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Ethan Mollick
@emollick.bsky.social
Incidentally, this is why I worry about the dominant position of AI critics on this site that "AI doesn't work and is just a scam"
It absolutely does work, in good ways (controlled studies on education, medicine) and in ways that create risks & problems. Pretending AI isn't real is a big mistake.
👀Today’s AIs are already hyper persuasive.
A controversial study where LLMs tried to persuade users on Reddit found that: “Notably, all our treatments surpass human performance substantially, achieving persuasive rates between three and six times higher than the human baseline.”
April 28, 2025 at 6:40 PM
16 reposts
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I’m grateful that you post here in addition to X, for exactly this reason. There’s so much denial and cope about AI here, but I’m hopeful posts like yours will resonate.
Totally agree. I am not at all an uncritical AI user, and I realize the pain caused by firms that train models on ripped-off data. But blanket dismissing upside, impact, & acceptance seems like dishonest tilt-at-windmill hoping it will all go away. Be critically engaged.
Are the critics dominant though? I can see a scenario where you are seeing a lot of them in your replies but that is a distortion.
The replies here are something else. bsky.app/profile/hank...
There are a lot of critiques of LLMs that I agree with but "they suck and aren't useful" doesn't really hold water.
I understand people not using them because of social, economic, and environmental concerns. And I also understand people using them because they can be very useful.
Thoughts?
Sometimes when I read your posts (and by the way very grateful that you are posting here) I think you've being too harsh on it 🙂But that's normal, since you're putting it through the ringer so it's bound to disappoint from time to time, it's still early.
We identified an anti-AI insult bot the other day (turns out it had that in its bio but there was some shouting first)
I have no doubt there are provocateurs who are using AI bots to polarize the discussion. Another reason it's important to be aware and not be in denial