3 ms·

Good thing silicon valley is pumping billions of dollars and burning through unimaginable natural resources in the midst of a climate crisis to make systems tha

Good thing silicon valley is pumping billions of dollars and burning through unimaginable natural resources in the midst of a climate crisis to make systems that compete with commercial artists by selling cheap knock-offs of their artwork and relieving us of the burden of doing things like writing school papers or heartfelt personal correspondence or making animated avatars for instant messaging. There's money to be made, so why use this amazing new technology to solve humanity's actual problems instead of just shoving a bunch of mediocre who-gives-a-shit features into people's phones?

tomr75 2y ago
cool whine
- chefandy 2y ago
  Cool response
suby 2y ago
I'm confused by your comment. This is an article about AI potentially helping with treatment of cancer. I strongly disagree in any case that we shouldn't be investing in AI. I think that there's likely a rising tides lifts all boats effect that occurs with improving AI in general -- it all feeds into each other. People who work on image generators are building expertise in AI and can potentially discover things which advance the field, or inspire others to work in the field. Humanity getting better at making AI generate images, or compete at video games, or predict protein folding, it all probably contributes to the rate of improvement in AI. And it's not unreasonable to think that AI will one day solve problems like cancer or climate change, so we should very much care about the rate of AI improvement. As for the power concerns, ironically, thanks to the increased demand we are seeing companies like Microsoft and Oracle make large investments in nuclear power now. It could be the case that this kicks starts a boom in the nuclear industry which eventually brings costs / eases regulations enough to put us in a better place in the long run. It's extremely complex, I don't think we can say at this point that investing in AI in the midst of a climate crisis is a mistake.
- chefandy 2y ago
  You misread my comment. I think solving problems like finding genetic patterns in cancer is exactly what we should be investing in. That is not even close to the largest resource sinks for AI model training right now. In the resources were going into generally making AI better, great. They're not. They're going until training models for mediocre consumer "gee-whizz aint that neat" products.
  - evantbyrne 2y ago
    I think people may not be aware of how much medical research is happening right now based around ML. It is a key component of our liquid cancer biopsy. If anything, there might be a bit too much hype-driven development at the moment. I would be cautious of any ML-based diagnostic that isn't leveraging the technology to better understand the biological aspects of cancer itself.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      Great. I'd rather add a drop in that bucket than have another model trained to make my phone do something I wish it didn't do.
  - borski 2y ago
    That’s not true. That’s just what you see. There is tons of research going on using AI for a lot more than memes.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      I'm not implying that there isn't money going into AI in medical research, and a bunch of other worthy pursuits, also. However, there's also an extraordinary amount of resources going into dumb shit that nobody wants that could actually benefit humanity. Not a trivial sum for a test, not a large sum that will contribute to entertainment-- it's the equivalent of an airport gift shop trinket. The person receiving the useless bauble would be better off without it but the giver paid $20 for it so...
alehlopeh 2y ago
Any idea when it won’t be the midst of a climate crisis? Oh ok.
- chefandy 2y ago
  Surely the nihilist approach will be an effective solution.
  - aydyn 2y ago
    What is your effective solution then?
    - aydyn 2y ago
      No response, thought so.
      - chefandy 2y ago
        I have better things to do than watch hn all the time. I'll put exactly as much thought into my response as you put into any of yours: "" And I'll add that I don't need to know how to do a valve replacement to know someone is having a heart attack.
        aydyn 2y ago
        No, you downvoted immediately and you responded to other posts so your excuse of not watching HN is simply an untruth. Your posts here tend to be vacuous, so your response was expected.
        chefandy 2y ago
        Dude-- I don't even have a downvote button for replies to my comments, and neither of my rarely used alt accounts even has enough rep to downvote. From the looks of the comments you left here you've spent far too much time on Twitter. This isn't a battle of one-liner zings. The HN crowd often downvotes throwaway comments like that on principle, but surely your, like, 12 words vaguely prodding at the premise of one thing I said contain hidden layers of depth and understanding that handily eclipse the value of my vacuous musings, so shame on them. Do yourself and everybody you interact with a huge favor: take a break from the internet to go outside and get some fresh air.
throwaway918299 2y ago
I'm more skeptical than most on the current wave of AI tech innovation. However, believe it or not, humanity can collectively work on different things at the same time. And the people putting emoji generators in phones are probably not the people I would want doing cancer research. And many many things that we rely on today were not directly created by research in those topics and were born from innovation in other unrelated areas.
- chefandy 2y ago
  You don't feel that the astonishing amount of resources poured into current consumer level AI products is different?
  - borski 2y ago
    No. We poured similarly large amounts of resources into hundreds of companies in the dotcom boom, crypto, and so on. This is a phase, just like many others, and will pass. AI and LLMs will stick around and be important. The hype? That will die in favor of something else.
    - clcaev 2y ago
      In each round of expansion more externalities happen; we just fail to tax the externalities to reflect the real world consequences.
      - borski 2y ago
        I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Could you clarify?
    - chefandy 2y ago
      "It's what we've always done" is a classic non-argument against doing something. Is there an amount we could spend on something that essentially winds up being useless that you think would be bad? Do you not think there's a trade-off at some level about the sort of things people invest in?
rswail 2y ago
The tool is not the issue. There is a lot of investment in AI as part of pharmaceutical development, in imaging (like the topic of the paper), in diagnostic and therapeutic designs. Just because the money is also being spent on "entertainment" means that there is rapid development and increase in capacity. Chip prices have started to come down as more are designed and manufactured. Energy usage is not as bad as has been forecast, but it is being worked on as well. The money will be spent and both needs will benefit.

