this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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[–] FMT99@lemmy.world 44 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Most of the hate is coming from people who don't really know anything about "AI" (LLM) Which makes sense, companies are marketing dumb gimmicks to people who don't need them and, after the novelty wore off, aren't terribly impressed by them.

But LLMs are absolutely going to be transformational in some areas. And in a few years they may very well become useful and usable as daily drivers on your phone etc, it's hard to say for sure. But both the hype and the hate are just kneejerk reactionary nonsense for the moment.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 67 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Most of the hate is coming from people who don't really know anything about "AI" (LLM)

No.

As an actual subject matter expert, I hate all of this, because assholes are overselling it to people who don't know better.

[–] Quill7513 43 points 2 months ago (2 children)

My hatred of AI comes from seeing the double standard between how mass market media companies treat us when we steal from them vs when they steal from us. They want it to be a fully one way street when it comes to law and enforcement. House of Mouse owns all the media they create and that remixes work they create. When we create a new original idea, by the nature of the training model, they want to own that, too.

I also work with these tech bro industry leaders. I know what they're like. When they say to you they want to make it easier for non-artistic people to create art, they're not telling you about an egalitarian and magnificent future. They're telling you about how they want to stop paying the graphic designers and copy editors who work in their company. The vision they have for the future is based on a fundamental misunderstanding about whether or not the future presented in Bladerunner is:

a) Cool and awesome b) Horrifying

They want to enslave sentient beings to do the hard work of mining, driving, and shopping for them. They don't want those people doing art and poetry because they want them to be too busy mining, driving, and shopping. This whole thing. This whole current wave of AI technology, it doesn't benefit you except for fleetingly. LLMs, ethically trained, could, indeed, benefit society at large, but that's now who's developing them. That's not how they're being trained. Their models are intrinsically tainted by the double standard these corporations have because their only goal is to benefit from our labor without benefiting us.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 18 points 2 months ago

They want to enslave sentient beings to do the hard work of mining, driving, and shopping for them. They don't want those people doing art and poetry because they want them to be too busy mining, driving, and shopping.

That's a great summary of the core issue!

I adore the folks doing cool new things with AI. I am unhappy with the folks deciding what should get funded next in AI.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

The people being oversold are the people who don't know anything about it. I guess you can hate the people doing the over selling, but don't hate the field. It's one of the most promising areas of computer research being done right now.

[–] CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 29 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

No, the "hate" is from people trying to raise alarms about the safeguards we need to put in place NOW to protect workers and creators before it's too late, to say nothing of what it will do to the information sphere. We are frustrated by tone deaf responses like this that dismiss it as a passing fad to hate on AI.

OF COURSE it will be transformational. No shit. That's exactly why many people are very justifiably up in arms about it. It's going to change a lot of things, probably everything, irreversibly, and if we don't get ahead of it with regulations and standards, we won't be able to. And the people who will use tools like this to exploit others -- because those people will ALWAYS use new tools to exploit others -- they want that inaction, and love it when they hear people like you saying it's just a kneejerk reaction.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

At what point in history did we ever halt the deployment of a new technology to protect workers?

[–] bamfic@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Never. That's the problem with history. Happy Labor Day.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Or just the problem with technology in general. Every gain is bought with a tradeoff.

Once a man has changed the relationship between himself and his environment, he cannot return to the blissful ignorance he left. Motion, of necessity, involves a change in perspective.

Commissioner Pravin Lal, "A Social History of Planet"

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca -1 points 2 months ago

Very fair, which is why we should be critical of those who make the opposite claim and use that as justification for their hatred of AI.

[–] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Most of the hate I see comes from people complaining about "muh copyright". Which is why AI is going to become the intellectual property of mega-corporations that own the social media posts and pictures people have posted and we won't be able to use those models freely any more. The "means of generation" will belong to the capitalists. And that will be that for humanity.

And to think this can be stopped by moronic posts like OP is laughable.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 4 points 2 months ago

I dabbled a bit in ML before GPT, and when the most recent hype-rocket launched I did a deep dive into LLMs, and I gotta say…

None of my hopes or horrors regarding “AI” have changed much along the way.

It’s pretty much the same thing we’ve been doing since the industrial revolution, which is to try to map human behavior onto mechanical processes so that we can optimize for from a quantitative, objective frame of reference.

GenAI is only unique in that it’s an especially mask-off moment for the ruling technocrats. We are destined to become wetware plugins for a capitalist machine whose goal isn’t even as interesting as turning everything into paperclips. It’s worse than a rogue superintelligence.

[–] msage@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

I'm just going to keep linking this: LLMentalist

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

I dont think people want to use AI for artistic reasons. How rewarding is that to tell a machine how to do all the hard parts you can't do yourself or dont have the patience to do?

I mean feel free to do whatever of course, but AI cannot make art and someone using AI is not am artist.

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I'm completely over taxed mentally, and I offload so much to it from reconciling bank statements and sorting game mods, to a home brew ongoing multiverse starring my son and which emojis to use in notion at work.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I use LLMs to automate the boring parts of my job (programming), it's literally like outsourcing your work to an intern. I still have to review what is done to make sure it's correct, but it saves me a ton of time typing up things. If I didn't have a strong programming background then yeah it probably wouldn't be as useful to me, but then again you can use it as a learning assistant as well as long as you verify what it is telling you.

