Mastodawn

Simon Zerafa Feb 20

@tante

That doesn't seem to be the best idea @pluralistic

AI and LLM output is 90% bullshit, and most people don't have the time nor the patience to work out which 10% might actually be useful.

That's completely ignoring the environmental and human impacts of the AI bubble.

Try buying DDR memory, a GPU or an SSD / HDD at the moment.

@simonzerafa @tante

What is the incremental environmental damage created by running an existing LLM locally on your own laptop?

As to "90% bullshit" - as I wrote, the false positive rate for punctuation errors and typos from Ollama/Llama2 is about 50%, which is substantially better than, say, Google Docs' grammar checker.

@pluralistic @simonzerafa @tante
"What is the incremental environmental damage created by running an existing LLM locally on your own laptop?"

I dunno. But how about a couple of million people?

The person who coins the term 'enshittification' defends LLM. Just...wow. We truly are fucked.

Let's all do what Cory does!
☠️
Meanwhile:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20737314952&gbraid=0AAAAADgO_miNIDzn-BdCIXzZ6r87g94-L&gclid=Cj0KCQiA49XMBhDRARIsAOOKJHbvIzPACe0EdEyWK86TnS7rNlnUaePKc5y22qT0ZsfqUeGDe72zzc0aAhFFEALw_wcB
#doomed #ClimateChange

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

MIT Technology Review

Which "couple million people" suffer harm when I run a model on my laptop?

@pluralistic @simonzerafa @tante
Missed the point, sir.

When one person does it...no big deal.

When a couple of million people do it...well, see the MIT article above.

@pluralistic @simonzerafa @tante
Subhead quote from the article:
"The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next."

You are laboring under a misapprehension.

I will reiterate my question, with all caps for emphasis.

Which "couple million people" suffer harm when I run a model ON MY LAPTOP?

@pluralistic @simonzerafa @tante
I'll reiterate my response.

When you *alone* do it...no big deal.
When a couple of million do it ON THEIR OWN LAPTOPS...problem.

OK, sorry, i was under the impression that I was having a discussion with someone who understands this issue.

You are completely, empirically, technically wrong.

Checking the punctuation on a document on your laptop uses less electricity than watching a Youtube video.

@pluralistic @simonzerafa @tante

Fair enough, Cory. You're gonna do what you want regardless of my accuracy or inaccuracy anyway. And maybe I've misunderstood this. The same way many many will.

But visualize this:

"Hey...I just read Cory Doctrow uses an LLM to check his writing."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's true."
"Cool, maybe what I've read about ChatGPT is wrong too..."

Cory Doctorow

This is an absurd argument.

"I just read about a thing that is fine, but I wasn't paying close attention, so maybe something bad is good?"

Come.

On.