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> Firstly, there’s the environmental impact. Surely, like everything else in tech, this too shall pass. I expect power requirements to fall away since there is

> Firstly, there’s the environmental impact. Surely, like everything else in tech, this too shall pass. I expect power requirements to fall away since there is no doubt strong incentives to do so. > My naive optimism led me to believe that technology would help us fight climate change. Yeah, proceeding full steam ahead with planet destruction and praying tech will save us is kind of naive. You're not alone though. > There are also ethical concerns regarding the methods used to obtain data for training AI models. This one hasn't registered as problematic for me. Maybe I'm unethical? > Content creators can't even determine which parts of their work were used to train the model… "Content creators" don't develop their style from a vacuum either. I'm not conflicted about this one either. > LLMs are also contaminating the web with generic content produced without care or thought. The web has been contaminated ever since SEO. Maybe AI will kill the web. So it goes.

BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
> I expect power requirements to fall away This sounds extremely naive to my ears. Performance demands currently outpace resource utilization reductions and it's not clear that we're at the point where that will change soon. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox > > There are also ethical concerns regarding the methods used to obtain data for training AI models. > This one hasn't registered as problematic for me. Maybe I'm unethical? Yeah, the real ethical concern comes from the explosion of pernicious slop output that is utterly destroying everything good about the internet and media, not the training.
- pixl97 1y ago
  You mean speeding up the destruction of the internet and media? The problem is it was falling apart before generative AI. This AI has just hastened its demise.
  - BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
    Sure, yes, but it has definitely gotten a lot worse.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
observationist 1y ago
After google started spamming us with pinterest and cheap stackoverflow copied forum slop, the internet was pretty much saturated with garbage. Google and Facebook and SEO are to blame - they wanted to squeeze every last drop they could, and they did, and here we are. AI might make things 1-2% worse, but we weren't suffering from a lack of legitimate content or media. We were suffering from centralized control and walled gardens force feeding us slop in the name of profit, the total enshittification of the internet without regard for the damage done - tragedy of the commons, maybe. AI could also make things better, because it's no longer worth slogging through the bullshit with search - I'll have AI do my searching for me, or follow its recommendation directly, and never interact with any of the monetized bullshit the search engine tries to pawn off. SEO content will have to get through ever more competent and discerning AI in order to get eyeballs. That eliminates a broad class of low effort trash, directly demonetizing bad faith actors. So now you have content creators producing more plausible, but mediocre content, but OAI and other AI providers will have direct access to their logs - if they register someone as having had produced bulk trash content, they can shut down the account, report to authorities or other companies if there's some sort of fraud or illicit behavior going on. There are competing pressures, and with Google also losing its monopoly on adtech, maybe we'll see companies forced to compete on quality products instead of exploitation of user data, all the while seeing the general quality of the internet improve. Or maybe AI will just accelerate the race to the bottom and the internet's dead already.
Uehreka 1y ago
> The web has been contaminated ever since SEO. Maybe AI will kill the web. So it goes. This statement kinda blows my mind. You contemplate the destruction of the web, the single most world-changing invention of the last century, possibly the last millennium, a force that has democratized access to information, accelerated scientific progress and connected people around the world, the technology that one way or another played a huge role in the lives of every person on this site, and you shrug? I see your Kurt Vonnegut and raise you Dylan Thomas: Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- greenie_beans 1y ago
  rage against a tsunami
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  I know it's cynical. But I see more and more the destructive aspects of the web seeming to now eclipse the positives. It may be age related too. I had lived some 30-plus years before the Web became a thing ... and I kind of liked the 70's and 80's.
- _rpxpx 1y ago
  Uehreka, I'm sorry, but this is such utter tosh. This is the sort of rabid utopianism I remember hearing about the web in 1996. But then of course it was predictive - at least a bit excusable. Take a hard a look at the actual history of the web in the last 30 years. "Democracy"...what? It is a story of corporate seizure of commons leading to the frankly nightmarish scenario we are in now, heading full steam into a total surveillance techno-fascist neofeudalism. Here's an innovation in the last millennium that did actually democratize access to information: Libraries. Simple public libraries. Look at the message that is engraved over the door of one of my favorite libraries, the central library in Edinburgh, Scotland. These places were palaces for public learning. Contrast them to the grotty, advert-saturated, casino of the web. Also, the calm, reflective, intelligent state of mind they cultivated. How many people can even read a book anymore, cover to cover? Or even a single page without electronic interruption?
breuleux 1y ago
> Surely, like everything else in tech, this too shall pass. I expect power requirements to fall away since there is no doubt strong incentives to do so. Halving power requirements is only a net gain if demand isn't doubled. Unfortunately, using less power means cheaper service, so demand will increase, and not necessarily smoothly. If there is a massive use case for which AI is currently too expensive, simply moving under that threshold could decuple demand -- a small efficiency gain leading to a giant spike in total energy use.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  You're probably right. I assume they're moving these servers to places like along the Columbia River where electricity is cheap (bitcoin miners have been there for a decade).

