Katerina MarchánRE: https://hachyderm.io/@petrillic/116337502667369228
I can’t have a conversation with any genAI boosters that is remotely productive precisely because of this.
it's B! Cavello 🐝@zkat Genuine Q if you have the spoons for it: how do you navigate feelings about genAI vs other also ethically concerning technologies (like cars, perhaps)?
I personally feel like I have a sort of status quo bias re: things that already existed and were problematic when I came into the world, but see more recent developments as more avoidable or exceptional, even tho maybe they’re not actually that different.
I personally feel like I have a sort of status quo bias re: things that already existed and were problematic when I came into the world, but see more recent developments as more avoidable or exceptional, even tho maybe they’re not actually that different.
Spookybot@b_cavello @zkat for me it's easy: AI is, as a lot of people puts it, "a solution in search of a problem". It has no real practical use and because of that it was completely avoidable.
Raphael@b_cavello @zkat Difference is how easy it is to say "no". GenAI is, as of yet, not structurally baked into our society. We can just choose not to do that, and bear the FOMO.
Tattie@b_cavello this kinda reflects the other responses, but new technology or old, I expect folks to be trying to find solutions, while understanding that change takes time.
I switched to an electric car, and try to take buses and trains more often. Others might have a bit more difficulty with infrastructure in their area, but are still doing what they reasonably can.
For AI, the obvious solution is "don't start using it at all", no matter how difficult the military-industrial complex is trying to make that for us.
@zkat
Peter Gray (per/per) 🚲🏞🎷🏠🌿What's your definition of AI?
If I record an unfamiliar bird call in Birdnet and click 'Analyze' I understand that machine learning enables the app to suggest the identity of the bird. Is that AI?
@PeterGray they said genAI, which means GANs and LLMs and their ilk, not ML
@zkat Thanks, zkat. I hadn't heard of Generative Adversarial Networks before.
JzeroI use my car for the things that I need a car to accomplish - driving people to appointments, picking up groceries, hauling tools to a job site, etc. I also use GenAI for the things I need GenAI to accomplish -- absolutely nothing. My approach to the two technologies is the same, which is why I begrudgingly use one and avoid the other one all together.
Karl Heinz Häsliprinz@b_cavello @zkat Burning fossil fuels for energy is a far, far, far worse tech than genAI could possibly ever be. Tbh. if it wasn't for the burning fossil fuel parts, genAI is just some computer shit that one could easily ignore.
@KarlHeinzHasliP there are more environmental and societal harms from this tech than just the burning of fossil fuels
@zkat well, yes, but they won't cause several billion people to die of hunger, heatwaves and flooding. Burning fossil fuels is really really really bad - far worse than all computer technology combined, including genAI.
@KarlHeinzHasliP there was literally a study that just came out where the microclimates created by the heat from data centers can affect 320mil people so far, and hyperscalers are propagating rapidly
@KarlHeinzHasliP also billions of people losing their jobs will absolutely starve them
@zkat I think you are buying propaganda. LLMs can't actually do peoples jobs.
Job loss is real, but seems to have more to do with fascism and late stage capitalism, and less with the extremely energy inefficient statistical next-word-prediction algorithms.
The heat islands by data centers go away if you switch off the data center.
In contrast, CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 1000s of years and is thermo-dynamically & ecologically near impossible to remove at the scale required.
Job loss is real, but seems to have more to do with fascism and late stage capitalism, and less with the extremely energy inefficient statistical next-word-prediction algorithms.
The heat islands by data centers go away if you switch off the data center.
In contrast, CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 1000s of years and is thermo-dynamically & ecologically near impossible to remove at the scale required.
@KarlHeinzHasliP I have literally seen screenshots of executives ordering layoffs to replace specific positions with agents