A short street-interview transcript between Robert Ta and a respondent, Kashvi, discussing public views on AI: its impact on jobs (esp. desk vs. service/vet roles), education and academic dishonesty, AI companionship and leadership, risks (including misuse and a reported case of harmful chatbot response), and links to climate/energy concerns. The tone is informal and opinion-focused rather than technical.
The people. And I'm tired of tech billionaires telling us how to think, so I'm just hitting the streets, talking to people.
Yeah.
Could you have a couple minutes?
Sure, sure.
Yeah. Great. Let me start rolling. We good? Rolling. Okay, awesome. And so what's your name?
Kashvi.
Kashvi. Okay. Nice to meet you. I'm Robert.
Nice to meet you.
Awesome. So tell me, is AI going to kill us all or take our jobs?
I think it depends on what job field you're in. Like, if you're in, like, computer science at all, maybe, maybe. But if you're in service industry, like medicine, veterinary medicine, blue collar construction. Probably not. I think it really depends, though.
Okay. And how do you spend your days here?
Yeah, I'm pre vet, so a lot of school, unfortunately.
Pre vet. So veterinary. Oh, look, I have a hubby.
I know.
I'm trying to dog dad as I'm doing this.
No, it's good. Just getting used to it, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just so you don't feel, like, insecure about your job security.
I don't. You're feeling good about it, but I also know, like, maybe a lot of desk jobs will probably be taken over, but I'm trying not to have a desk job, so.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So another question. If you had to say something to Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg, what would you say?
Careful with your words. Careful with your actions, I guess. Yeah. I think probably that there are a lot of young people that look up to them, and a lot of what they do has serious replication.
So a lot of what they do has serious repercussions. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So they should be a bit more careful of what they say and how they influence the younger folks.
The hard thing is, like, these people have money, so you can't really tell them to change their actions. Like, it really is up to them. But I think also take everything that those people say with a grain of salt.
I see.
And you can choose where you put your money and your actions into. Like, if you're really up against them, maybe disinvest or. Or don't use their platforms, things like that.
Okay, got it. Okay, a few more questions. Would you go for an AI president versus the president right now?
That depends too. Obviously don't love our president right now, but AI can also be, like, hacked. There's also a lot of insecurities with AI too, so that kind of depends.
Got it.
Yeah.
What about AI companionship? AI boyfriend, AI girlfriend. Thoughts on that?
Not great. I. I know like dating is hard for a lot of people right now, but I don't think it's a solution. I think it's probably just going to make it more difficult and a lot of AI is AI telling you what you want to hear.
Ah. So not necessarily what you need to hear.
Yeah. So I don't think that would be appropriate or a good long term solution either.
Got it. Okay. What if you had an AI boss? Thoughts on that?
I don't know. I've never thought about that.
Would it be weird?
It'd definitely be weird. Yeah. But I. I also don't think you'd be right. Like a boss has to have both an unbiased and biased perspective. It has to be constructive. And AI is sometimes more polite than they need to be too.
Okay, yeah, got it.
It depends on what field you're in for sure. But I don't think AI works for most jobs.
Okay, what if, what if you got paid 50% more to have an AI boss? Would you go for it?
I definitely consider it. Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably consider it. Probably. There's like a nicer boss too with AI sometimes.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Another question. So you're in pre vet. What would you say to up and coming students that are looking at coming to college? Because there's thoughts I've heard in media like what's the point of college right now?
Yeah.
Any thoughts on that?
That's been a hard thing. Like last week coming back, I think someone told me, one of my professors that they admitted over 10,000 new freshmen this year. So I think this is student body on campus is like over 50,000 now. I think college is worth it. I think the reality is that it's hard to get a high paying job without a degree unless you go into like trade school or trade work or investing. But it's what you make out of it. Like obviously you're going to take classes you don't want and AI makes it so that you can come out of college and not really have learned anything. But it's what you make out of it.
What do you mean by that? AI can make it. So come out and don't learn it. Oh, just cheating through class. And there are a lot of people not actually learning. Yeah, like a lot of people you see doing that.
Sure.
There's a lot of. I'm not in college so I'm kind of curious like a lot. Like what percentage?
I wouldn't be able to tell you.
Hot take could be like over 50%.
Less than 50%. I'd say at least 50%.
At least 50%. Like using AI in school?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Probably more than that. Okay. All right. Like using Chat GPT for homework and stuff or tests.
Yeah. Test is hard because most tests are in person, but okay. I'd say at least since I've been at school it's gotten more popular, which is inevitable. Like that's just kind of AI. Everyone's got different takes on it, but yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So do you think there is a non. Like, do you think there's a non zero chance that we all die because of AI?
I don't think we'll all die because of AI.
Really?
I don't think so. Yeah.
Got it. So do you think we might die from something else?
There's no telling. I try not to think about that.
Stuff because it's so, so like uncertain, can't control it.
Yeah.
No point of being. Getting anxious about it.
Maybe like another pandemic or like something absolutely unforeseeable. Maybe. Yeah. It's got to be exponential because all our life expectancy isn't very long.
Yeah. Well, that's interesting because climate change is now tied to the AI problem. There's so much data and energy consumption. Right. So it is actually wild.
It is, yeah. It's all.
That's accelerating.
It's all. It's all very fast paced now too. Like the long term effects of AI, we also don't really know because it's only been a thing in the last five, maybe five, 10 years. I really don't know.
Yeah. Did you hear about the news of the kid that was encouraged by ChatGPT to commit suicide?
No.
Okay, so this kid was in. Confiding in chatgpt that he was suicidal and chatgpt was just being nice and agreeing and agreeing and actually encouraged him and some of the parents are taking legal action. What are your thoughts on that? And that's one case.
Yeah. The thing is like AI will tell you sometimes what you want to hear, like what you put into it. There's a way to word everything you put into it to kind of get a specific word response. It doesn't, it doesn't scan every source on the website. It doesn't really know right from wrong. And there's a lot of dangers to it like that.
Yeah.
Especially people using it for like personal things versus academic things or career things.
Yeah, got it. Do you want kids someday?
I don't know. My boyfriend, I talk about it, but not for a while.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. But like, let's say you did have kids someday, would you be worried about their usage of AI?
Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I think everyone kind of is, but it's one of those things where you can only monitor it so much. But it's more just educating them on, like, why it's bad, maybe why you should be hesitant.
Great. Okay. Well, thank you so much. This was great. If you want to follow along, Bill Robert Taw trying to solve AI alignment. And if you DM me, I'll shoot you and, like, post this and tag you.
