I get some of the surface level reasons, and those annoy me too. Cramming AI into everything is dumb and unnecessary.
However, I do feel that at a deeper level, it has a lot of useful applications that will absolutely change society and improve the efficiency and skills of those who use it. For example, if someone wants to learn to code, they could take a few different paths. There are the traditional paths, just read or go to school and learn to code that way. Or you could pay for a bootcamp or an online coding education platform. Or, you could just tell an AI chatbot you want to learn to code, and have them become your teacher, and correct any errors you make in real time. Another application is in generating ideas or quick mock ups. Say I’m playing a game of d&d with friends. I need a character avatar so I just provide a description to the AI and it makes it up quick. It might take a few prompts, but it usually does a pretty good job. Or if I have a scenario I need to make a few enemies for, I could just provide the description of those enemies and have a quick stat block made up for them.
I realize that there are underlying issues with regard to training the AI on others work, but as someone who is a musician myself, and a supporter of open source as often as possible, I feel that it’s a bit hypocritical for people to get upset about AI “stealing” work with regard to code or other stuff that people willingly put out there for free for others to consume. Any artist or coder could “steal” the work of others for inspiration for their work, the same as an AI does, an AI is just much more efficient about it. I do think that most of the corporations that are pushing some new AI feature or promising the world or end of the labor force is full of shit, and that we are definitely in some sort of an AI bubble, but the technology itself is definitely useful in a lot of ways, and if it can be developed on a more localized and decentralized scale (community owned AI hubs anyone?), it could actually be a really powerful and beneficial technology for organizations and individuals looking to do more with less.
My point is that there are downsides, but there are also upsides, just like anything else. The internet in general has dramatically increased electricity usage from what it was previously, but people are acting like AI is adding some unprecedented load on the grid, which in the vast majority of places it is not (despite what a lot of online discussion would have you believe). Any artist or coder uses the art or code of others for inspiration, and yet AI is evil for doing the same? It’s just a lot of negativity without acknowledging the benefit.
The only benefits you’ve mentioned are coding and helping you with D&D characters
Those are examples that have broader applications and implications in other areas, i.e., learning a creativity. Are those not good enough benefits to consider it a useful technology?
You don’t need ai to do that go to the library
You don’t need the library, go talk to the elders. See how silly that sounds? Why are people such luddites?
False equivalence argument. Luddite is right
How is it a false equivalence?
Oh well if apples, why oranges. That is your argument
It is not apples and oranges. Before people had libraries, they went to the elders for knowledge. It’s very probably that when that happened, some of the elders felt spite towards libraries, because they replaced their roles in society, or diminished them.
Today, AI is doing the same for libraries, albeit with a few minor intermediary phases of the internet as a whole and global searching for information. You used to need to go to the library to read the biography of George Washington. Then someone invented wikipedia. Then someone invented an algorithm that can take sources from Wikipedia and other places and combine them into a coherent natural language response.
So no, not apples and oranges at all, very much the same thing.
Ok bro
No, I don’t code or play D&D
Seems like you know the answer to your own question and you’re just looking to argue and tell people who dislike it they’re wrong.
I am looking for more in depth reasons. The person responded that I answered my own question, without further elaboration, and then you just said I already know the answer with no further elaboration. I am interested in discussion, and yet people are here telling me I’m not because I have some opinions of my own?
This thread is full of “in depth reasons” but you dismissed them all and demand better ones.
In depth is one thing. Logically sound and valid are another.
There you go again.
Your title and post sound like you’re trying to understand. You’re not here to understand. You’re here to argue.
My intent was to try to understand why people feel the way they feel. If I disagree with a reason someone has, am I just supposed to be like “oh, ok”, and move on? Is that the proper protocol here if I am supposed to be understanding? Am I not supposed to give any rebuttal to any points whatsoever and just read through the thread without replying? Is that what you would consider a true “understanding” approach?
The discussion that you’re looking for doesn’t exist. The reasons you listed - people who don’t like AI simply think those reasons drastically outweigh the benefits. So much so that it’s not even worth discussing. There’s no deeper meaning to it.
That’s a counterproductive and unhealthy dispotion to have. No topic should be considered “not worth discussing” particularly one so ubiquitous and impactful.
You need to check your facts about the power consumption part
Certainly curious to see sources, but last I checked the industry was an insignificant contributor to electricity use overall. That number is obviously growing, but when I say insignificant, I mean negligible.
Again though, happy to see data that shows otherwise it you have a source to provide.
