Beacon

Dude you’re saying nonsense. You said ai can’t defend its arguments. I provided incontrovertible evidence that it can. I’m going to say this as nicely as possible - you want to think that LLMs are unable to do anything useful so that you can hold onto a false belief about ourselves. And that is the reason why my comment is being half downvoted

Right, but we already addressed that above. If it’s done on a local pc’s ai that doesn’t operate using a net connection, and is used in addition to rather than instead of consulting with people, then it’s totally fine

Presumably it wasn’t instead of, it was in addition to, and therefore totally fine

Hah, true. But the point still stands that using an llm itself wasn’t a bad thing

As i wrote in another comment, you can run a local instance of chatgpt or other ai on your own computer, no internet involved

Beautifully put

EDIT - y’all are so silly, you’re just gonna downvote this incontrovertible proof of it doing exactly what you said it couldn’t do, and instead just pretend it doesn’t exist

Since it’s so easy to do i just went ahead and did it for you. Here’s my prompts and ai’s replies. It will write any opinion you want it to talk about, and give cogent reasonings and arguments for that opinion.

Prompt: Write an approximately 200 word opinion piece saying that removing car lanes to create bike lanes is bad. Support this with clear arguments explaining your position

Why Removing Car Lanes for Bike Lanes Can Be Counterproductive

Reallocating car lanes to create bike lanes may seem progressive, but it can have unintended consequences that undermine its goals. In densely populated urban areas, vehicular traffic remains essential for commerce, emergency services, and commuting—especially for individuals who cannot rely on biking due to age, disability, or long travel distances. When car lanes are removed, congestion intensifies, leading to increased emissions as drivers idle longer and search for alternative routes.

Public transportation often depends on road infrastructure too. Buses trapped in traffic delays become less reliable, disproportionately affecting lower-income riders who depend on them. Additionally, essential services like ambulances and delivery trucks face new bottlenecks, risking delays that can have serious implications.

The assumption that cyclists will replace drivers ignores demographic and logistical realities. Bike lanes benefit a specific subset of urban users—but they shouldn’t come at the cost of broader mobility. Instead of eliminating car lanes, cities should consider expanding bike networks where space allows or investing in multimodal infrastructure that improves mobility for all users.

Urban planning should strive for balance, not substitution. Redesigning streets must enhance accessibility across the board, not create new friction between commuters who are simply trying to get where they need to go.

Prompt: Write an approximately 200 word opinion piece saying that removing car lanes to create bike lanes is good. Support this with clear arguments explaining your position

Opinion: Why Converting Car Lanes to Bike Lanes Benefits Everyone

Urban spaces must evolve to meet the needs of modern communities—and converting car lanes into bike lanes is one of the smartest, most equitable moves cities can make. First, bike lanes promote healthier lifestyles. By making cycling safer and more accessible, people are more likely to trade short car trips for active commuting, which supports physical health and lowers emissions.

Second, cities thrive on efficiency. Cars take up tremendous space and often carry just one passenger. Bikes, by contrast, use a fraction of that space and cause significantly less wear on infrastructure. Fewer car lanes mean reduced traffic volume over time as behavior adjusts, alleviating congestion—not worsening it.

Third, these changes make streets safer. Studies consistently show that well-designed bike infrastructure leads to fewer traffic collisions and fatalities. Cyclists separated from speeding vehicles feel safer, and drivers operate with greater awareness.

Finally, this shift reflects a cultural transformation: from car dominance to sustainable mobility. Prioritizing bike infrastructure signals that our cities value cleaner air, quieter streets, and more livable neighborhoods.

Reshaping roads isn’t just about bikes—it’s about building cities for people, not just machines. Let’s pedal forward together.

It really can. I’ve used ai, I’ve personally seen it do it tons of times. It can make cohesive arguments backed up by reasonable rationales. It doesn’t need to “understand” anything to do this. Do you need me to write some prompts and copy n paste ai’s response to prove it to you?

Well you’re gonna have a shitty attorney then

It can do those things. And you need to re-read what’s already been said on this comments page, because how it’s useful has been explained several times already

As i said in other comments, none of that matters. The point is to gather ideas that you otherwise might not have come across. And also as said already, ai generated opinion pieces should never be the only opinions you hear.

If that’s your problem with this story then you’re just saying they should run a local instance of chatgpt on their own local computers

https://www.technicalexplore.com/ai/the-ultimate-guide-to-running-chatgpt-locally-empowering-ai-enthusiasts

It doesn’t matter if it knows anything or not. The purpose is to acquire other ideas that you and the people in your cabinet didn’t think of. Or ideas they didn’t want to say, because no one wants to tell the boss that their idea is bad. It’s a GOOD thing when a politician seeks out multiple different viewpoints to consider. It doesn’t matter if one of the viewpoints being considered was created by “a fancy auto-complete” as some haters like to say

Some of y’all are crazy reactionary. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking an ai chatbot for an additional opinion. The ai shouldn’t be making the decisions, and the ai shouldn’t be the only way you look for opinions, but there’s nothing wrong with ai being ONE OF the opinions you consider

Your last sentence scuttled the point of your first two sentences.

Then I don’t understand what your point is as a reply to my original comment. I said “no video you see can ever be believed again”, and you reply with “well you can post your own videos on a self-hosted service”. I don’t see how that follows as a response to my original comment.

EDIT

I think you seem to be under the impression that ai videos are somehow locked onto only being on YouTube. That isn’t the case. Anyone can go to any Veo ai generation site, write a prompt, and it’ll generate a video of that in an mp4 file which they can upload to any video sharing platform. All mp4 files are the same thing, regardless of whether they were made by a video camera or ai.

https://labs.google/fx/tools/flow

It doesn’t matter where you view videos, the output from the ai generators is just an mp4 file that can be uploaded anywhere

Omg i just checked out Veo 3, and videos can never be believed again. I mean it couldn’t in the past either, but at least you had to have technical video editing skills or the money to pay someone who does. But now any schlub can just type a dumb text prompt and the machine will generate an extremely realistic looking video of exactly what you wrote. Insane. Absolutely insane.

How are we this far in the future right now?!

I can install apps well enough, but I’m very techie, the general population isn’t gonna be able to do it reasonably

Interesting hypothesis