Artificial Intelligence
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@northsouthdenimguy Speaking of construction… my brother is a welder and is working on erecting a data center. Here’s some inside info. 1. They’re chronically behind schedule and what they expect to be done in one year will take at least two or more. 2. By the time the centers are up and running, they’ve got about 2 years before they need upgrades due to obsolete technology 3. There are worker shortages and corners being cut everywhere so the quality of the facilities is not on par with the demands of the equipment.
All of this to say, the big grand ideas of it all happening aren’t realistic in the actual execution. The building of the initial network will be extremely flawed and require constant maintenance and upkeep.
I certainly recognize all the potential risk involved. There are outcomes that are less than ideal for human life. I also believe that by the time that is actually able to happen, the public and companies funding this will realize it’s not as worth it as they initially thought. I’ve seen quite a few articles recently saying that AI work is becoming more expensive than human work. It really just makes me chuckle at this point. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I think this whole thing is going to flop in 10 years and we’ll see a huge shift in culture to less technology across the board. Again, just one dudes opinion.
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The rollout of this tech has also been downright rapey. The “you can’t resist and may as well submit” schtick is so tired. It has worked really well for the imperialist-colonialist-capitalist tech bros so far, though so I suppose they’re just doubling down.
I’m really worried about the rollout that’s happening in schools. If kids never develop thinking skills or critical thinking or cultivate relationships with other humans they’re going to be stunted in all the worst possible ways.
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I still think there’s a middle ground with AI, especially in industries like mine. I’m a residential GC/home builder and recently had a project where we changed the entire layout strategy of the house. Originally it was a 3-story intown rowhouse on a very tight lot, then the client decided they wanted to shift the structure lower on the site and essentially turn it into a 4-story configuration while deleting a detached 2-car garage with living space above.
In the past, I would’ve either had to spend hours manually crunching numbers or start calling subs and trying to extrapolate costs. Instead, I uploaded the original plans, my internal job cost budget from the first version of the house, and fed AI the changes along with some specifications about finishes, flooring, etc. What came back was honestly very close to where I believed the project needed to land from a budget standpoint.
Now obviously I wasn’t using this to create a final contract price or something I’d stake my business on. I already had a strong understanding of what these things should cost, so if AI spit out some insane number I would’ve known immediately. But as a fast conceptual estimating tool? It was incredibly useful.
Honestly the best way I can describe it is like having a very fast junior estimator/project assistant sitting beside you. It saved me hours of preliminary number crunching and helped me get to a realistic ballpark quickly so I could have an intelligent conversation with the client about the revised layout and direction of the project.
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Absent of the environmental issues it causes, AI works fine if the person using it thinks critically and understands the limitation of the tool. Unfortunately an awful lot of people don't understand that and you end up with unintelligible misleading shite.
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Social Media, AI and the absence of critical thinking are rapidly eroding the pillars of democracy.
I wager the orange period would have been far less likely in the 90s.
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Yeah. I think cable TV, then social media, and now AI have sort of been an escalatingly stultifying progression, and the politics of the era reflect that. Governance by meme in a post-factual era.
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For shits and gigs: meme governance via tv/social media/Ai/internet etc, could by all means be literally a more true form of democracy. It is of, by, and for the people, and it seems to have more power over peoples thoughts and actions than almost any other influence. On the other hand, its definitely fucked all of its constituents because its not really real. I think there's been an absence of critical-thinking since long before me, and the factual/post-factual thing is just an evolution of sources. When it was just radio and television people were just as susceptible to propaganda, if not more so. Now that it's moved to Tiktok etc, it still looks about the same, but societal entropy from these factors is causing "escalatingly stultifying progression" (great phrase there). Then again, I live under a rock, and this is just about the limit of my engagement with these things, so I'm aware my take is meaningless.
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oh, idk if anybody posted this before, but this shows exactly why Ai bothers me. It's boldly counterintuitive almost like its unknowingly gaslighting. This is both funny and annoying, but imagine if these questions and misconceptions were a more serious topic with potentially grave consequences.
