I’ve thought since the beginning of all of this that the biggest mistake was calling all of these LLMs and other tools that they smashed together “AI”. It’s misleading and ruins the reputation of all of the tools. If someone had made a coding tool that ONLY did what “AI” does with coding, no one would give a shit. But now because an LLM spelled “Strawberry” with too many “r’s” well that means it’s all slop and it’s all shit.
As for the people throwing shade for ethics, EVERYONE breaks their ethics for consumption and EVERYONE has their justifications. I’m not saying that environmental issues aren’t important, they very much are, but giving others shit for their choices when half of your clothing and your phone partly relies on slave labor and stripping of the environment weakens your attempt. It’s easy to sit on a high horse and judge others for their use of AI. It’s much more difficult to understand the nuances of why they do. Just like you would want someone else to try to understand the nuances of why your shoes cost $150 and the 9 year old who made them was only paid 2 cents.
The point that I’m trying to make here, is that you can complain about AI without shitting on others.
As for the people throwing shade for ethics, EVERYONE breaks their ethics for consumption and EVERYONE has their justifications.
There might be some guilt feelings involved in the uproar.
But science is very clear that in order to keep a somewhat livable climate, we have to massively reduce CO2 emissions. This is a hard requirement. A planet Earth with 3 degrees warming will not be liveable for most humans.
The GenAI hype goes exactly into the wrong direction. We have to reduce, not increase. It is a civilisatory no go.
It is clear that as a society, and moreover in a plutocratic system where the richest people are deeply invested in fossil fuels, we are in deep internal conflict. But we cannot avoid this conflict. If we continue to let it happen, fossil fuels will kill us.
I’ve thought since the beginning of all of this that the biggest mistake was calling all of these LLMs and other tools that they smashed together “AI”. It’s misleading and ruins the reputation of all of the tools. If someone had made a coding tool that ONLY did what “AI” does with coding, no one would give a shit. But now because an LLM spelled “Strawberry” with too many “r’s” well that means it’s all slop and it’s all shit.
As for the people throwing shade for ethics, EVERYONE breaks their ethics for consumption and EVERYONE has their justifications. I’m not saying that environmental issues aren’t important, they very much are, but giving others shit for their choices when half of your clothing and your phone partly relies on slave labor and stripping of the environment weakens your attempt. It’s easy to sit on a high horse and judge others for their use of AI. It’s much more difficult to understand the nuances of why they do. Just like you would want someone else to try to understand the nuances of why your shoes cost $150 and the 9 year old who made them was only paid 2 cents.
The point that I’m trying to make here, is that you can complain about AI without shitting on others.
There might be some guilt feelings involved in the uproar.
But science is very clear that in order to keep a somewhat livable climate, we have to massively reduce CO2 emissions. This is a hard requirement. A planet Earth with 3 degrees warming will not be liveable for most humans.
The GenAI hype goes exactly into the wrong direction. We have to reduce, not increase. It is a civilisatory no go.
It is clear that as a society, and moreover in a plutocratic system where the richest people are deeply invested in fossil fuels, we are in deep internal conflict. But we cannot avoid this conflict. If we continue to let it happen, fossil fuels will kill us.