JenniferplusplusYou can't put the genie back in the bottle 🤡
Meanwhile, the genie is only kept out of the bottle by the force of literally the entirety of the world's available investment capital
Obviously, the models are going to continue to exist. Probably. So will the data sets, the libraries, and the generalized knowledge of how to build them and what that gets you, in a technical sense.
And if you think that's what AI is?
🤡
For the record, AI is a technocratic political project for the purpose of industrializing knowledge work.
That industrialization of knowledge work has 2 parts. First, is mechanization. Making knowledge work dependent on some particular machine. This is already the case, with computers generally. Knowledge work is thoroughly computerized. But, those computers are small, cheap, universally available commodities. That doesn't serve the second part, so they're forcing in new layers of mechanization, and removing access to the old machines.
Second, they ensure those machines can only be obtained through large investments of capital. Thus, all knowledge work can be done only at the pleasure of the capitalists who own the machines. Personal computers don't help them, there. But a black box hosted service that consumes the entire web to build and a whole country's worth of electricity to operate sure as hell does.
"AI" is merely the banner under which they are organizing and justifying this project. The implementation details are just the implementation details.
So you can see how that genie is extremely prone to returning to it's bottle.
It only stays out as long as they can keep shoveling an ever increasing amount of real resources into it. And it turns out the resources available are finite
Anyway, AI fans keep claiming that AI is like the industrial revolution, and yeah, it is. But somehow, for some reason, people broadly view that as a good thing. But it wasn't. It was this. It's the thing I just described, but for physical goods. And now they're coming after art, and science, and correspondence, and law, and medicine, and bookkeeping, and it is incomprehensible to me that anyone at all would be in favor of this
wakingrufus@jenniferplusplus
It is a lot like the industrial revolution: depressing wages, degrading working conditions, and destroying the environment
It is a lot like the industrial revolution: depressing wages, degrading working conditions, and destroying the environment
Cairo Braga@jenniferplusplus this is a brilliant thread, thank you!
John Abbe (aka Slow)@jenniferplusplus @cairobraga Apple has run out of most Mac Studio and Mini models because there are so many people who understand this, and do not wish to be subservient to the cloud any longer. Silver lining: Another crack at a world where every household as a decent server and every neighborhood has a small tech geeks co-op to steward them.
Cacajao calvus ucayalii@slowenough @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga I love the idea of neighborhood IT co-ops. Fo any actually exist? Are there resources to help set this sort of thing up?
@RedFacedUakari @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga There are definitely a bunch of co-op incubators out there, for example: https://belovedcommunityincubator.org/
I don't know of any neighborhood tech co-ops, but people's interest in switching away from big tech providers is pretty high right now, so I believe there is hope at least for many small tech co-ops to succeed even if they couldn't yet make a living doing tech infrastructure & support for literally just their neighborhood. #cooperatives
omar@RedFacedUakari
> I love the idea of neighborhood IT
I wish but neighborhood barely works for social exchange and common good, so "IT", don't hold your breath.
@omar @RedFacedUakari @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga Yes, local IT co-ops are unlikely to happen in isolation, and more likely to happen in the context of general rising of local community, mutual aid, and other neighborhood-scale organizing. City Repair in Portland, Oregon has worked on this sort of thing a bit, I'm sure there are many others.
People are getting rather organized in many places right now to defend others in their communities, so, many opportunities for community-building!
@slowenough @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga
Mac is a wrong solution, Apple can control these devices and make it unusable, even if you are in your rights.
Honestly, I don't see how Europe would let it happen, I mean locking down hardware/software, even if they bring back manufacturing and were leading their own software. If it happens it's purely to serve US interests.
I don't want to wait for a pseudo moderate/democrat US president (this guy is not acting alone), we must cut it off now!
@omar @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga Oh yeah I wasn't suggesting everyone get a Mac, just pointing to it as an indication of a rapid increase in the number of people who are buying hardware so that they can run models locally.
That suggests it is a good time for new PC makers to get into the market!
@slowenough @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga
Just to clarify, It might sound like an anti-american stance, but it's not, I call for better balance and diversity.
@omar @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga I'm American, and I very very much support humanity having more redundancy in our computing supply chains. :-)
Brokar@jenniferplusplus I wouldn't compare AI with a genie rather than with Pandora's box because you won't get AI back into anything.
Not that AI is good or bad but too many companies and investors have pumped so much money into AI that it's about time to think of ROI.
AI is no charity even though one of the leading companies has Open in its name.
So, imo AI stays as long as the investors don't have their money back and it can take a long time until that happens. And then the earning starts.
Neo Ehproque@Brokar @jenniferplusplus surely in 10 years time the investors are not still burning all their money at the current rate because they've run out of money? And we're not building data centres at the current rate because can't power them?
Marc Trius@jenniferplusplus how do small language models that can be run locally or self hosted factor into this? Perhaps they represent tools that can still be controlled locally rather than by large investors.
Counter arguments:
1. They still need to be trained
2. Hardware prices are rising, hardware capable of running even small models may become out of reach
@alter_kaker mostly by recruiting people who should know better to defend the AI project, it seems
@jenniferplusplus I'm sorry, I don't understand
@alter_kaker how do small language models that can be run locally or self hosted factor into this?
They don't change anything at all about the power dynamics. They don't change anything at all about whether you can do or economically benefit from work that capitalists disapprove of. What they do is distract people who are concerned about those facts, and make everyone else spend time explaining to them that they don't actually change the political situation at all.