NiléaneMay 17, 2024

I feel the same way about AI that I did about crypto when it started becoming a thing:

• All of the moral practices that make it possible are fucked beyond repair.

• It’s spawning some of the worst companies, and enriching some of the worst billionaires in the world.

• While there are some genuinely useful, practical applications for it, there are so few of them, and they have had so little positive impact so far, that it doesn’t even seem like it’s going to be worth it anytime soon.

Show threadSigmund Judge
@nileane the one thing that I think will be a positive outcome from all of this, is that the general public will finally twig how valuable their data is.
May 17, 2024 at 9:41amWeb
Show threadNiléaneMay 17, 2024
@sigmund I’m not even hopeful about that tbh.
Show threadSimon 🌻May 17, 2024
@nileane @sigmund Sadly, i think you are right Niléane
Show threadStu Duerson, machina exo deusMay 17, 2024

@nileane @sigmund

One can wish. But thru my lifetime, I've seen how we have gladly offshored manufacturing for the product of cheap labor, cheap goods. And until the recent (DEMOCRAT) recognition that we'd cut too deeply into essential industries, and re-establishment of some industries here, it was a downward spiral of trade deficit and weakening security.

AI is in an analogous position. As long as it produces 'cheap crap' that people like because of the immediacy and (false) economy, no real guardrailing is going to take place.

Show threadoldguycrustyMay 17, 2024

@skydog @nileane @sigmund

Externalizing cost and risk is the hallmark of capitalism. Taking stuff at one cost (trees, oil, data, land, other peoples money, etc) then selling it for profit, is basically Econ101. The evil part is how egregiously the costs can be avoided, externalized, or as in the case of fossil fuels... delayed for a few generations...

Show threadoldguycrustyMay 17, 2024

@skydog @nileane @sigmund

...not to justify it, just thinking aloud about how things seem to work and how it might not be easy to change..

Show threadStu Duerson, machina exo deusMay 17, 2024

@oldguycrusty @nileane @sigmund

AI as a concept is being oversold. I think the reality of it is it is a natural progression in machine learning. We're in a position right now where its most visible applications to the public are online content generation, 6 fingers and all.

My son's in Silicon Valley in the machine learning biz, and we talked about this 12 hours ago, coincidentally. Even the projects he is working on, although they use AI/ML, are not directly interfaced with other parallel projects in the company. The machines are not yet scraping other machines. That's when the real fun begins.

But right now, AI's primary usefulness in the market seems to be pumping AI stock prices. From the cheap seats, where I sit, at least.