this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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our collective time would be better spent destroying capitalism than trying to stop AI. AI is wonderful in the right social system.
On the other hand, assuming the social system isn't the right one, hypothetically AI fully realized could make it more unreasonable and more tightly stuck the way it is.
Not to mention, any other, more just social system wouldn’t be fucking decimating the environment, ultimately hurting the poorer nations first, for money. And AI is accelerating our CO2 output when we need to be drastically cutting it back. This is very much a pacifying tool as we barrel toward oblivion.
Could you explain that a little bit more please?
https://www.ft.com/content/61bd45d9-2c0f-479a-8b24-605d5e72f1ab
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/05/1084417/ais-carbon-footprint-is-bigger-than-you-think/
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/ais-carbon-footprint-problem
When the world needs to be drastically altering our way of life to avert the worst of climate change, these companies are getting away with accelerating their output and generating tons of investment and revenue because “that’s what the market dictates.” Just like with crypto/blockchain a few years ago, adding “AI” into any business pitch/model is basically printing money. So companies are more inclined to incorporate this machine learning tech into their business, and this is all happening while the energy demand for increased usage and the constant “updates” and advancements in the field are gobbling up way more energy than we can honestly afford—and really even conceive of. Because they’re trying to hide this fact, given, yknow, the world fuckin ending. Basically, the market and the entire system of media is encouraging and fawning over this “leap” in tech, when we can’t realistically afford to continue our habits we had before this market even existed. So they are accelerating co2 output, everyone cheers, and we all ride merrily to the edge of our doom.
It’s capitalism once again destroying us and the planet for profit. And everyone who mindlessly jumps on board, ooh’ing and aww’ing at the stupid new shit they’re doing (while they infringe upon the work of all artists without compensation, driving human creativity out in the job market in favor of saving corporations some scratch by firing their artists and using AI instead…I genuinely can’t really conceive of how people seem so on board with this concept.
"Cutting-edge technology doesn’t have to harm the planet, and research like this is very important in helping us get concrete numbers about emissions. It will also help people understand that the cloud we think that AI models live on is actually very tangible, says Sasha Luccioni, an AI researcher at Hugging Face who led the work.
Once we have those numbers, we can start thinking about when using powerful models is actually necessary and when smaller, more nimble models might be more appropriate, she says."
that's a shame and i'm not surprised at all to see that corporations are using AI for completely unimportant things.
But one thing to consider is that AI could also lead to solutions that help save the planet, like solving problems with fusion technology. I still believe in science, and I still believe that capitalism is the root of the problem, not the technology itself.
I mean, sure, I agree with you. Capitalism is the problem, no question. I would love a job-replacing tech so people could live lives of leisure and art. But…this system is being built for capitalist ends. It’s built by, funding by, and being put in the hands of the exact people causing the problem.
I agree that in a hypothetical world, machine learning technology could very well help humanity. But the code and money is in the hands of people who aren’t interested in helping humanity.
I’m no fan of forced labor for basic necessities. And I’m not advocating for that system by any means, but this tech, in this world, will drive the cost of labor down, drive people from the jobs they’ve been forced to rely upon, and it’s literally taking one of the few job fields where people actually got to express their humanity for their wages: art. Creative writing and design/visual art were one of the few fields people actually dreamt of doing. Because it offered us a living for creating. For being human. And that tiny outlet of humanity in the vast contrivance of capitalism is being devoured by this tech.
That’s just one small part of my distrust of “AI.” But the underlying problem is as I stated first, which is that this tech, existing in this world at this point in time, isn’t going to free us. It’s another tool by the ownership class to cut costs, decimate the environment, and drive profit. While also killing the small little sliver of human creativity that was allowed to exist under capitalism.
So again, hypothetically, yes, the tech could be a force for good and for human liberation from meaningless work. But it’s actually making our work even more meaningless, while sequestering another huge chunk of power for the ruling class. It would be great if it could reach its potential as a force for good. But given everything, that is not how it’s being implemented.
your points are completely valid, which is why we really need to start banding together to dismantle the ownership class
by
any
means
necessary
for the sake of humanity (and all other living things on the planet)
Exactly. I know it's easy to automatically froth at the mouth with rage when seeing "AI", and here anything mentioning it gets automatically rejected, but there are genuinely good usecases.
Amazing speech synthesis and recognition is useful for anybody, but especially people with certain disabilities.
Much better translation, spell checking, help with writing. Helping people understand texts that are written in a complicated way (legalese, technical jargon, condensing EULA's, etc)
Infrastructure planning and traffic control.
Grid energy usage and distribution.
Image recognition, useful for anybody for things like searching a photo library for a specific thing, but also for people with visual issues who previously had to rely on awful screen reader software that can't tell you the content of images unless it was properly tagged (as someone with a blind sister who uses computers - rare!)
Spotting fake reviews, a massive issue online. Flagging bot accounts.
The potential for them to take over some jobs and free up people to pursue other things in life.
This technology, if trained ethically, and not used to siphon more data from people, is amazing. It's how megacorps are using it that's the problem.