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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   24193 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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Because everyone gets an equal vote, and I'll bet less than 5% of people have ever used AI in any form, and even fewer have found it repetitiously valuable.

I'll bet less than 5% of people have ever used AI in any form,

Almost a supermajority of Americans use AI at least multiple times a week. Let me know how you want to pay up.

I found this study absolutely impossible to believe; I'm a Millennial who's on the internet way too much and have been since the early 90s, and I've never used AI.

But then I remembered that Google force-feeds you an AI answer when you use the search bar the same way you've been doing for 30 years. So, touché. I'll still defend the fact that it's not something that most people go out of their way to intentionally engage with.

Almost half of Americans use chatbots specifically, with about a quarter doing so daily.

Really?? Again, maybe I'm not thinking broadly enough about what "AI" is defined as. I suppose it would include things like Alexa/Google Home/Siri? We called those "voice assistants" in my day.

I wasn't even hearing the term "A.I." as anything other than the movie (or Allen Iverson) in any remotely mainstream sense, unless post-Covid.

I suppose it would include things like Alexa/Google Home/Siri?

Well, no, those are not chatbots.

I wasn't even hearing the term "A.I." as anything other than the movie (or Allen Iverson) in any remotely mainstream sense, unless post-Covid.

Huh? The prominence of the AI boom is largely a post Covid phenomenon.

Huh? The prominence of the AI boom is largely a post Covid phenomenon.

Ok, well then my point is that I can't think of any other technology in history that has achieved 50 percent market penetration in 3-4 years. I just checked Google Trends for both "A.I" and "LLM", and they both start to take off in early 2023, which was about how I remembered when I first started hearing about them.

So, when I say "A.I", I mean specifically utilizing Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini/etc. HALF of Americans are doing this weekly? My circle must just be in the stone age, then, because I still know multiple people who don't own computers.

Smartphones themselves were about 6 years to reach 50% of US adults.

HALF of Americans are doing this weekly?

Most normies I see using those apps are doing speech to text on their phone to get approximately the functionality I expected from a basic google search on a desktop 5-10 years ago, back when google would just understand what I was probably looking for and put that info right onto the search results screen.

I mentioned previous in this thread to the parent comment: I'm not sure we're both using "A.I" in the same way. Speech-to-text functionality? I completely believe that half of people use that. He told me that Siri/Alexa/Google Home were not "A.I", so I struggle to see how speech-to-text (a far older technology) qualifies.

For clarification: when I say "A.I.", I am referring to Claude/Gemini/ChatGPT LLMs, accessed with intention, likely with a paid subscription (at least if the user has any seriousness).

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I can't think of any other technology in history that has achieved 50 percent market penetration in 3-4 years.

What did you think takeoff meant? Vibes? Papers?

and they both start to take off in early 2023, which was about how I remembered when I first started hearing about them.

That's when GPT-4 hit the public imagination.

HALF of Americans are doing this weekly?

Yes!

My circle must just be in the stone age, then, because I still know multiple people who don't own computers.

About 9% of American adults don't have a smartphone, so sure, it's not out of the question that you know several of them.

What did you think takeoff meant? Vibes? Papers?

I don't know what you mean by this, unless it's an "exponential adoption curve spurred by the inevitable singularity"-type of way, which I don't want to assume.

My circle must just be in the stone age, then, because I still know multiple people who don't own computers.

Well… while I agree that the figure of one-in-four Americans using LLMs daily, or half weekly, is very hard to believe (I would love to see a breakdown of who exactly responded to that survey and how the data was weighted), I think you might indeed know some real stone age outliers.

Are you including smartphones and tablets in your definition of “computer”? If yes, then not only do I not know anyone who doesn’t own a computer, I don’t think I know anyone who knows anyone who doesn’t own a computer. And that’s including my elderly relatives and their circles, friends who have family from third-world countries, etc. If not and you just mean desktops/laptops, then I can at least think of my 92-year-old grandmother, who never bothered learning to use a computer when they were new and only reluctantly accepted a gifted tablet from my parents around a decade ago. But that’s about it.

Agreed, I can't help but question the methodology of this poll, if only in the sense that it might outrank any other poll in terms of dissonance between its assertions versus personal observations.

Are you including smartphones and tablets in your definition of “computer”?

Certainly. Pretty much any internet-accessible device is a computer, in my mind. Hell the TI-84+ has an argument to make.

Beyond that: yes I have a very old soul, as well as relatives who typically live into their 90s. So I'm sure that skews my perspective on the technological adoption curve.

But I still don't believe that half of Americans are intentionally accessing LLMs or generative A.I. Not even close.

In 1980 you could say the same about the PC. When I was growing up, you could say the same about the internet. Lots of people's only interaction with the internet these days is Youtube and Facebook, because you need compelling content and incredible simplicity to interest the lower-than-average user, but that's enough for them to care about it now. Took ages.

If LLMs are anything like computing and internet and the youtubes, then people aren't going to have to do anything and the market will eventually sort itself out. Supply will come to match demand. It doesn't need your help or advocation. Well, discounting a bubble or two.

But we're not in a bubble, right?

people aren't going to have to do anything and the market will eventually sort itself out.

The entire thing at discussion here is whether the government should intervene to prevent the market from clearing.