tomr75 2y ago

cool whine

chefandy 2y ago
Cool response

suby 2y ago

I'm confused by your comment. This is an article about AI potentially helping with treatment of cancer. I strongly disagree in any case that we shouldn't be investing in AI. I think that there's likely a rising tides lifts all boats effect that occurs with improving AI in general -- it all feeds into each other. People who work on image generators are building expertise in AI and can potentially discover things which advance the field, or inspire others to work in the field. Humanity getting better at making AI generate images, or compete at video games, or predict protein folding, it all probably contributes to the rate of improvement in AI. And it's not unreasonable to think that AI will one day solve problems like cancer or climate change, so we should very much care about the rate of AI improvement. As for the power concerns, ironically, thanks to the increased demand we are seeing companies like Microsoft and Oracle make large investments in nuclear power now. It could be the case that this kicks starts a boom in the nuclear industry which eventually brings costs / eases regulations enough to put us in a better place in the long run. It's extremely complex, I don't think we can say at this point that investing in AI in the midst of a climate crisis is a mistake.

chefandy 2y ago
You misread my comment. I think solving problems like finding genetic patterns in cancer is exactly what we should be investing in. That is not even close to the largest resource sinks for AI model training right now. In the resources were going into generally making AI better, great. They're not. They're going until training models for mediocre consumer "gee-whizz aint that neat" products.
- evantbyrne 2y ago
  I think people may not be aware of how much medical research is happening right now based around ML. It is a key component of our liquid cancer biopsy. If anything, there might be a bit too much hype-driven development at the moment. I would be cautious of any ML-based diagnostic that isn't leveraging the technology to better understand the biological aspects of cancer itself.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    Great. I'd rather add a drop in that bucket than have another model trained to make my phone do something I wish it didn't do.
- borski 2y ago
  That’s not true. That’s just what you see. There is tons of research going on using AI for a lot more than memes.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    I'm not implying that there isn't money going into AI in medical research, and a bunch of other worthy pursuits, also. However, there's also an extraordinary amount of resources going into dumb shit that nobody wants that could actually benefit humanity. Not a trivial sum for a test, not a large sum that will contribute to entertainment-- it's the equivalent of an airport gift shop trinket. The person receiving the useless bauble would be better off without it but the giver paid $20 for it so...

alehlopeh 2y ago

Any idea when it won’t be the midst of a climate crisis? Oh ok.

chefandy 2y ago
Surely the nihilist approach will be an effective solution.
- aydyn 2y ago
  What is your effective solution then?
  - aydyn 2y ago
    No response, thought so.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      I have better things to do than watch hn all the time. I'll put exactly as much thought into my response as you put into any of yours: "" And I'll add that I don't need to know how to do a valve replacement to know someone is having a heart attack.
      - aydyn 2y ago
        No, you downvoted immediately and you responded to other posts so your excuse of not watching HN is simply an untruth. Your posts here tend to be vacuous, so your response was expected.
        chefandy 2y ago
        Dude-- I don't even have a downvote button for replies to my comments, and neither of my rarely used alt accounts even has enough rep to downvote. From the looks of the comments you left here you've spent far too much time on Twitter. This isn't a battle of one-liner zings. The HN crowd often downvotes throwaway comments like that on principle, but surely your, like, 12 words vaguely prodding at the premise of one thing I said contain hidden layers of depth and understanding that handily eclipse the value of my vacuous musings, so shame on them. Do yourself and everybody you interact with a huge favor: take a break from the internet to go outside and get some fresh air.

throwaway918299 2y ago

I'm more skeptical than most on the current wave of AI tech innovation. However, believe it or not, humanity can collectively work on different things at the same time. And the people putting emoji generators in phones are probably not the people I would want doing cancer research. And many many things that we rely on today were not directly created by research in those topics and were born from innovation in other unrelated areas.

chefandy 2y ago
You don't feel that the astonishing amount of resources poured into current consumer level AI products is different?
- borski 2y ago
  No. We poured similarly large amounts of resources into hundreds of companies in the dotcom boom, crypto, and so on. This is a phase, just like many others, and will pass. AI and LLMs will stick around and be important. The hype? That will die in favor of something else.
  - clcaev 2y ago
    In each round of expansion more externalities happen; we just fail to tax the externalities to reflect the real world consequences.
    - borski 2y ago
      I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Could you clarify?
  - chefandy 2y ago
    "It's what we've always done" is a classic non-argument against doing something. Is there an amount we could spend on something that essentially winds up being useless that you think would be bad? Do you not think there's a trade-off at some level about the sort of things people invest in?

rswail 2y ago

The tool is not the issue. There is a lot of investment in AI as part of pharmaceutical development, in imaging (like the topic of the paper), in diagnostic and therapeutic designs. Just because the money is also being spent on "entertainment" means that there is rapid development and increase in capacity. Chip prices have started to come down as more are designed and manufactured. Energy usage is not as bad as has been forecast, but it is being worked on as well. The money will be spent and both needs will benefit.