The paper does seem to include a section where they check what the AI is used for and in work contexts, there was no correlation between depression and AI usage. Only in personal contexts.
> "Greater levels of AI use were associated with modest increases in depressive symptoms"
to me ever so slightly implies causality via "increases ...", even though, as they are also very transparent about, this paper isn't about any causal mechanism. I feel like "associated with higher rates of depressive symptoms" might have read more neutrally and would have been in line with the results of their paper.
Not suggesting something intentional by the authors, of course, I just found it interesting how verbs subtly influence the meaning of things, at least for me.
But perhaps I'm also biased because I kind of intuitively believe that the causation is that depressive people enjoy talking to the AI, rather than AI being the cause of anything. I worry that any reverse interpretations will lead to an over-regulation of AI in such contexts.
It's standard academic use of "increased", so I can't fault the authors for using it. Few in the intended target audience would read that as implying causation. One could of course argue that abstracts should be written with a larger audience in mind, but the job of a researcher is first and foremost to communicate as effectively as possible to other researchers.
I don't think replacing "increased" with "greater" or "higher" would compromise communication to researchers at all, but it could cut down on misinterpretation and miscommunication in the wider science reporting world.
Yes, but should we expect researchers to have the lay communication skills to even consider such things, to realize that the phrasing could be misinterpreted? Traditionally that's the job of the institute's PR department writing press releases. Anyone reading an abstract directly from its authors should also be expected to have basic academic reading skills.
Sure— but that is different to “increases” which makes it seem as though they experienced increases due to AI use. The academic use of “increased” is more standard and in line with what you said, is kind of fine.
To me, the wording doesn't necessarily imply causality, but it does imply a repeated-measures design. Something being "associated with an increase in symptoms" is different than something being "associated with higher symptoms"; the former suggests that participants were measured at multiple time points, and there is a factor that could explain that change over time. But reading through the study, it was just a single time point.
Regardless, you're correct that it also shouldn't be taken to imply a causal relationship.
I noticed how much basic stuff is getting upvoted that confirms people's priors. I guess HN has always been this way, but it doesn't speak well of a community that views itself as thoughtful.
It's frustrating watching this topic turn into culture war.
The headline should be qualified: Maybe it makes you boring compared to the counterfactual world where you somehow would have developed into an interesting auteur or craftsman instead, which few people in practice would do.
As someone who is fairly boring, conversing with AI models and thinking things through with them certainly decreased my blandness and made me tackle more interesting thoughts or projects. To have such a conversation partner at hand in the first place is already amazing - isn't it always said that you should surround yourself with people smarter than yourself to rise in ambition?
I actually have high hopes for AI. A good one, properly aligned, can definitely help with self-actualization and expression. Cynics will say that AI will all be tuned to keep us trapped in the slop zone, but when even mainstream labs like Anthropic speak a lot about AI for the betterment of humanity, I am still hopeful. (If you are a cynic who simply doesn't belief such statements by the firms, there's not much to say to convince you anyway.)
In other words, AI raises the floor. If you were already near the ceiling, relying on it can (and likely will) bring you down. In areas where raising the floor is exceptionally good value (such as bespoke tools for visualizing data, or assistants that intelligently write code boilerplate, or having someone to speak to in a foreign language as opposed to talking to the wall), AI is amazing. In areas where we expect a high bar, such as an editorial, a fast and reliable messaging library, or a classic novel, it's not nearly as useful and often turns out to be a detriment.
I think I can observe the world and my relative state therein, no? I know I am unfortunately less ambitious, driven and outgoing than others, which are commonly associated with being interesting. And I don't complain about it, the word has a meaning after all and I'll not delude myself into changing its definition.
Definitely at a certain threshold it is for others to decide what is boring and not, I agree with that.
In any case, my simple point is that AI can definitely raise the floor, as the other comment more succinctly expressed. Irrelevant for people at the top, but good for the rest of us.
