Lenz Grimmer
Tim Bray1. GenAI is probably going to impact us but how? Nobody knows.
2. The worst thing about GenAI isn't the technology, it's the shitty people: https://karlbode.com/the-problem-with-ai-is-shitty-human-beings [<must-read]
3. We can’t have a grown-up conversation on the subject because the trillion-dollar bet’s fear+greed pressure crowds out truth.
4. When the bubble pops, the shitty people will melt away. Then we can maybe figure it out.
5. We so *SO* need that bubble to pop. Next week would be ideal.
John Timaeus5. ... Last year would be best.
John
IBBoard@buckfiftyseven @timbray UBI as a "solution" for creeping GenAI would be a sticking plaster. A poor compensation. Like someone hacking off a limb and then saying "but I've paid your rent!".
Great. I don't have to worry about rent. But you've still affected my life for the worse and I can't do all the things that I used to enjoy, just because of your actions!
UBI would still leave the environmental impact, the social impact, the creative impact and the exploitative arseholes. It's just that people wouldn't have to worry about enshittification (or terminating) of their jobs as much.
@buckfiftyseven @timbray And with UBI it's the impossible hope that "AI" will just go away, or the impossible hope that the economy can run with extreme company valuations that are disconnected from reality and ridiculous expectations of growth and/or productivity!
UBI doesn't solve any of the GenAI problems. It just makes people's lives slightly less financially uncomfortable while it happens.
(UBI in general is a good thing, but it's not a fix-all solution)
rsalz
Joe Brockmeier@timbray Will they melt away, though? The extraction class is like cockroaches; they’ll scurry under the fridge when the lights come on, but survive to creep back out and lay eggs everywhere as soon as the dust settles.
(And, of course, the C-level folks will keep their jobs, rotate into similar ones, or golden parachute into piles of money while thousands of people get laid off for the C-level’s mistakes and greed.)
Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦@timbray @rayckeith "next week would be ideal" … 💯
davecb 🇨🇦
Nullstring 🏴☠️@timbray at this point i think unless something from outside pops it, what will eventually happen is one of the major US players will suffer a distillation attack or one of these leaks at a time when they can not reasonably recover AND continue participating in the pump with the rest of the group - once that party leaves the spending race, whichever it may end up being, it seems like the monied side of all of it will start to unravel. one external thing i think could also lead to it popping is that they arent able to actually build any of these datacenters yet nor source the power for them which drags out their plans while chinese firms distill their models for cheap and move off nvidia silicon.
meka
Otis@timbray AI as an extension and amplification of surveillance capitalism will not go away until people, en mass, decide that thinking for themselves and learning to use technology proficiently instead of taking the easy "free as in beer" path. Things will have to get much worse to convince the average Joe that the latest device in an Ad is something to avoid and learning how to install an open system on ones own device is the way to go.
Paul Sochacki@timbray @Scienceisnotopinions hopefully before the oceans boil over...
That hasn't happened yet, right? They're not boiling yet are they? It seems like the kind of thing that might have made a headline on a slow news day and since been swept under the rug, cautiously optimistic
kramaker
degenerating degenerate@timbray It's not wrong that part of the problem discussing AI is shitty people... but on Mastodon there's a widespread anti-AI feeling that is driven by (not entirely unreasonable) fear of what it is going to do to them and their disposable income.
That causes them to lash out, shut their minds and for some of them, act like shitty people. The "clippy bubble" popping isn't going to help them or cause them to discuss reality rather than "AI is the Devil".
UkeleleEric@UkeleleEric @timbray Yeah... but is the strawman version of AI that it's perfect to get permission to hate on, the reality?
For example I maintain a large FOSS project with a liberal license, it's perfectly fine with me and the LICENSE if it's used for training AI. I chose the license.
So... it's not right when I use a coding assist AI to claim snootily it's a "system... based on theft of other people's work"... but can we discuss the more complex reality? Or is it not fun like that?
@UkeleleEric @timbray ... when the works are liberally licensed? Here's a copy of MIT (it's only 3 paras)
"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction..."
If you're literally copying it you need to include the LICENSE. But if you learned from it and wrote your own code, which is how the coding assists actually work... no.
Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶
Francesco P Lovergine 
@timbray
When the discussion is polarized by opposite personal interests, it all goes to hell. As always, probably the truth is in the middle, or at least it is the plainest solution.
When the discussion is polarized by opposite personal interests, it all goes to hell. As always, probably the truth is in the middle, or at least it is the plainest solution.
Ketakater
Aho
Claudio Zizza 🦜@timbray I don't see any AI bubble pop in the next years. I only see more people struggeling keeping their prosperity, while trying not to be reduced to cheap work.
Curtis "Ovid" Poe (he/him)@timbray Yeah, I was planning a book on this topic, and quickly got derailed. Spent the last few days posting here about where my research went wrong. Wound up documenting over 4,000 years of this behavior.
lambtor
Timo Ewalds@timbray My current summary of the trajectory of AI is that it is fantastic for the individual and terrible for society. No matter your goal, AI can help or at worst be useless. But when used by people carelessly or maliciously, it can cause huge harm, possibly outweighing the benefits to the individual. It sucks that neither can see the other side's argument.