We could well be, I think some of the claims made are silly.

people aren't going to have to do anything and the market will eventually sort itself out. Supply will come to match demand

This is my hope! My concern is people turning it into a nuclear-power situation, where a perfectly good thing is loaded down with so much taboo and fear and regulation that it's no longer accessible even when everybody calms down.

And there are those of us who think such a comparison is doing alot of heavy work not in evidence. To copy my reply on the topic above;

Nuclear you can point to solid returns that would benefit the common consumer directly - less reliance on hydrocarbons, energy independence, cheaper energy.

Data Centers you point to with the returns that basically boil down to 'Big Businesses need it, LLMs are magic bro, trust me, we've got to beat China!'

So color me a skeptic. On Data Centers, not Nuclear. For fuck sake people, just use the magic rock and be done with it.

There's no getting around the fact that I use LLMs near-constantly, find them incredibly useful, and have considerable expectation for future use cases once the bottleneckers like Apple get off their arses. You don't.

I have old family friends whose ancestors felt that electricity was a fad and literally bankrupted themselves buying up candle factories 'cheap' in anticipation of renewed demand. My own grandmother felt that heated houses were fripperies and didn't get central heating until her 90s. I give these examples not to call you a luddite but just to say that literally neither of us knows yet and good, sensible people have been skeptical of in-hindsight very useful technologies (and vice-versa of course). My preference would be that we leave LLMs 20 years and see how it looks.

And my reply to that is that if you gave a metal lathe to a skilled user, you'd likely get something beautiful, but if you gave it to a random guy off the street, there's a real chance they'd loose a limb and bleed out before anyone could get to them.

As I read this thread, I'm noticing a similar and similar implied arguement crop up - the 1% that can use LLMs beautifully naturally assume the moment the general masses they will be freed like a butterfly bursting from it's crysalis into something beautiful and everything will be wonderful.

Yet we all know what occured the last time something like that happened.

I'm not trying to argue that we shut down LLM development. What I'm trying to say is that a good chunk of LLM development and movement and usage isn't from honest improvement but from sales department buzzwords and artificial push.

Nor does it really help your side when people argue otherwise you immeadiately and covertly imply that they're just luddites(in your case - like, c'mon, really?) or building strawmen(elsewhere). Yet you forget that you're the one making the outlandish claims, with very little evidence beyond single datapoints - IE, what you can do with it.

A single datapoint is data, yes. But it does not equate to an overall data trend. I've no doubt that you and people like this guy can do alot with LLMs, but I've yet to see any broader overall concrete benefit to the world at large nor any market uptick that would imply this is making things better.

As I read this thread, I'm noticing a similar and similar implied arguement crop up - the 1% that can use LLMs beautifully naturally assume the moment the general masses they will be freed like a butterfly bursting from it's crysalis into something beautiful and everything will be wonderful.

It's a possibility, though I hope not. One part of me thinks that it would be better if LLMs were never mentioned again outside technical documents - the public would be deprived of something that I think is an immensely important resource that could edify them, but on the other hand we would be safe from the kind of spasms of public morality that caused the censorship of social media.

The other part of me thinks that this is a temporary moment, where LLMs are used only by the most curious, and is looking forward to seeing what a generation of people now in their teens do with the tech, in the same way we saw in the flowering of internet culture 2000-2010.

I'm not trying to argue that we shut down LLM development. What I'm trying to say is that a good chunk of LLM development and movement and usage isn't from honest improvement but from sales department buzzwords and artificial push.

Then we have very little quarrel. I broadly agree with what you've said, and I think the LLM marketers and grifters are doing more to damage the field than a thousand 'can't spell STRAWBERRY' bugs.

you immeadiately and covertly imply that they're just luddites(in your case - like, c'mon, really?)

Really not my intention. This anonymous forum is where I can be totally open about my feelings because frankly none of this matters. I was trying to provide examples of cases where good, honest, clever people looked at something, concluded correctly that they had no personal interest in it, and concluded wrongly that it had no long-term value. I think it's an easy trap to fall into, and I feel the same in other areas.

A single datapoint is data, yes. But it does not equate to an overall data trend. I've no doubt that you and people like this guy can do alot with LLMs, but I've yet to see any broader overall concrete benefit to the world at large nor any market uptick that would imply this is making things better.

In all sincerity, I've got my fingers crossed.

Yeah, but I'm not even sure that the entire history of personal computing has consumed 474 gigawatts of power in a single state. The massive demand for resources and accommodations should rightly be scrutinized through cost-benefit analyses and public discussion.

I'm not opposed to this in theory but this feels like the wrong time: you can't do a cost-benefit analysis when neither the costs nor the benefits are readily apparent.

More generally... the conversation around AI feels like a Culture War conversation between lovers and haters squabbling over the pool of haven't-trieds. Both sides seem to have very strong confirmation biases; I'm a member of the lover faction myself and the 'I downloaded it, it told me a square has six sides, I deleted it' stories that haters tell me sound like they come from a different world which is a pretty good indicator that we're not operating on good epistemics here. If we're all operating on Conflict Theory then I don't think a big public discussion would produce very good results.

What is the right time, if not now? Waiting until after trillions of dollars have already been consumed?

Cost-benefit in business and life generally has to be fairly forward-looking. And there are plenty of conversations to be had, beyond the actual capabilities of the software itself. For example, is there any infrastructure plan in place for actually powering all these things without frying the grid and/or driving energy costs to Neptune?

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