• kromem@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Lowering the bar on access to contrary information will probably play a factor.

    As long as you need to search, filter, read, and analyze to realize that something is BS, there’s far less people that will do that.

    Within a few years LLMs will be good enough they can do most of that work for them, and have a back and forth that immediately addresses counterpoints.

    I think we’ll see a significant spike in the number of people leaving conservative religious traditions when that’s the case.

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      LLMs can currently be convinced that God exists, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on that.

      When you can ignore 1000 detractions and cling to a single flimsy confirmation of your bias, the problem isn’t the quality of the information available and how it’s presented, it’s the quality of the person and their willingness to reason.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I really don’t understand how people watching a technology that goes from experts saying “XYZ will be impossible for the technology” in 2019 and then having that very thing happen only three years later in 2022 with researchers having a surprised Pikachu face so regularly refer to it as if the present state of the tech is going to remain a status quo for the foreseeable future.

        You do realize it’s going to continue to improve at a ridiculous rate, right?

        Even the version that exists today has managed to have over a 100% increase in its performance on various evaluations simply by researchers better learning how to use it over the past year. And we’re likely getting a new leap forward in the models themselves next year.

        I wouldn’t be so quick to ignore thousands of indicators the technology is advancing to stick with the notion the tech isn’t going to make a difference based on its present limitations.

        • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I didn’t say the tech won’t improve, I said the basis of the point being made - to educate the religious away from religion - won’t occur. That has everything to do with challenging philosophical conjectures or unproven belief systems, and nothing to do with ChatGPT’s ability to produce content that could be convincing or build upon it given more input.

          Part of my work involves using and integrating ChatGPT with other systems. I see the the evolution right in front of my every day, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to my point.

          • kromem@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I see the the evolution right in front of my every day, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to my point.

            It’s often hard to see the forest when you are focused on the trees.

            If you read the article, look at what changed his mind, look at other deconversion stories, and look at where the tech is going in ~3 years, then I guess I just really don’t see it the same way as you, as to my eye it will make quite a bit of damn difference when someone beginning to question can have the heavy lifting of self-education significantly reduced.

            • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              If you’re willing to extrapolate the experience of one believer and their opinion, then yes, but that’s not enough for me.

              And treating my experience working directly with said technology as narrower than it is, is your prerogative, but I don’t know why you’d expect me to take your opinion seriously after doing so.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I used to think the same thing about massive amounts of people being able to connect to each other (instead of only a few gatekeepers being able to blast out information in one direction) and have easy access to the “information superhighway” in the days when the Internet was being opened up.

      These days…I am a bit more skeptical about some of my fellow humans becoming more enlightened due to a change in tech. I think it might be possible that people become even more stupid.