> I think I can observe the world and my relative state therein, no?
Yes, to an extent. You can, for example, evaluate if you’re sensitive or courageous or hard working. But some things do not concern only you, they necessitate another person, such as being interesting or friendly or generous.
A good heuristic might be “what could I not say about myself if I were the only living being on Earth?”. You can still be sensitive or hard working if you’re alone, but you can’t be friendly because there’s no one else to be friendly to.
Technically you could bore yourself, but in practice that’s something you do to other people. Furthermore, it is highly subjective, a D&D dungeon master will be unbearably boring to some, and infinitely interesting to others.
> I know I am unfortunately less ambitious, driven and outgoing than others
I disagree those automatically make someone boring.
I also disagree with LLMs improving your situation. For someone to find you interesting, they have to know what makes you tick. If what you have to share is limited by what everyone else can get (by querying an LLM), that is boring.
What's the copyright situation with music models? I was always under the impression that it will be political pressure and lawsuits by the existing labels that will be the biggest hindrance in the adoption of AI music models, rather than technical progress, which I do not doubt will inevitably make superhuman music, if it is not already better than the average pop song.
Seems like policy ripe with unintended side effects. At the very least, it'll likely raise prices for consumers because the companies aren't allowed to manage their inventory as efficiently as they wish.
Now of course this might be a totally acceptable price to pay, I'm not necessarily arguing against it. It will just be conveniently omitted from public communications on the topic by the EU. For regulators, there never are tradeoffs, after all.
Brand-name clothes is not really a commodity, and there is nothing efficient about destroying inventory (at scale, destroying small returns might be efficient). The brand name is a psychological trick that transforms commodity items into premium products, and supply control (destruction) seeks to gatekeep the brand and maintain that image. It works because the cost of the textiles is a small fraction of their retail price. It wouldn't work for example for things that cost more to produce, like electronics, which is why those are usually sold refurbished.
Supply control usually benefits the producers, despite what it may seem (destroying items). Increasing the supply lowers the relative pricing power of the vendors, and reduces the price an average consumer pays for the same item, even if the retail price for the item technically increases.
I'd say it is good in the long run. If people spent less on clothes, they'd have more to spend on other goods and services or invest in productive endeavors.
Parent painted a very logical sequence of events that concluded in reduced prices. Can you provide similar reasoning for why you believe this law will increase costs?
The main risk I see is things getting shipped overseas to where it isn't properly handled and this policy not having any effect at all.
If that can be avoided somehow (I haven't looked in detail at the legal text) I think the outcome you mention would be good. Slower fashion cycles, higher quality and higher cost per item would all potentially synergise. Another thing that could happen is less overproduction, which would also be good.
Thinking about what else could be done: I would like to see some mandatory marking indicating fiber / weaving quality. I have had T-shirts that lasted a decade, and those that lasted a couple of years. And it is very hard to tell up front which is which. As a consumer I would like to be able to tell.
There is a brand in my country that I liken to a physical Shein. The clothes are a similar style, and basically everything is polyester. When I walk into it, it smells like a carpet store.
Getting common goods less expensive is good, making them too cheap is not. Imagine you are optimizing a math model, but nothing actually has prices. You just get a garbage point as optimum. You need to have scarcity, so that a system that optimizes the allocation of scarce goods actually works.
i think its made people less independent than when we could maintain and produce our own textiles, and treat them well. Now we're dependent on markets and slave labour
GDP is correlated only while good things are increasing - forcing every married family to divorce at gunpoint and become two family households would greatly increase GDP - but I don't think we'd agree that's good.
This. The prospect of a brighter future at least means capital and labor are fighting for slices of a bigger pie. If the pie per capita stays constant or shrinks there will be a lot more anti-social behavior to response to the zero-sum environment.
I don't think this is the case, according to the docs, right? The effort level will use fewer tokens, but the independent fast mode just somehow seems to use some higher priority infrastructure to serve your requests.
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