Lemmy be like
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No, it actually does.
https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117
The algorithm is a bunch of math. It's not until someone wants to run it that it needs any energy.
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GenAI is a great tool for devouring text and making practice questions, study guides and summarize, it has been used as a marvelous tool for education and research. Hell, if set properly, you can get it to give you the references and markers on your original data for where to find the answers to the questions on the study guide it made you.
It is also really good for translation and simplification of complex text. It has its uses.
But the oversimplification and massive broad specs LLMs have taken, plus lack of proper training for the users, are part of the problem Capitalism is capitalizing on. They don't care for the consumer's best interest, they just care for a few extra pennies, even if those are coated in the blood of the innocent. But a lot of people just foam at the mouth when they hear "Ai".
Those are not valuable use cases. “Devouring text” and generating images is not something that benefits from automation. Nor is summarization of text. These do not add value to human life and they don’t improve productivity. They are a complete red herring.
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Yeah, except it's a tool that most people don't know how to use but everyone can use, leading to environmental harm, a rapid loss of media literacy, and a huge increase in wealth inequality due to turmoil in the job market.
So... It's not a good tool for the average layperson to be using.
Stop drinking the cool aid bro. Think of these statements critically for a second. Environmental harm? Sure. I hope you're a vegan as well.
Loss of media literacy: What does this even mean? People are doing things the easy way instead of the hard way? Yes, of course cutting corners is bad, but the problem is the conditions that lead to that person choosing to cut corners, the problem is the demand for maximum efficiency at any cost, for top numbers. AI is is making a problem evident, not causing it. If you're home on a Friday after your second shift of the day, fuck yeah you want to do things easy and fast. Literacy what? Just let me watch something funny.
Do you feel you've become more stupid? Do you think it's possible? Why wouild other people, who are just like you, be these puppets to be brain washed by the evil machine?
Ask yourself. How are people measuring intelligence? Creativity? How many people were in these studies and who funded them?
If we had the measuring instrument needed to actually make categorizations like "People are losing intelligence." Psychologists wouldn't still be arguing over the exact definition of intelligence.Stop thinking of AI as a boogieman inside people's heads. It is a machine. People using the machine to achieve a mundane goal, it doesn't mean the machine created the goal or is responsible for everything wrong with humanity.
Huge increase in inequality? What? Brother AI is a machine. It is the robber barons that are exploiting you and all of the working class to get obsenely rich. AI is the tool they're using. AI can't be held accountable. AI has no will. AI is a tool. It is people that are increasing inequality. It is the system held in place by these people that rewards exploitation and encourages to look at the evil machine instead. And don't even use it, the less you know, the better. If you never engage with AI technology, you'll believe everything I say about how evil it is.
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You forgot CEOs and landlords.
And the call for violence, because it splat as it's your team* doing it.
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They factually are. ML is AI. I think you mean AGI maybe?
Could be, I get confused by the alphabet soup of acronyms. I mean these glorified predictive text machines that for some reason marketers are trying to push as having some sort of ability to "think".
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Wrong.
The problem are humans, the same things that happen under capitalism can (and would) happen under any other system because humans are the ones who make these things happen or allow them to happen.While you aren't wrong about human nature. I'd say you're wrong about systems. How would the same thing happen under an anarchist system? Or under an actual communist (not Marxist-Leninist) system? Which account for human nature and focus to use it against itself.
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Language is descriptive not prescriptive.
If people use the term "AI" to refer to LLMs, then it's correct by definition.
Not really, since "AI" is a pre-existing and MUCH more general term which has been intentionally commandeered by bad actors to mean a particular type of AI.
AI remains a broader field of study.
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then you have little understanding of how genai works… the social impact of genai is horrific, but to argue the tool is wholly bad conveys a complete or purposeful misunderstanding of context
I'm not an expert in AI systems, but here is my current thinkging:
Insofar as 'GenAI' is defined as
AI systems that can generate new content, including text, images, audio, and video, in response to prompts or inputs
I think this is genuinely bad tech. In my analysis, there are no good use cases for automating this kind of creative activity in the way that the current technology works. I do not mean that all machine assisted generation of content is bad, but just the current tech we are calling GenAI, which is of the nature of "stochastic parrots".
I do not think every application of ML is trash. E.g., AI systems like AlphaFold are clearly valuable and important, and in general the application of deep learning to solve particular problems in limited domains is valuable
Also, if we first have a genuinely sapient AI, then it's creation would be of a different kind, and I think it would not be inherently degenerative. But that is not the technology under discussion. Applications of symbolic AI to assist in exploring problem spaces, or ML to solve classification problems also seems genuinely useful.
