To be extra fair, "domain experts" in some areas have had a bad few years; there are a couple of fields I can think of off the top of my head where the "experts" wheeled out to advise/scare the public are clearly more influenced by politics (or saving their own skin) than science. Replacing trust in experts with trust in LLMs is obviously dumb, but who is Joe Sixpack supposed to turn to?
> there are a couple of fields I can think of off the top of my head where the "experts" wheeled out to advise/scare the public are clearly more influenced by politics (or saving their own skin) than science
This feels like a thinly veiled jab at COVID era public health recommendations. Can you be more clear about which fields you’re referring to?
"domain experts" are often totally wrong and there is nothing new about this.
When our state of knowledge of the world changes , "domain experts" have the most to lose and our state of knowledge of the world is constantly changing.
Most domains also don't have the exactness of a programming language so are exposed to the same human processes as displayed in a middle school popularity contest.
The whole concept of the "domain expert" is really a modern superstition. An especially powerful superstition because it is the superstition of those who believe themselves beyond superstition.
I can think of domains where sensationalist opinions are lifted, but not ones where the general consensus is blatantly false. I can think of plenty of instances where large news organizations have grossly misrepresented conclusions of research.
> but who is Joe Sixpack supposed to turn to?
This, I agree with. It is why I actively voice dissent, as an expert and in areas where I have domain expertise, against so-called science communicators (not all are "so-called") and when the news gets it wrong.
Hell, I'll do this when actual science communicators get it wrong. Like when Niel DeGrassee Tyson is being dumb[0]. He also thinks hydrogen bombs don't have fallout...[1]. They do...
That said, I still don't think this is a reason to distrust scientists. But I think it is important for scientists to speak out when communicators get it wrong. I think this is a common problem and allows the conmen to gain power. But that's not the only force at play. Truth is complex. Approximate truth is bounded in complexity. But lies can be infinitely simple. So we get it wrong when we "reason our way through" something, because typically the base assumptions are wrong. This makes many conmen truly believe the lies that they are selling.
Joe Sixpack can reason through that. But Joe Sixpack can also reason through the concept that if he was easily able to reason through something and that experts disagree, it's pretty likely there's a reason why other than them being dumb and <Joe Sixpack> knowing better. Can, but doesn't. And we as the public let that happen. This may seem like an insurmountable problem, but instead it is a problem which just needs sufficient effort. Momentum builds, so the more people that push against this, the more common it'll become. And to be clear, it is perfectly fine to question experts. It is not perfectly fine to confidently disagree while not actually understanding the topic. If you don't know the difference, read a few papers/works in the topic and see if you can understand 90+% of it (if it is CS or Engineering, see if you can replicate).
