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.
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 @zkat Actually, in the research I shared re: the previous post (sorry for the repeat), the heat islands don’t go away when the data centers are turned off because construction (roofs, parking lots, roads, etc) is a significant driver of heating, unless built with intention (high albedo, green roofs, tree cover)!
https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-centers-heat-exhaust-is-not
https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-centers-heat-exhaust-is-not
@b_cavello @zkat OK, that makes sense, just - it doesn't matter for the roofing etc. if it hosts a data center or a shopping mall. The culprit here is colonial industrial architecture, not the guess-next-word algorithm.
And even for the released thermal energy from the insane electricity use - indistinguishable bad from Crypto back in the day. A regime forcing surreal financial competition on raw compute leads to that outcome, we've been here before.
And even for the released thermal energy from the insane electricity use - indistinguishable bad from Crypto back in the day. A regime forcing surreal financial competition on raw compute leads to that outcome, we've been here before.
@KarlHeinzHasliP way to completely ignore the fact that there’s other negative effects than the heat islands
@b_cavello We had a separate track about jobs and I agree with all zkat posted there - the job loss is real and executives say its because of AI.
There is no doubt AI is a key part of the current hellhole - I tend to be picky to understand why and which parts of it exactly cause what. AI is different from crypto and other Nvidia marketing tech in the past in that it is riding the fascist wave to eliminate all workers rights - well, you could argue that Call of Duty and Bitcoin also served that goal, but anyways, literally all the AI CEO's from America donate millions directly to the fascist government to have dinner with the dictator. There is not the shadow of a doubt about Meta, Alphabet, Amazon or Microsoft, OpenAI, Twitter etc. products being key to the early 3rd millenium fascist agenda.
But also, there are a whole bunch of open source next-word-guessing models in the few GB range floating around on torrents and we will have to get used to the fact that those are now part of our collective compute experience.
There is no doubt AI is a key part of the current hellhole - I tend to be picky to understand why and which parts of it exactly cause what. AI is different from crypto and other Nvidia marketing tech in the past in that it is riding the fascist wave to eliminate all workers rights - well, you could argue that Call of Duty and Bitcoin also served that goal, but anyways, literally all the AI CEO's from America donate millions directly to the fascist government to have dinner with the dictator. There is not the shadow of a doubt about Meta, Alphabet, Amazon or Microsoft, OpenAI, Twitter etc. products being key to the early 3rd millenium fascist agenda.
But also, there are a whole bunch of open source next-word-guessing models in the few GB range floating around on torrents and we will have to get used to the fact that those are now part of our collective compute experience.