But, indeed, all the current tech that falls under GenAI is genuinely bad, IMO.
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Language is descriptive not prescriptive.
If people use the term "AI" to refer to LLMs, then it's correct by definition.
If people use [slur] to refer to [demographic] that does not make it correct by definition.
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You're getting downvoted for speaking the truth to an echo chamber my guy.
But he isn't speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/ai-data-centers-homeowner-electric-bills-link/
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But he isn't speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/ai-data-centers-homeowner-electric-bills-link/
Do you really think those data centers wouldn't have been built if AI didn't exist? Do you really think those municipalities would have turned down the same amount of money if it was for something else but equally destructive?
What I'm hearing is you're sick of municipal governance being in bed with big business. That you're sick of big business being allowed to skirt environmental regulations.
But sure. Keep screaming at AI. I'm sure the inanimate machine will feel really bad about it.
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Define "intelligence"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence
Take your pick from anything that isn't recent and by computer scientists or mathematicians, to call stuff intelligent that clearly isn't. According to some modern marketing takes I developed AI 20 years ago (optimizing search problems for agentic systems); it's just that my peers and I weren't stupid enough to call the results intelligent.
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But he isn't speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/ai-data-centers-homeowner-electric-bills-link/
AI uses 1/1000 the power of a microwave.
Are you really sure you aren't the one being fed lies by con men?
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While you aren't wrong about human nature. I'd say you're wrong about systems. How would the same thing happen under an anarchist system? Or under an actual communist (not Marxist-Leninist) system? Which account for human nature and focus to use it against itself.
It will happen regardless because we are not machines, we don't follow theory, laws, instructions or whatever a system tells us to perfectly and without little changes here and there.
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Its true. We can have a nuanced view. Im just so fucking sick of the paid off media hyping this shit, and normies thinking its the best thing ever when they know NOTHING about it. And the absolute blind trust and corpo worship make me physically ill.
Nuance is the thing.
Thinking AI is the devil, will kill your grandma and shit in your shoes is equally as dumb as thinking AI is the solution to any problem, will take over the world and become our overlord.
The truth is, like always, somewhere in between.
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Those are not valuable use cases. “Devouring text” and generating images is not something that benefits from automation. Nor is summarization of text. These do not add value to human life and they don’t improve productivity. They are a complete red herring.
Who talked about image generation? That one is pretty much useless, for anything that needs to be generated on the fly like that, a stick figure would do.
Devouring text like that, has been instrumental in learning for my students, especially for the ones who have English as a Second Language(ESL), so its usability in teaching would be interesting to discuss.
Do I think general open LLMs are the future? Fuck no. Do I think they are useless and unjustifiable? Neither. I think, at their current state, they are a brilliant beta test on the dangers and virtues of large language models and how they interact with the human psyche, and how they can help bridge the gap in understanding, and how they can help minorities, especially immigrants and other oppressed groups(Hence why I advocated for providing a class on how to use it appropriately for my ESL students) bridge gaps in understanding, help them realize their potential, and have a better future.
However, we need to solve or at least reduce the grip Capitalism has on that technology. As long as it is fueled by Capitalism, enshitification, dark patterns and many other evils will strip it of its virtues, and sell them for parts.
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That's like saying "asbestos has some good uses, so we should just give every household a big pile of it without any training or PPE"
Or "we know leaded gas harms people, but we think it has some good uses so we're going to let everyone access it for basically free until someone eventually figures out what those uses might be"
It doesn't matter that it has some good uses and that later we went "oops, maybe let's only give it to experts to use". The harm has already been done by eager supporters, intentional or not.
No that is completely not what they are saying. Stop arguing strawmen.
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AI is bad and people who use it should feel bad.
When people say this they are usually talking about a very specific sort of generative LLM using unsupervised learning.
AI is a very broad field with great potential, the improvements in cancer screening alone could save millions of lives over the coming decades. At the core it's just math, and the equations have been in use for almost as long as we've had computers. It's no more good or bad than calculus or trigonometry.
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I can run a small LLM locally which I can talk to using voice to turn certain lights on and off, set reminders for me, play music etc.
There are MANY examples of LLM's being useful, it has its drawbacks just like any big technology, but saying it has no uses that aren't worth it, is ridiculous.
But we could do vocal assistants well before LLMs (look at siri) and without setting everything on fire.
And seriously, I asked for something that's worth all the down side and you bring up clippy 2.0 ???
Where are the MANY exemples ? why are LLMs/genAI company burning money ? where are the companies making use of of the suposedly many uses ?
I genuily want to understand.
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synthophobes are easily manipulated
