Random Rants

StarsSuck

@goosehd my feeling is that we won't have the energy supply to make this happen, even on the timespan he envisions. We're not even close to being able to actualize these developments... That said, I worry about the overall harm that this massive push for data and processing centers will do to the environment, but we're probably all fucked anyway so maybe it doesn't matter.

StarsSuck

@Ross @sabergirl I work as a professor in a university and this is like wildfire... A great example of "progress" just because we could, without any regard for if we should. Don't get me wrong here: I'm an early adopter of LLMs and they have made portions of my life unbelievably easier. But I can see how it becomes a crutch, displacing thought and creativity and spirit and replacing it with sterile, contrived, and entirely unoriginal language. We can't unring the bell so it's here to stay. We're along for the ride, however it ends.

popvulture

Totally. The toothpaste is out of the tube, and it's sentient.

ROman

@Matt said in Random Rants:

I can see why that would be disappointing to watch but I get it. It’s the Olympics and I’m sure they’re dealing with a lot emotionally. It’s not just a game for them, it’s all they think about every day. Personally, I’d be pretty pissed off if I lost because of my own mistake rather than not being the best. That’s way more painful.

I agree, and I probably over reacted. I was having a tough day.

ROman

@GraemeE Sorry to hear this. Worst pain I've ever had so far.

Matt

@GraemeE said in Random Rants:

Fuck
Being
Middle
Aged

Kidney stones ftw.....

I’ve been getting them since I was about 19. I was blessed with two parents that both get them. I get them every few years and it’s the fucking worst. Best of luck.

mclaincausey

@sabergirl Reed Hastings posted on his LinkedIn some shit about 8 billion people using AI. I did the math on it and calculated that this would double the total annual carbon output of the era before Gen AI. I know he didn’t read my response, but I was asking how he thought that was survivable.

These billionaire tech bros unfortunately just aren’t a particularly bright bunch. The things you hear coming out of their “best and brightest “ like him, Musk, Andreessen, Thiel, etc are intellectually shallow and with major logical fallacies and blind spots, and most of them are megalomaniacs.

Transformers are incredible technology and there are legitimate applications for it. My job is for one such application in healthcare. But it is a bubble and it is not sustainable. And ultimately could manifest in danger beyond ecological concerns and water and electric bills.

sabergirl

I think the damage will be done before they even see it coming @mclaincausey .

You are so right that the ultra capitalists just aren’t the smartest ones in the room. The smartest ones are the scientists grinding it out in the lab and trying to keep their funding from getting cut by the power hungry dingdongs that go into politics and are propped up by the capitalists.

AI is completely unsustainable and just accelerating our race toward the heat death of the planet and untold millions of people dying. And they haven’t even figured out how to monetize it, yet. If they start actually making money, then we’re really screwed.

mclaincausey

@sabergirl , that’s the thing, the investment levels are not recoverable. Some savvy investors are figuring that out and dumping associated stocks and going cash heavy right now. In this era of meme stocks with very poor fundamentals and extreme valuations, that really tells you something.

sabergirl

Yup. Gotta hedge the bets on the stock market because everything is just five corporations in a trench coat circle-jerking each other.

Name the sector of the market and it’s the same. I still can’t believe how with all this uncertainty it just keeps bouncing back and up and up and up.

Bizarro world.

NickD

Stock markets - from 25 years working in that industry diversification is key. I wish it always went up, especially in the shorter term ( I know it does in the much longer term). With the current US administration you never know when the next dumb announcement is going to cause worldwide markets to drop.

I agree 100% the AI is ecologically unsustainable, but we're likely fucked anyway, and with right wing politics aligning with climate change denial we're definitely fucked, AI or not. The answer is when, not if.