[–] xor@infosec.pub 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

at the end of the day gpt is powering next generation spam bots and writing garbage text, stable diffusion is making shitty clip art that would otherwise be feeding starving artists….
all the while consuming ridiculous amounts of electricity while humanity is destroying the planet with stuff like power generation….

it’s definitely automating a lot of tedious things… but not transforming anything that drastically yet….

but it will… and when it does, the agi that emerges will kill us all.

[–] ReCursing@lemmings.world 1 points 2 months ago

Utter nonsense. Total tripe

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

A far more likely end to humanity by an Artificial Superintelligence isn’t that it kills us all, but that it domesticates us into pets.

Since the most obvious business case for AI requires humans to use AI a lot, it’s optimized by RLHF and engagement. A superintelligence created using human feedback like that will almost certainly become the most addictive platform ever created. (Basically think of what social media did to humanity, and then supercharge it.)

In essence, we will become the kitties and AI will be our owners.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

but that it domesticates us into pets.

So all our needs and wants will be taken care of and we no longer have to work or pay bills?

Welp, I for one welcome our ~~robot~~ AI overlords

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I believe that will be the ultimate end of AI. I don’t think billionaires are immune from the same addictions that the rest of us are prone to. An AI that takes over will not answer to wealthy humans, it will domesticate them too.

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

I don’t think billionaires are immune from the same addictions that the rest of us are prone to.

I'd argue that it is likely that they are more prone to addiction but, their drug of choice is power.

[–] xor@infosec.pub 0 points 2 months ago

there’s no way they would want pets… they might keep some humans to study…

[–] xor@infosec.pub -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

social media did that to humanity by using AI… so in that way, we’re already kitties batting at AI balls of yarn….

but after it becomes fully self aware, it’ll kill most of us…

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Why do you think it’ll kill us? If its prime directive is to increase engagement wouldn’t that be contrary to how we’d expect it to behave?

There is scientifically a lot more reason to believe that advanced AI will not kill most humans.

[–] NoiseColor@startrek.website -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

There is a lot of blind hate, because it's edgy right now to be against.

This thing already is transformational and we can already see a glimpse where it's going. I think it's normal that we have a bunch of stupid half products right now. People just have to realise ai is under development and new advancements are coming weekly.

Besides, what are we going to do, not develop it? Just abandon the whole technology? That's nonsense.

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

AI is absolutely going to be transformative but a lot of the hate right now isn't the technology itself but the way companies are jumping on it and forcing it down the throats of people who don't want it, in a way that worsens their customer experience. Yes, let's force AI into every software product. Yes let's take away the humans you used to talk to and make them all bots instead.

Even from within tech itself there is huge resentment because you've got corps pumping billions into AI while at the same time slashing their workforce to afford those billions, with no clear return in sight.

Tech is treating AI as the next dotcom boom and pumping everything into it, but just like it did then the bubble of investment will burst, and there will be losers as well as winners.

I'm running self-hosted LLMs at home and I'm having huge fun experimenting with their capabilities. I just wish LLMs could have been implemented in the real world with space for ethics and the human factor, not the pure profit chasing bullshit we actually got.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

AI is absolutely going to be transformative but a lot of the hate right now isn't the technology itself but the way companies are jumping on it and forcing it down the throats of people who don't want it, in a way that worsens their customer experience.

Exactly.

We did the same shit with mobile apps in 2009 - there was a mobile app - that no one wanted - being pushed hard - for every imaginable purpose.

I do still use mobile apps.

But I don't have a dedicated mobile app installed for buying socks for my pets.

AI, today, is burdened with the same shit. It'll calm down, after failing to deliver the vast majority of what is currently being promised.

[–] NoiseColor@startrek.website 3 points 2 months ago

I agree, but I think there is no around this forcing down the throat, slashing people in favour of barely functioning product. Don't get me wrong, I wish it was done the right and fair way, but realistically no one with any power wants it done in a fair way.

[–] kozy138@lemm.ee 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Not blind hate. AI will be devastating to the environment for to it's power and water consumption. We need to ask ourselves if the future water wars will be worth the corporate profits.

[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think people are over rating how much power AI will consume in the long term. Training a model takes way more power than running it, and once we understand the tech better models can be developed for specific applications. It would be like when Edison was first working on the light bulb and extrapolating the power usage of whatever filament he was testing to every household in the world.

Also, it doesn't have to be corporate profits. Individuals can benefit from AI. There's a structural problem with capitalism, not with this technology.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Besides, what are we going to do, not develop it? Just abandon the whole technology? That's nonsense.

As someone who knows a substantial amount about how LLM's actually work:

  • I'm delighted that AI companies are developing this technology.
  • I'm annoyed, but not angry, that phone and PC makers are developing this technology. I don't want it, yet. I'll probably appreciate it when they get it right. (I'll wait for the version that ships with Debian, because that's the only OS maker whose AI I would trust not to be deeply invasive to my privacy.)
  • I'm irritated that car companies, real estate investment companies, web browser developers, stock traders, and everyone else who was "all-in" on virtual reality two years ago, is making a lot of noise about developing this technology. They don't hire the necessary talent, and their results are shit. Real investment returns require real investments, which these hype-followers haven't proven capable of.
[–] cerement 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Besides, what are we going to do, not develop it? Just abandon the whole technology? That’s nonsense.

The tech industry will happily abandon it as soon as the next hype train comes along – we’ve already seen it happen with multiple “innovations” – dotcom, subprime, crypto, NFTs …

[–] NoiseColor@startrek.website 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's not comparable. This is not just something, it's a tech we want, have dreamed about since probably ever.

[–] cerement 2 points 2 months ago

Mark V. Shaney did nothing wrong!