BugsJustFindMe 1y ago

> I expect power requirements to fall away This sounds extremely naive to my ears. Performance demands currently outpace resource utilization reductions and it's not clear that we're at the point where that will change soon. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox > > There are also ethical concerns regarding the methods used to obtain data for training AI models. > This one hasn't registered as problematic for me. Maybe I'm unethical? Yeah, the real ethical concern comes from the explosion of pernicious slop output that is utterly destroying everything good about the internet and media, not the training.

pixl97 1y ago
You mean speeding up the destruction of the internet and media? The problem is it was falling apart before generative AI. This AI has just hastened its demise.
- BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
  Sure, yes, but it has definitely gotten a lot worse.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

observationist 1y ago

After google started spamming us with pinterest and cheap stackoverflow copied forum slop, the internet was pretty much saturated with garbage. Google and Facebook and SEO are to blame - they wanted to squeeze every last drop they could, and they did, and here we are. AI might make things 1-2% worse, but we weren't suffering from a lack of legitimate content or media. We were suffering from centralized control and walled gardens force feeding us slop in the name of profit, the total enshittification of the internet without regard for the damage done - tragedy of the commons, maybe. AI could also make things better, because it's no longer worth slogging through the bullshit with search - I'll have AI do my searching for me, or follow its recommendation directly, and never interact with any of the monetized bullshit the search engine tries to pawn off. SEO content will have to get through ever more competent and discerning AI in order to get eyeballs. That eliminates a broad class of low effort trash, directly demonetizing bad faith actors. So now you have content creators producing more plausible, but mediocre content, but OAI and other AI providers will have direct access to their logs - if they register someone as having had produced bulk trash content, they can shut down the account, report to authorities or other companies if there's some sort of fraud or illicit behavior going on. There are competing pressures, and with Google also losing its monopoly on adtech, maybe we'll see companies forced to compete on quality products instead of exploitation of user data, all the while seeing the general quality of the internet improve. Or maybe AI will just accelerate the race to the bottom and the internet's dead already.

Uehreka 1y ago

> The web has been contaminated ever since SEO. Maybe AI will kill the web. So it goes. This statement kinda blows my mind. You contemplate the destruction of the web, the single most world-changing invention of the last century, possibly the last millennium, a force that has democratized access to information, accelerated scientific progress and connected people around the world, the technology that one way or another played a huge role in the lives of every person on this site, and you shrug? I see your Kurt Vonnegut and raise you Dylan Thomas: Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

greenie_beans 1y ago
rage against a tsunami
JKCalhoun 1y ago
I know it's cynical. But I see more and more the destructive aspects of the web seeming to now eclipse the positives. It may be age related too. I had lived some 30-plus years before the Web became a thing ... and I kind of liked the 70's and 80's.
_rpxpx 1y ago
Uehreka, I'm sorry, but this is such utter tosh. This is the sort of rabid utopianism I remember hearing about the web in 1996. But then of course it was predictive - at least a bit excusable. Take a hard a look at the actual history of the web in the last 30 years. "Democracy"...what? It is a story of corporate seizure of commons leading to the frankly nightmarish scenario we are in now, heading full steam into a total surveillance techno-fascist neofeudalism. Here's an innovation in the last millennium that did actually democratize access to information: Libraries. Simple public libraries. Look at the message that is engraved over the door of one of my favorite libraries, the central library in Edinburgh, Scotland. These places were palaces for public learning. Contrast them to the grotty, advert-saturated, casino of the web. Also, the calm, reflective, intelligent state of mind they cultivated. How many people can even read a book anymore, cover to cover? Or even a single page without electronic interruption?

breuleux 1y ago

> Surely, like everything else in tech, this too shall pass. I expect power requirements to fall away since there is no doubt strong incentives to do so. Halving power requirements is only a net gain if demand isn't doubled. Unfortunately, using less power means cheaper service, so demand will increase, and not necessarily smoothly. If there is a massive use case for which AI is currently too expensive, simply moving under that threshold could decuple demand -- a small efficiency gain leading to a giant spike in total energy use.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
You're probably right. I assume they're moving these servers to places like along the Columbia River where electricity is cheap (bitcoin miners have been there for a decade).