> As such AI inherits all the "world-saving capabilities" of software which, empirically, are not exactly overwhelmingly proven.
Are we significantly closer to solving non-polynomial problems in polynomial time? I don't think so. I think this should be the bar. Otherwise it's just a server process that is probably smarter than a teenager, and less smart than a PhD. This would likely kill more low wage jobs and push more people into poverty. I don't see this kind of technology saving the world, anymore than the internet brought people together, or nuclear power provided cheap, clean energy.
I appreciate what you're saying; my wife and I met online also.
I think the internet has also helped make identity politics more pervasive and have spread a ton of very unhelpful "information", e.g., "demoncrats and celebrities eat aborted babies to look younger," or "the earth is flat and the government controls the weather," or "the election was stolen and we need to storm the capitol to take our country back".
In the nineties, people were much more sympathetic to common sense gun control, and we did things like pass the Brady Bill. Now, it seems like any form of gun control is fought tooth and nail. In my opinion, this is a case of identity politics, accelerated by the internet.
I don't have a solution to this problem. I'm just saying that our predictions about how networked computers would be used, and the reality of how they are used today, are starkly different.
Are we significantly closer to solving non-polynomial problems in polynomial time? I don't think so. I think this should be the bar. Otherwise it's just a server process that is probably smarter than a teenager, and less smart than a PhD. This would likely kill more low wage jobs and push more people into poverty. I don't see this kind of technology saving the world, anymore than the internet brought people together, or nuclear power provided cheap, clean energy.