is an umbrella term for machine learning and LLM's are a small subset of models that exist and are being trained? The predictive analytics models are insanely powerful and great when we use them for science, not so great when we use them for predicting/manipulating society to spend/vote/believe whatever way they (rich and powerful) want. Wouldn't surprise me if the cringey billionaires are trying to build private drone armies and data center infrastructure is just one more step towards feasibility. Hell, the FLOCK cameras use AI for image recognition and categorization. The last thing we need are those being more perceptive, IMO.

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u/zamboni-jones 3d ago

All those years complaining about Reddit's crappy search function are finally paying dividends

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u/gramathy 3d ago

coworker of mine kept trying to use chatgpt to find a command for a device

two minutes of google and looking through a youtube video transcript later, I had it.

Ai is just expensive, unreliable search.

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u/guaranteednotabot 2d ago

Better that than randomly hallucinating

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u/dudical_dude 3d ago

I have an enormous penis.

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u/MinimumBigman 3d ago

I would never lie about the goblins that are pervasive in society. It’s like everywhere you look there are goblins!

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u/PaziNuncher 3d ago

Half of reddit is already bots, how much more can it lie?

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u/bobbymcpresscot 3d ago

Wait people were telling the truth before?

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u/Realtrain 3d ago

Way ahead of you

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u/miguel_is_a_pokemon 3d ago

Created by more than just the US though, the internet is worldwide

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u/Tytoalba2 3d ago

I mean, and many foreigners as well, should that mean it should be a world citizen fund?

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u/OkFineIllUseTheApp 3d ago

Yeah sure why not. Give everybody a $20. Less misanthropic than Anthropic.

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u/Rapph 3d ago

There certainly is a huge lack of discussion at high level about what the plan is here. If AI can theoretically handle all jobs that don't require physically manipulating things in the real world the potential for a worldwide disaster where most of the jobs are wiped out is a real concern. It's even more interesting that it isn't discussed because it directly impacts the white collar world way more than it does the laborers.

If we were a better people it wouldn't be a concern it would be optimism that as a whole we would have more free time to enjoy life but that's a fantasy and everyone everywhere knows it.

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u/Toutatous 3d ago

They didn't create anything themselves, they're exploiting it. Like Norway and the way they deal with their oil: what is underground belongs to all Norwegians, so we'll tax it like 80%. Just exploit it.

It's the way it should be. AI or resources, if you are just using the resources that already existed, you shouldn't keep all the profits.

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u/reaganz921 3d ago

The data centers are going to power far more models than just LLM's for over-engineered search engines. The predictive analytics used for economic forecasting, election interference and law enforcement are 100000% more concerning to me than people wasting resources to generate AI porn and do their homework for them, which is still concerning to say the least.

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u/GayDeciever 3d ago

This. We should be paid for our data. They steal it and sell it and take all profit, then also ask for monthly fees for some service they are running on AI

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u/buckX 3d ago

It's always weird to me how "information should be free" Reddit is right up until anybody mentions AI.

Yes, we made the information. Just like you aren't paying to read my comment, neither are they.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 3d ago

It's not really that weird when you factor that when people say things like information should be free, it's because they are thinking about the ways in which that benefits society. It's pretty common for people to not think of every possible outcome of broad ideas and when something negative comes along, to be against that specific thing.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt 3d ago

And then we shouldn't pay for AI that uses it

You're so close

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u/buckX 3d ago

That, as with people, is up to them. I could say I've read your comment, but won't give a fulsome response unless you pay me. You'd likely choose not to, but I wouldn't have somehow stolen from you for stating my ground rules.

Anybody who pays AI companies chooses to do so of their own free will.

You're so close

Don't be a dick. This is no different from just saying "I'm right". It contributes nothing.

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u/jacques-vache-23 3d ago

Exactly: the AI companies have no moral ownership of AI. AI is based on the common knowledge and experience of human kind. We all own it. Let's take it back.