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“AI” is a tool to move towards labor post scarcity. That’s all that it is. Billionaires using and owning AI is the problem. Billionaires scamming people with AI related buzzwords is the problem. BILLIONAIRES are the problem. Not AI.
Is nuclear tech a problem? No. It can be used for electricity generation. It can also be used to make bombs. The tech in itself is not a problem.
Sadly, most people on the left have taken the stance of blind opposition, without engaging in good faith arguments, without even attempting to understand the technology. These folks have opinions that range from:
- AI is not actually “intelligence”, where they try to show how it has 0 uses anywhere. These opinions are blatantly dissociated from reality, as professionals do indeed use AI to delegate a lot of tasks.
- “AI will take our jobs, creating a permanent underclass”. This is assuming that all of us live under authoritarianism. This is mostly Americans spreading their doomerism. Still a valid critique, though one that often incorrectly assumes that this new underclass will not riot and cause change through violence.
- AI damages the environment: True, but some additional context is required. The oil industry, the transportation industry and so on causes much much more environmental damage. Coming up with valid, constructive solutions to regulate the tech industry’s emissions makes sense. However, calling for total bans and moratoriums for development and research in AI is so so dumb.
Anywho, this comment is likely going to invite a lot of trolls. I won’t engage with anyone not arguing in good faith.
If the technology was energy efficient that’d be one thing, but we’re accelerating climate change and poisoning the planet in order to automate what are in many cases creative or intellectual jobs, not hard labor, and society isn’t even seeing any gains from it. Cost of living is higher than ever, and social programs are being cut like crazy.
So who actually benefits? See OP.
You’re right for the most part, but I find it hard to find much positivity.
When efficient “AI” models run locally and solve specific tasks without insane energy use, that’ll be different. That’s probably coming, once the bubble bursts. But the bubble isn’t going to take the people who created it down with them, as usual.
these things are not related however. while AI has made much of it possible, this all traces back to 2016. you can literally watch the cost of living metrics start to rise at a exponential rate starting in 2016, then layoffs in 2020. there was no punishment to companies for being greedy during these times, they have learned the public will just accept anything to get Thier goods and services…
but your energy use argument falls flat when you look things like the steel industry and even just comparable data workloads and simulations that were being run. yes the power usage is astronomical, but when you consider the scaling of the same afformentioned things, they account for the same amount of power consumption…
but this wouldn’t even be a issue if nuclear and renewables + batteries were in heavy use instead of ancient coal and gas power plants thanks to lobbying.
I just don’t see what argument you’re making.
Steel production is necessary for infrastructure. The point is AI is not efficient. It’s adding energy load to the grid in the supposed name of doing things more efficiently, but where is evidence of these gains. Data centres drawing huge amounts of power to do what exactly? Run LLMs?
There is the promise and reality. If it was replacing manual labour and freeing humanity to pursue arts, crafts, and scientific inquiry great. But there’s no evidence it’s doing that.