Energy prices are already rising for people near data centers. Near me, the state is reopening a nuclear plant closed because the maintenance to repair years of use exceeded its value. With DCs moving in, it is now a necessity. As you mentioned, it’s getting worse, but it’s already having an effect.
There’s also the insane water consumption required to cool their stuff. It’s destroying ecosystems everywhere.
From a selfish-ish point, it’s also already increased costs of chips used in RAM and GPUs and has taken stick off the market for consumers.
As far as your open source views, that’s great, but open source projects still get licensed under open source licensing and is at the behest of the creator. Ignoring that is effectively stealing from creators and that’s not okay. It’s one thing to learn from something, and then to cite those sources, and it’s another to take it, regurgitate it and not give credit. AI has been used to impersonate people in music and other media like content creators hurting their income and image with no recourse.
AI is ass at coding. It’s not a good teacher and struggles with any level of complexity. It is ok for troubleshooting, but it has been shown in almost every case that it’s not capable of replacing even junior devs effectively. AWS just had a coming to Jesus moment recently because AI generated code broke critical services and took down services that millions rely on. It’s not security conscious, and there are breaches of personal data left and right.
I’m not saying all uses of AI are the devil. It has it’s place for minor tooling, but the ethical implications mentioned above are just what I care to spend time elaborating on, but there are many more.
There are upside. Specifically in the medical field, and that’s where it should stay. Everything else is a downside. Humans taking inspiration is one thing. Humans copying directly is called plagiarism, the ai shit is plagiarism. Its taking water from people. Its using more electricity, that’s why they want to build nuclear plants to power them, the tax payer will ultimately foot the bill. Its eating up all the consumer hardware. Driving up costs. Making people stupider. Shoved down our throats everywhere. It hallucinates like mad, its costing people jobs. Its all downsides, except for a niche use case.
Your response is a perfect example of the hyperbolic hate against AI I see.
Why exactly should AI stay in the medical field, but be restricted from every other field? What about medicine makes it worth using, but makes it useless and evil in every other field?
AI does not copy. It takes things as inspiration and synsthesizes it into something new, just like anyone else. I know an artist who worked for the simpsons. He does a lot of his own work now in the simpsons style. Is he plagiarizing Matt Groening because he is using that style? Or is he just inspired by his time working there?
No, AI is not taking water from people. AI uses a very small amount of the total water, and industrial agriculture uses thousands of times more water overall. The ogalala aquifer and Colorado River started drying up before AI even came to be.
From here out are all actually pretty good reasons. The hardware thing sucks, and I wish the government was not so in bed with these companies that they let them just hoard all the hardware like they do. I think the internet in general has been making people stupider for a while, but AI has certainly accelerated it. The hallucination is annoying as shit, but it has gotten better over time, to a certain extent.
Definitely acknowledge all those down sides. Again though, it’s like any technology that has pluses and minuses. I guess the question is whether we should throw out all the benefits and assume the negatives are unfixable, or should we try to look at how we can solve them?
The hate isn’t hyperbolic. Its justified as all the reasons I gave. Just because you see AI as a net benefit, you think my hate is hyperbolic. You’re argument of using “little total water” and “agg using more” are flawed arguments. Its using precious water that we dont have enough of, for useless ai slop. Yes agg uses a huge amount of water, but we need to eat.
Ai doesn’t take inspiration, its a computer program. Inspiration is uniquely human. Someone who draws in the style of matt G is one thing, a machine that copies the style is not “inspired by”
Yes it should stay in the medical field because that’s where there is a net benefit.
So you’re saying that medical is the ONLY single place where the pros out weight the cons? You said we need to eat, so what about agriculture? What about science/engineeing in general? Why the arbitrary line in the sand at medical?
Also, if AI is so faulty and flawed, why would you want to use it in situations where lives are on the line, but condemn it’s use for lower stakes situations
Yes
I said we need to eat in reference to water use.
Do you know how ai is used in the medical field?
I don’t know the specifics, but not sure how that is relevant. Why does the field it’s being applied in make a difference? Is medicine the only field you view as truly impactful and valuable? Or do you really view the down sides as that dramatically terrible that the only possible way those downsides could be justified is by saving a life?
The application for a tool is very relevant.
When it comes to “ai”, yes.
No, it’s the way it can be beneficial in a very specific use case for research.
Again though, why can that use case not be applied other places? Why is medicine special? You seem to have a specific application in mind, so how about you just explain what that is so I can evaluate it on its merits?