Eugen RochkoI'm tired of hearing about AI, to be honest. I never cared for it. I don't respect people who use generative AI, and I despise companies that sell out people's data to train it. Yes, people will lose jobs to it, but the world will not be better for it. It's just that consequences are rarely immediately apparent in such complex systems.
jordan@Gargron Sad to see you have this take.
Jonathan Schofield@urlyman Because I consider it a reactionary response. It is a take that I find philosophically and morally unsound (re: copyright and stealing). I dislike the idea that the economy and jobs are something we should sacrifice progress for; the entire capitalist system is broken and should not be defended. And if we are to make a list of things to sacrifice in defense of the environment, AI would be far down that list. It isn't like we don't have the technology to make clean energy now already.
@wagesj45 AI is *directed* by the worst energy-blind strands of capitalism doubling down. Sam Altman is a cheerleader for that. He is far from alone
@urlyman You can make that argument for literally everything. Pharmaceuticals, agriculture, media and news; all owned by the worst people and organizations on the planet. That doesn't mean we make medicine, food, and storytelling illegal.
And you're not even taking open source and academic research in AI into account.
@wagesj45 You’re right. We can. Stepping down the energy consumption ladder is fraught with complexity and danger. But step down we must.
I haven’t mentioned making anything illegal.
As to your final sentence, given this is our first exchange, how exactly do you know what I am and am not doing?
@urlyman >how exactly do you know what I am and am not doing?
>AI is *directed* by the worst energy-blind strands of capitalism doubling down.
You said AI is directed by capitalism. You didn't mention open/academic endeavors. I don't know what you think privately. I can only address the issue you raised.
@wagesj45 I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that the most powerful and prominent voices in the space are the ones who most influence its direction and, crucially, its raison d’être. That does tend to be how power works.
I accept that it’s *possible* that scales will fall from the eyes of the powerful when some far more benign but currently far less visible mode of deploying the tech sweeps through society. That tends not to be how power works.
Fwiw I’m ~here https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/111776354830038771