All things come to and end. I’ve managed to be fortunate enough to watch a community grow over the last 20 plus years I’ve messed with Linux I’ve seen the rise and fall of many Disto’s over the years. Each however were necessary to get us here where we are today.
Over the last 5 plus years I’ve noticed a rise in the A.I world. Today A.I is talked about as much as Windows was back in the day. It was the revolutionary thing to change the world. Now I’m not interested in anyone’s thoughts on A.I itself as they are irrelevant. The reality is we are facing a changing world and that world will consist of A.I rather you want it to or not. I’m more interested in the future of things like the Forums.
As A.I gets more and more advanced and gets used more and more I see the need for such things as the forums to be as pastime much like the Radio to the Television. With A.I able to give you an immediate answer where as with a forum you could possibly wait for days before an answer is availible. For now we have the advantage of having a bit more accuracy in fixing an issue over A.I but the time will come and sooner than we anticipate that it will be every bit as accurate as the information we provide.
I think of the loss it will be to the community when this happens. Linux has survived the last 30 years because of Community. But change is coming. A.I is improving and the more people use it the more it will continue to get better. So how will the community adapt? Will it adapt? Are we capable of evolving with A.I? I hope that communities like this will still be important to the future. I’ve gained so much from the community.
Forums like this one have a social aspect as well as the technical one, so I think they will survive. They may be quieter than they were in the technical side though. Also an AI can be tuned to push an agenda so until people find one they agree with, forums will still be busy.
There are a lot of communites where the topics are not 100% technical. In my own community we are loving it to talk and joke with each other too. How will this work with having A.I. only?
Which is another great question at what point will A.I learn on it’s own or will it? yes i agree but I do wonder where it searches for that info at times LOL.
Good point. Lots of places are using anti-bot technology like Anubis to stop AI agents indexing their data. So maybe the decline has already begun. I don’t stop AI training on my site. If they want to train on my drivel, that’s their problem.
I think it’s inevitable. I don’t necessarily like it. I also sometimes want opinions from folks, not just absolute answers. That will still be wanted, helpful, necessary even.
What is more disturbing to me, is the growing lack of original reasoning and thought I think I’m seeing.
I’m already kinda astonished by how many of us are enjoying our (borrowing a friends phraseology here) ‘advanced youth’. I really am astonished and maybe even depressed by how we’re mostly old folks.
I expect it will be like most things. Right now they are throwing everything at A.I and seeing what sticks. The process will take a while and there will be ups and downs. The thing to remember is A.I is wanted in so many areas especially those for certain Government types.
But how many are going to have my special interests in mind, like perhaps what is your favorite mini-pc architecture/brand/build? Imagine throwing that out in the general social media…
And it’s not really AI despite the name, they are just very clever language manipulation, mimicking some semblance of intelligence. When we really have AI, with the genuine ability to learn and understand, it will either be very good or very bad.
what about Update warnings like we do here where someone will have an issue and we make sure everyone knows what’s up. Its things like this I find immeasurable.
There’s a nuance with forums that A.I. doesn’t have. The human element. Sure, A.I. is getting better day by day. But forums like this one are, and will be, necessary. At least IMHO.
The human element can’t be replaced. A.I. doesn’t have a @thefrog, or @dalto, or @DenalB, or @dbarronoss, or even an @UncleSpellbinder. All our opinions, help, and humor will never be replaced by A.I.. Sure, I may be able to get an answer to a specific issue using Claude or ChatGPT. But I won’t get the kindness, humor, thanks, and conversation from and A.I. agent that I would get from @swh, or anyone else on this forum.
While this forum may not be quite as acttive as when I first joined, it’s a necessary place I visit often. I help on topics when I can and I enjoy the fun topics here as well. And the purple friends I’ve made. That really can’t be replicated by A.I.
Oh I agree right now they are just smart computers however I have heard there are some out there that are working real world problems and one has solved a Math problem that is supposably “Human Impossible”
AI can’t do jack squat unless you tell it very precisely what you’re looking to achieve. And if you know that, you’re better off doing your own research.
World end aside. Humans continue to do humans stuff and talk to other humans. Until they exist. There still be morons, now morons with AI. And AI cannot make stupid person smart, so really nothing changes. Vibecoders existed long before AI.
There is minor moderation changes that need to be put in place in order to filter AI morons.
The more world falling apart there more reasons for vibing with other ppl.
The worse things get - there more reasons to do something good.
And no, I mean yes, people go to forums not to get immediate answer, but to speak with other humans.
And problem solving vise, often nothing in searchable internet can help you. In past year I already few times managed to find answers in IRC channels, because all other places including documentation don’t know anything. With AI stuff information became even more sparse and broken to different places. So actually AI doing opposite effect, places where you can speak with people became MORE valuable.
Yesterday, for the first time, I wrote in our 1991 Class Grad FB Group a short recap of my journey with programming as a hobby. It started in 1984, teaching myself BASIC on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum+, to where we are now.
My final sentence was: “Here we are, human intelligence is obsolete.”
It is a natural progression of our making, yes.
Was the “Unabomber” a visionary guy regardless of the crimes he committed?
