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The slow collapse of critical thinking in OSINT due to AI

(www.dutchosintguy.com)
446 points walterbell | 7 comments | 03 Apr 25 18:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.502s | source | bottom
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BrenBarn ◴[04 Apr 25 03:03 UTC] No.43577934[source]▶
It's become almost comical to me to read articles like this and wait for the part that, in this example, comes pretty close to the beginning: "This isn’t a rant against AI."

It's not? Why not? It's a "wake-up call", it's a "warning shot", but heaven forbid it's a rant against AI.

To me it's like someone listing off deaths from fentanyl, how it's destroyed families, ruined lives, but then tossing in a disclaimer that "this isn't a rant against fentanyl". In my view, the ways that people use and are drawn into AI usage has all the hallmarks of a spiral into drug addiction. There may be safe ways to use drugs but "distribute them for free to everyone on the internet" is not among them.

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1. dragonwriter ◴[04 Apr 25 03:31 UTC] No.43578066[source]▶
Because "rant" is irrational, and the author wants to be seen as staking out a rational opposition.

Of course, every ranter wants to be seen that way, and so a protest that something isn't a rant against X is generally a sign that it absolutely is a rant against X that the author is pre-emptively defending.

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2. voxl ◴[04 Apr 25 03:45 UTC] No.43578123[source]▶
I've rarely read a rant that didn't consist of some good logical points
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3. ◴[04 Apr 25 04:15 UTC] No.43578274[source]▶
4. croes ◴[04 Apr 25 04:22 UTC] No.43578301[source]▶
Doesn‘t mean listing logical points makes it a rant
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5. YetAnotherNick ◴[04 Apr 25 05:55 UTC] No.43578782[source]▶
The classic hallmark of rant is picking some study, not reading the methodology etc and making wild conclusion on it. For example for a study it says:

> The study revealed a clear pattern: the more confidence users had in the AI, the less they thought critically

And the study didn't even checked that. They just plotted the correlation between how much user think they rely on AI vs how much effort they think they saved. Isn't it expected to be positive even if they think as critically.

[1]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

6. throwaway290 ◴[04 Apr 25 05:59 UTC] No.43578799{3}[source]▶
If logical points are all against sth that is debatable then it's a rant. They can be good points tho.
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7. croes ◴[04 Apr 25 06:05 UTC] No.43578815{4}[source]▶
• Instead of forming hypotheses, users asked the AI for ideas.

• Instead of validating sources, they assumed the AI had already done so.

• Instead of assessing multiple perspectives, they integrated and edited the AI’s summary and moved on.

These are point against certain actions with a tool not against the tool.

AI is for the starting point not the final result.

AI must never be the last step but it often is because people trust computers especially if they answer in a confident language.

It's the ELIZA effect all over again.