Rules TBD.
The treat printers are tools. Tools can be useful.
Tools can also be horrid when wielded (or stanned) by tools.
Keep in mind the staggering energy costs and carbon waste involved with the widespread use of this tool. When tools expect, even demand the tool to be used everywhere at an increasing rate, they're being especially horrid tools.
It's worth noting that the inefficiency isn't inherent in this tool. It's largely an artifact of the tech being new and used in naive ways. This is a good example of a massive improvement from a relatively straight forward optimization https://lmsys.org/blog/2024-07-01-routellm/
Lots of efficiency improvements are possible for lots of tools but they often don't happen on a sufficiently large scale because of capitalism. It's why we have "just another lane, bro" stroads instead of viable mass transit across most of Burgerland, for example.
I highly doubt bazinga-Americans, from ruling class billionaires to their stans and glazers, are that interested in efficiency when they feverishly demand ascended techno-gods to emerge from sufficiently large treat printer databases. One such glazer is even in this thread, right now.
In this case, I think we are going to see such improvements because there's a direct benefit to companies operating LLMs to save costs. It's also worth noting that a lot of the improvements are happening in open source space, and I firmly believe that's how this tech should be developed in the first place.
I find complaining about the fact that generative models exist isn't really productive. There's no putting toothpaste back in the tube at this point. However, it is valuable to have discussions regarding how this tech should be developed and used going forward.
One more thing: you may want to look at the numbers for just how vastly extensive and wasteful current "AI" usage is among tech companies and how much more they intend to expand its use, whether people ask for it or not, pretty much everywhere.
If you haven't heard of the Jevons Paradox, it also helps explain why increasingly efficient gasoline engines haven't actually reduced overall carbon waste because more and more of those more efficient gasoline engines were used all the while.
I'm well aware of Jevons Paradox, however what it says is that we'll always find new use for energy surplus. If it wasn't LLMs then it would just be something else. There's nothing uniquely bad about AI, it's just a technology that can be used in a sensible way or not. The thing we need to be focusing on is how we structure our society to ensure that we're not using technology in ways that's harmful to us.
If it wasn't LLMs then it would just be something else.
Again, I'm not down with inevitabilism arguments. May as well say the Joad's house was going to get torn down somehow too.
If one believes nothing can or even should be done about destructive excesses of capitalism, where's the leftism part even begin?
There's nothing uniquely bad about AI
There actually is considering the jobs and consequent material conditions affected by it that were otherwise unaffected before its use. Just saying it's all the same sounds like downright drilposting.
The thing we need to be focusing on is how we structure our society to ensure that we're not using technology in ways that's harmful to us.
No shit. Same deal with CFCs, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and leaded gasoline. Saying "do nothing, it's inevitable and no different than anything before and it can't be helped" yet also "restructure society" is downright paradoxical to me here.
Well you brought up Jevons paradox here, which kind of is an inevitabilist argument. My view is simply that Jevons paradox is an observation of how capitalist system operates, and as long as this system of relations remains in place we will see problems with how technology is used.
If one believes nothing can or even should be done about destructive excesses of capitalism, where’s the leftism part even begin?
I think I was very clear that I think that destructive excesses of capitalism are precisely the problem here. What I continue to point out that, that's a completely separate discussion from whether LLMs exist or not.
There actually is considering the jobs and consequent material conditions affected by it that were otherwise unaffected before its use. Just saying it’s all the same sounds like downright drilposting.
The jobs and consequent material conditions are affected by the capitalist system of relations and how it uses automation in ways that are hostile to workers. Automation itself is not the problem here.
No shit. Same deal with CFCs, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and leaded gasoline. Saying “do nothing, it’s inevitable and no different than anything before and it can’t be helped” yet also “restructure society” is downright paradoxical to me here.
Nowhere did I say do nothing. What I actually said repeatedly is that you're focusing on the wrong thing and that I don't see technology itself as the problem.
No, i'm pretty sure im also against AI. Im against artist not being paid for their work and being replaced by subpar machine learning regurgitating their art without any sense
You're literally talking about capitalism fucking over the artist here. There no reason the AI can't be helping you do the boring shit in your work faster and why it shouldn't only benifit you directly.
It can also be used to improve your skills as an artist. For example, there's a music theory plugin called Scaler 2 which uses AI. You can run recordings through Scaler and it will spit out the chords and key the songs are in. I've been using it to learn music theory. I'm not sure if any of y'all have tried learning music theory in a formal setting but a lot of teachers are incredibly pretentious, especially if you tell them you're a guitarist or want to make electronic dance music. You could technically use it to write entire songs but those would be boring and lifeless.
yeah its useful to do dumb boring work. not offload the entire creative process to it. Its like saying photoshop ruined photography. Rather I would argue it created an entire sub-genre of photos.
We shouldnt lose the tool because of other tools trying to yuck our yum.
that use for llms was cooked up by capitalism
it could very well be just another tool to assist artists
Also what's inherently wrong with art being generated by a computer? Not every piece of art made by a human is this unique, incredibly creative never before seen thing nor it needs to be as such, in fact most human made art is just rehashing of previous things.
That's capitalism
Not only am I against AI, I fully endorse doing a real life Butlerian Jihad asap
I should have expected this outcome in this thread:
I agreed with the content of the essay.
Idk who chose the headline, cuz the author’s take is far more measured than that. (Probably an editor optimizing for clickbait?)
I would caution, though, that the author is specifically talking about:
I think there are more valid concerns about AI beyond the scope of those two areas, but I can’t blame the author for focusing on their area of expertise.