This illusion is what made the current AI hype possible in the first place, and it is now causing humanity to take steps backward rather than moving forward. Yet AI technology could be used fairly and very effectively if it weren’t marketed exactly as it is: as a machine that supposedly enables everyone to do things they don’t have the slightest clue about.
This is what has made social media so profitable, and it’s also the reason why LLMs aren’t being used the way they should be, but are instead being sold as artificial intelligence to idiots who don’t have the slightest clue about the subject -not about what it takes or how long it takes to write a book, paint a picture, write a scientific article, code a secure application, or whatever.
The profit motive has turned the internet into the opposite of what it should have been, and AI technology has consequently ended up as an instrument of power in the hands of a small number of people who are incredibly narrow-minded but, unfortunately, also incredibly powerful due to their boundless greed.
It is the general public that bears the brunt of this boundless greed.
If things continue this way and we look just a few decades into the future, this is exactly what will spell the end of humanity, since profit is always prioritized over the common good.
I don’t relate to everything you said, but I will absolutely agree that one of the really annoying things about the AI industry is how they’ve convinced so many people the tools can do anything.
I’m a graphic designer, and I’ve been asked by clients to use AI gen in some projects. By far the most irritating part of this is the client requests. They believed the hype and now want the most insanely specific and complicated images out of it, despite specific details being the thing AI is the fucking worst at. I have to do so much post production work to get them something close to what they want out of these slop machines.
It takes so much time that it’s not even bad money, but the process is so unfun that I dread it every time.