I keep encountering the same attitude whenever I critically discuss AI: there’s a kind of fanatical optimism or hype, a “gold rush” mentality, that feels strange, yet can’t easily be refuted, because its proponents always retreat to the same position: “We don’t know. Time will tell.”
But this doesn’t actually tell us what time will reveal, or whether it will be good or bad. So these considerations can't simply be dismissed.
Still, this argument seems irrefutable and at the same time, when taken seriously, it exerts enormous pressure. It represents a kind of evolutionary logic that can override everything else.
That’s why I wanted to ask: are there people or works that realistically and pragmatically outline the limits of AI,something that can serve as a solid counterpoint to blind optimism? Something that can't be overwritten so easily?
I don’t mean the “grand limit cases” like quantum randomness, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, or similar topics, but rather something much closer to the actual technology: inconsistencies or paradoxes that directly affect neural networks and limit them.
Furthermore, a fundamental guiding strategy or maxim seems to be: “What is the next logical step?” This also makes criticism difficult, because it simulates a kind of logical compulsion, one that elevates a person above other doubts and relieves him of them. This quickly turns into: “As long as we are following pure logic, we don’t need to worry about anything else.”
I’m also looking for counterarguments to this maxim, from logic, philosophy, and sociology.
Thank you
The only way to truly be critical of AI is to be against it for other reasons, such as its damaging effects on society and its ability to aggregate wealth to the top without much serious life improvement for the average person. I think AI is really one of those things that you're either for or against and there's no middle ground.