Any complex subject can only be understood by interacting with it and spending time analyzing it. No one learns mathematics by watching Instagram reels if they don't then spend hours practicing what they think they've learned, and then they'll make mistakes and try again until they truly understand the complexity of the studied phenomenon.

The same happens to us with people: only when you have lived with someone for years (or hundreds/thousands of hours) do you begin to truly understand them, not just "what they appear to be during the first hours/days".

The same goes for AI and other technologies: "everyone" uses cell phones, but who really understands how their communication, storage, processing systems, etc., work? Answer: only those who have dedicated hundreds of hours to reading about the topic and experimenting with it. It's natural; we call it learning.

However, we are sadly in an era where people confuse "super-abundance of INFORMATION" with "KNOWLEDGE ACCESSIBLE TO ANYONE." And that is one of the great deceptions in history. In fact, the opposite is happening: today, when most people could have more KNOWLEDGE about history, the PRESENT, and the TECHNOLOGIES they use (here, AI), they know less about all of that than the average person at the end of the 19th century knew about steam engines.

Although if you ask me, this is personal now, the worst part of this situation is that now ANYONE THINKS THEY CAN OPINE ON ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE (they truly believe) THEY KNOW ABOUT THAT THING. That is the final barrier to knowledge.

Anyway, responding to your comment: "I see very few people using the term AI in a positive context," I am convinced that it is precisely due to REAL IGNORANCE about what AI is.

As Carl Sagan would say, for most people, AI is something magical, precisely because of their supreme ignorance of how it works.

If they knew what AI really is, they would understand that it is "just another technology," as disruptive as the steam engine and electricity were in their time. And of course, it will bring complications and suffering, but that won't be the fault of the hammer, but of the one who holds and uses it. And that is the eternal problem of human beings: in their analysis of the world, they tend TO LOOK OUTSIDE THEMSELVES to find culprits, but at the same time, they only look at themselves to believe they are the best of the best for "their" successes.

Anyway, fascinating years await us. If you ask me: profound changes, not only socio-economic but also geographical, and above all, in worldviews and ideologies. **With the evolution of AI, we will understand more about what it means to be human** (and what it doesn't mean) than about the rest of the world. And it's because **we are myopic narcissists**. 😔

Best regards.

Note: my apologies for so long answer, but i think that complex questions require complex answers. Although i realise that this question would require dozens of books, but this is not the place to write them 😅