Luis VillaDec 7
The widespread publishing of AI slop (and relatedly, even predating LLMs, the enshittification of Google search results) is a much more interesting discussion than most of LLM Discourse.
https://mastodon.green/@Tarnport/115679627597776698
Tarnport (@[email protected])

All the shrieking "If you don't like AI, don't use it, but quit trying to control others who do," is actually an ancient debate. It goes back to Hammurabi's Code and the Commandments of Ma'at: DO NOT POLLUTE THE COMMON WELL. It's the most ancient law we have. You can't pollute the river upstream and call it individual prerogative. Watch how fast you go down.

Mastodon.green
Show threadLuis VillaDec 7
(It’s important to highlight the Google search results problem, and the related bots-on-Twitter and Fox News on TV problems. LLMs are just one more contributor to the slow but steady poisoning to what was briefly the high point of our civilization’s access to knowledge—so if you only stop LLMs, you have at best slightly slowed the knowledge commons problem.)
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisDec 7
@luis_in_brief agreed, for me all generative slop is just endgame of decade long issue of trying to poison search results for either commercial or political gains.
Without this reasoning I don't think gen ai would be as relatively popular.
Show threadLuis Villa
@peteriskrisjanis I don’t think that’s right. It can be both true that LLMs are very useful for many people in many use cases, and that publishing LLM slop is very bad for the commons. And we have to be able to hold both of those thoughts in our head at the same time to have a useful discussion about them.
Dec 7 at 8:30pmWeb
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisDec 7
@luis_in_brief useful is very stretched as a term here. People like using LLM, whatever it usefulness is worth cost is very different discussion.
Show threadLuis VillaDec 7

@peteriskrisjanis (shrug) I’m writing code that is very useful to me and my family, after not writing code for two decades; using an LLM as a secretary at work (a privilege I have not had in a decade+) and being much more productive as a result; and using LLMs as a travel planner to make family trips more fun. And I’m happily paying hundreds of dollars a month for that capability.

If you can’t see or acknowledge the utility, persuading people on anything else is not going to go well.

Show threadLuis VillaDec 7
@peteriskrisjanis the externalities are real, the cons are real, and the bubble is real. But if your conversation starts from “welllll actualllly it isn’t useful” then people aren’t going to listen to you on any of the problems.
Show threadThomas SibleyDec 8
@luis_in_brief honest question, because you seem like an ethical guy (and I try not to bait or argue with folks on the internet): how do you square the benefits you and your family get for the hundreds per month you contribute to the societal cost of the real externalities, cons, and bubble? does your usage feel inconsequential to the larger issues you acknowledge?
Show threadMark DominusDec 8

@trs This is a fair question and a difficult one. I have to confront it every time I put a piece of plastic into the trash, watch a streaming movie, eat factory-farmed meat, or drive my car.

My entire job depends on the giant data centers that people are suddenly so worried about, and it is not clear to me why these data centers are different or less harmful from the ones that build the AI models. How does an AI query compare with, say, a Google search?

It's similarly not clear to me that data centers are worse in any way than any other industrial activity.

I am not trying to minimize the issues you raise. Just the opposite. But the reality is that my life in the 21st century depends on a giant economic machine that has enormous externalities, many of which are invisible to me. I can only try to deal with these as best I can and in a practical order.

Top of my list is to stop eating meat and to stop flying in airplanes. I am working on these.

At the other end of the scale of practicality, cement manufacture is a major contributor to carbon emissions, but I don't see any way to stop consuming cement or even any value in trying to do so.

I find it very implausible that the AI products are anywhere near the top of this list.

Show threadLuis VillaDec 8

@trs first, thanks for assuming good faith! That’s rare and appreciated.

Second… it’s a very hard question that I am still struggling with. And deserves a longer answer than I can give today.

Show threadThomas SibleyDec 8
@luis_in_brief totally fair, I get that. I also have no claim to deserving an answer from you at all! but I'd be curious to hear/read your thinking on that at some point if you do get it down.
Show threadThomas SibleyDec 8

@luis_in_brief also, if it's not evident, the whole reason I'm asking is because I struggle with the same question myself.

I can't currently square them for myself and so have taken largely an abstinence-based (e.g. no fun) approach. it helps that it doesn't really feel like I'm missing out on anything, but I know that of course I am.