James Endres Howell

"Setting aside the moral arguments---"

You mean the power and water.

"Setting aside the power and water, and---"

Don't forget the industrial-scale plagiarism. The brazen theft.

"Setting aside the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"

Don't forget the maniacal, suicidal inflation of the bubble. Arguably the greatest single mis-allocation of resources in history, aside from war.

"Setting aside the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"

Don't forget the willful destruction of creative livelihoods, the willful destruction of education itself.

"Setting aside the destruction of art, writing, and schools, the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"

Don't forget the purposeful degradation of human cognitive capacity. The planned and designed addictive dependency.

"Setting aside the cognitive degradation, the destruction of schools, the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"

Don't forget the ghoulish ethical camouflage used to obscure, indeed to erase, the responsibility for decisions in budget austerity, insurance claims, regulatory oversight, medical decisions, court filings, and even real-time combat.

"Setting aside the monstrous mechanisms of official irresponsibility, the cognitive degradation, the schools, the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water---"

Are you going to say it doesn't work?

"IT DOES NOT FUCKING WORK"

#ai

Mar 28 at 11:43pmWeb
Show threadalsvha1d ago

@jameshowell, and still most I seem to hear from managements and sales is something like:

..... but "everybody" I talked to like it, and it makes you type "things" faster so we'll still mandate use, so we can grow 85% without effort.....and now it can also spend your money/shop without you.

*Sigh*

Show threadchesheer23h ago
@jameshowell I can absolutely understand it can do amazing and potentially groundbreaking things in some scientific fields if used right. Things we sometimes aren't capable of.
But I never understood why we need more code. We already have so much code no one probably ever read. And they want even more.
And then I remember they just want more money, and for them more money means more code... But when that money is spent what the hell are we gonna do with so much code no one will ever read?
Show threadBen Hammond21h ago

@chesheer @jameshowell

> I can absolutely understand it can do amazing and potentially groundbreaking things

That's the narrowly focused machine learning though.
Not this Large Language Model nonsense

Show threadTroed Sångberg8h ago

@benh

You're wrong. It is indeed LLMs that are behind breakthroughs in many scientific areas right now.

Do you change your opinion in the face of new facts, speaking of science?

@chesheer @jameshowell

Show threadSharp Cheddar Goblin8h ago
@troed @benh @chesheer @jameshowell LOL. LMAO even.
Show threadTroed Sångberg7h ago

@SharpCheddarGoblin

I agree. It's indeed funny to see so many read so little.

Easy consumption video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvgaZ_myFE4

@benh @chesheer @jameshowell

AI is changing the World Of Theoretical Physics, Fast.

YouTube
Show threadSharp Cheddar Goblin7h ago
@troed @benh @chesheer @jameshowell Maybe I wasn’t clear, I’m laughing at your assertion that LLMs have anything close to the potential to help anything compared to other machine learning. Fuck off sloplord.
Show threadFurbland's Very Cool Mastodon™7h ago
@SharpCheddarGoblin @troed @benh @chesheer @jameshowell side note: that is the most conspiracy-theory-the-earth-is-a-hollow-triangle-with-lizard-people-inside-it thumbnail I’ve seen in a ***LONG*** time :P
Show threadSharp Cheddar Goblin6h ago
@GroupNebula563 Yeah I ain't watching that.
Show threadFurbland's Very Cool Mastodon™6h ago
@SharpCheddarGoblin neither am i :P
Show threadKraftwerk-Das Model Collapse4h ago
@troed 🤡
Show threadTroed Sångberg8h ago

@chesheer

A coding LLM is awesome at quickly traversing a large codebase and "figuring out" where the things you want to work on are, and how they fit together. Even if you then don't use it for producing more code.

Most of the vocal anti-AI takes are simply wrong on the facts, but this debate has for a long time now been purely emotional and facts never trump emotions.

@jameshowell

Show threadOrb 20695h ago

@troed @chesheer @jameshowell

You're so startlingly wrong I don't know where to start, and yes I checked.

Quit playing with matches and give your job to someone competent.

Show threadFrightenedRat 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿16h ago

@jameshowell

When the internet is full of AI spam and disinformation, then readers can't trust anything but the big known names.

And employers and publishers can only trust submissions from people they know personally or to whom they are introduced by the old boys' network.

AI is going to be great for gatekeeping the privilege of those already in power & terrible for social mobility.

Show thread🏴🏳‍⚧🏴‍☠5h ago

@FrightenedRat @jameshowell

and this would be different from the past entire existence of humanity how?

Show threadizzy | Technically Good ✨12h ago
@jameshowell Yes, yes... But *outside* of all that? My God the *promise* it holds! Just one more model bro 🚀
Show threadKim Crawley 😷 (she/her)7h ago

@jameshowell

Please check out https://stopgenai.com

Stop Gen AI – Mutual Aid and Political Activism

Show threadknack6h ago
@jameshowell The increasing exasperation matches "What have the Romans ever done for us".
Show threadcrypticrainfall6h ago

@jameshowell

I had almost this exact conversation with a friend's coworker the other day, we didn't even get to each of these points but I was ready.

This is why it baffles me so much that my coworker's are using this (I'm in education btw). The amount of otherwise measured teachers who can't stop suggesting genAI usage to me. Like any one of these should be a dealbreaker alone, no? Especially for an educator? Like hello? I feel crazy.

Show threadJames Endres Howell6h ago
@crypticrainfall You are not crazy.
Show threadWim🧮34m ago

@jameshowell Whether it works or not is besides the point.

The usefulness of a product or service does not in itself justify its use. Usefulness is simply a necessary condition for use: if it was useless, you would not use it. Useful means it is possible to use it. It does not mean the use is justified or even justifiable, ethically or otherwise. There are many products that were considered useful but have nevertheless been banned, as their use turned out to be unjustifiable.

Show threaddivVerent8m ago
@jameshowell Good one.

I should however add the counterpoint that artists have already sold their souls to large labels, who give anyone but the biggest "artists" - who barely produce anything worth calling so - mere bread crumbs, but lobby to take human rights away from everyone, install rootkits on our computers, and towards a general surveillance state to fight "piracy".

Pirating those, and diluting their influence, is GOOD. Maybe even if done by means of AI, if it needs be (although as you mention the drawbacks are huge too, so this gets difficult). The Music And Film Industry of America (i.e. the MAFIA) must be destroyed.