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The media seems hellbent on torching AI. My news feeds are nothing but stories about the evils of data centers, how useless AI is, and how much everyone hates i

The media seems hellbent on torching AI. My news feeds are nothing but stories about the evils of data centers, how useless AI is, and how much everyone hates it.

ian_j_butler 5mo ago
The media is hellbent on torching it, and on propping it up against all reason too, both things can be true. HN is no exception. It's another noisy room problem where the distortion in dialogue is rapidly leading us into a distorted reality. https://thenoisyroom.com/ https://thenoisyroom.com/ For people who are actually interested in reality, participation in the mainstream discourse either way is a strategic error. The best thing to do is to check out from all of it, actually read the literature and listen to the technical heros who are working at the edge, and stop reading the pro/anti marketing noise from the media or corporate PR
- parineum 5mo ago
  > listen to the technical heros who are working at the edge Sounds like a great way to get the rose colored view.
  - ian_j_butler 5mo ago
    Again you're probably thinking of the forum discussion / booster blogs / executive interviews that I'm suggesting you should leave behind. Papers are the only place left where nuance is even allowed and might actually be encouraged. Just try it, you'll be surprised. Depends on the research but.. a lot of it is kind of incentivized to align with AI skeptics actually because it leaves many things open for invention, study, and fixes
- boca_honey 5mo ago
  > and listen to the technical heros who are working at the edge that's terrible advice. those guys dedicate their lives to the advancement of this field. there's no way you will get a tempered, balanced answer from them. none of them will gravitate towards "yeah, maybe we should stop or slow down for a while".
sysguest 5mo ago
well datacenters should go near power plants or cool mountain areas for ML training loads, it just doesn't make sense to build them near residential areas for few millisecs
- cicko 5mo ago
  > or cool mountain areas Absolutely f'ing not
- no-name-here 5mo ago
  Why mountain areas?
  - sysguest 5mo ago
    temperature drops on mountain areas...
    - no-name-here 5mo ago
      It drops compared to the immediate vicinity, but mountain areas in the hottest parts of the US can still be very hot, and even non-mountain areas in the coldest parts of the US can still be very cold, so perhaps we should just say the coldest areas.
alfiedotwtf 5mo ago
From AI companies’ perspective, it’s free press… why would they even think about stopping people talking about it! This about it like this - if you were a CEO of a company that ONLY made garden gnomes, would you rather a) nobody ever talk about garden gnomes, or b) garden gnomes be in the news every day, people protesting because they’re losing their jobs because of garden gnomes, companies making billions and collectively investing trillions to making garden gnomes, people starting startups to support the garden gnomes pipeline, consumer electronics prices having huge variance because of the demand to support garden gnomes etc. When you’re one of the largest garden gnomes companies in the world, you want garden gnomes to saturate the zeitgeist
- NoMoreNicksLeft 5mo ago
  Seems like a strategy that could backfire, if Congress passes legislation outlawing the manufacture, sale, distribution, possession, and admiration for garden gnomes. PT Barnum only thought there was not such thing as bad publicity because he was pulling up the stakes and leaving town before anyone woke up.

The media seems hellbent on torching AI. My news feeds are nothing but stories about the evils of data centers, how useless AI is, and how much everyone hates it.

ian_j_butler 5mo ago

The media is hellbent on torching it, and on propping it up against all reason too, both things can be true. HN is no exception. It's another noisy room problem where the distortion in dialogue is rapidly leading us into a distorted reality. https://thenoisyroom.com/ https://thenoisyroom.com/ For people who are actually interested in reality, participation in the mainstream discourse either way is a strategic error. The best thing to do is to check out from all of it, actually read the literature and listen to the technical heros who are working at the edge, and stop reading the pro/anti marketing noise from the media or corporate PR

parineum 5mo ago
> listen to the technical heros who are working at the edge Sounds like a great way to get the rose colored view.
- ian_j_butler 5mo ago
  Again you're probably thinking of the forum discussion / booster blogs / executive interviews that I'm suggesting you should leave behind. Papers are the only place left where nuance is even allowed and might actually be encouraged. Just try it, you'll be surprised. Depends on the research but.. a lot of it is kind of incentivized to align with AI skeptics actually because it leaves many things open for invention, study, and fixes
boca_honey 5mo ago
> and listen to the technical heros who are working at the edge that's terrible advice. those guys dedicate their lives to the advancement of this field. there's no way you will get a tempered, balanced answer from them. none of them will gravitate towards "yeah, maybe we should stop or slow down for a while".

sysguest 5mo ago

well datacenters should go near power plants or cool mountain areas for ML training loads, it just doesn't make sense to build them near residential areas for few millisecs

cicko 5mo ago
> or cool mountain areas Absolutely f'ing not
no-name-here 5mo ago
Why mountain areas?
- sysguest 5mo ago
  temperature drops on mountain areas...
  - no-name-here 5mo ago
    It drops compared to the immediate vicinity, but mountain areas in the hottest parts of the US can still be very hot, and even non-mountain areas in the coldest parts of the US can still be very cold, so perhaps we should just say the coldest areas.

alfiedotwtf 5mo ago

From AI companies’ perspective, it’s free press… why would they even think about stopping people talking about it! This about it like this - if you were a CEO of a company that ONLY made garden gnomes, would you rather a) nobody ever talk about garden gnomes, or b) garden gnomes be in the news every day, people protesting because they’re losing their jobs because of garden gnomes, companies making billions and collectively investing trillions to making garden gnomes, people starting startups to support the garden gnomes pipeline, consumer electronics prices having huge variance because of the demand to support garden gnomes etc. When you’re one of the largest garden gnomes companies in the world, you want garden gnomes to saturate the zeitgeist

NoMoreNicksLeft 5mo ago
Seems like a strategy that could backfire, if Congress passes legislation outlawing the manufacture, sale, distribution, possession, and admiration for garden gnomes. PT Barnum only thought there was not such thing as bad publicity because he was pulling up the stakes and leaving town before anyone woke up.