Deborah PickettABC wants to know how generative AI has changed your life.
Gonna tell them.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-19/generative-ai-use-in-everyday-life-callout/105273566
SiobhanHere's what I sent them:
I don't use generative AI. I have a computer science degree so I understand how large language models work, and I don't believe that they have any value. They are just stochastic parrots. That they so beguile their users with vapid statistically-probable output is distressing.
But LLMs have still changed my life, because the training models are forever scraping my personal web site, costing me bandwidth and money, violating the copyright on my original content without my consent. The datacentres that house LLMs consume vast amounts of energy and fresh water, an environmental disaster in the making.
I expect that in the future, LLMs will once again change my life as I'm called to cover for an entire generation of workers who lack important life skills such as composition and critical thinking. I'm not exactly looking forward to it.
Ohai, new followers. I don’t have a Soundcloud—have you seen their stance on AI?—but I do write music and I have an blog; links are in my bio. Full disclosure: it may be weeks before I rant about AI again (but I bet it’s sooner). Meanwhile, please enjoy this pic of one of my cats.
Voline
PalmAndNeedle
Poloniousmonk
Franciscus 
well said !!!!
Julian Schwarzenbach@futzle 100% agree. In the Gartner Hype Cycle, think we are approach the "Peak of Inflated Expectations". The descent to the "Trough of Disillusion" will perhaps be steep and may be brought on by some significant business/ societal failures arising from incorrect/ inappropriate use of LLMs
Dianora (Diane Bruce)
Erik Ableson@futzle @temptoetiam I expect that I will have work well into retirement due to my troubleshooting approach based on first principles. The generation going through school now are taught the buttons to push but not so much how the thing actually works... This is exacerbated by LLMs
sknob
Dorothea Salo@futzle Well done.
Flowermob
Angela Scholder@futzle I absolutely agree with you.
And next to that it's the biggest heist in the history of Humankind with the copyrights infringements.
Clearly Aaron Swartz has already totally been forgotten, and what about all the prosecutions of little people for 'illegally downloading' some music, film, or whatever.
As Big Tech and Big Money claims they should be allowed to do so without any compensation to the rights owners.....
Phil Thane ✅@futzle
That's not yelling, that's a perfectly reasonable position.
That's not yelling, that's a perfectly reasonable position.
Apocraphilia@futzle this captures my feelings perfectly - mind if I use it too? (With a citation.)
@apocraphilia I release my rant into the public domain; you are free to use without attribution.
Krazy Krêpe@futzle LLMs have changed my life because I'm a machine learning researcher and now people regularly ask me why I or they can't just use genAI to solve a problem that even Sam Altman wouldn't pretend genAI is able to do.
LLMs have changed my life because I'm a professor and I have to keep wondering how to ensure my students are doing the work themselves and therefore learning the skills they're here to learn rather than just pushing buttons.
1/3
@futzle LLMs have changed my life because not a half day can pass before I hear or read about people acting as if statistically determining what word is more likely to come after another had anything to do with reasoning. The worst is that many of them believe it.
LLMs have changed my life because the content of the Internet is now polluted with automatically generated, worthless drivel.
2/3
@futzle LLMs have changed my life because I worry that we've invented yet a new way to waste natural resources for a pointless use.
LLMs have changed my life because I have taught some of the people who are now shoveling LLMs down our collective throats and I keep wondering whether I could have done something differently for them to go another road.
3/3
CavyherdProbably just as well that drowning them at birth wasn't a viable option....
David J. Atkinson@krazykitty @futzle Good question. That occurs to me too.
Before retiring, I was often appearing on AI panels or giving invited talks on AI. I come from the now-called “classical” symbolic/conceptual side of AI, where rich internal symbolic representations are essential for reasoning. When asked about current statistical/associative machine learning, I tried to emphasize how helpful it could be in pattern recognition, which is legit, and maybe help with the symbol grounding problem if hybrid methods ever emerge. The hype was too much to overcome, but maybe I sowed some doubt about LLMs.
nachtet
s0 Traingirl Era@futzle thanks, I made a submission and included a screenshot showing how 85%+ of requests to some of my web servers are crawler bots disobeying robots.txt.
NormanDunbar@futzle A bit like when they called back all the retired COBOL programmers for the Y2K problem!
@futzle As someone with a CS background it is disheartening to be told "No AI has some value!" Well yes computers that can do pattern matching can be but that's not AI but it sounds better if it's called AI..
MinaThe funny thing is: When I studied CS in the late 90s, AI was my main subject:
Expert systems, fuzzy logic and pattern recognition with neural networks.
I still believe, a lot of it (and of what came later) has actual value, but this is an entirely different story from the (de)generative crap, we've been getting force-fed in the last 5 years.
Helen LH@futzle Love it! As a lecturer LLMs have made my life harder in so many ways. Many of which are summed up in this article ( most of which you can read for free) But the lost skills in critical thinking and learning really distress me. https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/
Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶
Sean Reifschneider@futzle "In theory there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice there is." I've got nearly 40 years experience in industry. I also understand how the LLMs work.
Their output is far from vapid, particularly if you understand how to drive them and use the right supporting tooling.
With roughly 6-8 english sentences (an initial prompt and a couple follow-ups) I can have the tool of my dreams for interacting with AWS load balancers, for example.
Janet VertesiYes. All. Of. This.
Metafrastis@futzle @janeishly I am just finishing my master thesis and LLMs have been extremely useful. Not by writing for me, but by quickly finding literature, by helping with translation, as a sparring partner to discuss ideas, etc.
I already exceeded my planned workload twofold, without LLMs it would have been waaaay more.
I already exceeded my planned workload twofold, without LLMs it would have been waaaay more.
delProfundo@futzle nice. I’ve also waved me fist at them, Abe style.
Zorin =^o.o^=@futzle It'll be like old COBOL programmers now. Probably making a decent salary doing what others can't do anymore, but miserable because you'd rather retire.
I'd much prefer that as humanity we not crater ourselves at every opportunity.
Colin@futzle @creideiki yeah I’m looking forward to the opportunities that are gonna open up in 3-15 years as companies try to clean up and redo years of destruction occurring right now.
Piotr Esden-Tempski@futzle Can't agree more. It is worth adding this study to the context. AI does not actually improve productivity, it does the exact opposite. People only "feel” that it makes them faster… https://metr.org/Early_2025_AI_Experienced_OS_Devs_Study.pdf
