Could one not conceive of a world where there is a group of actual human beings that hold different values to one's own ?

Is that so inconceivable to a person's worldview that it breaks a person's sense of reality ?

Seems like a weird place to start. But here we are.

Group thing? No.

Does it seem like the majority are against it? Yes.

I’ve leaned pretty heavily into using LLMs personally and professionally.

One can conceive a lot of things, that doesn't mean one knows better thsn destiny... If I could go back to the 70s and live then, I don't know if I would, (I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for advances in science)... This was going to happen. It's actually a very fun time to be alive.

Good to know, I do too. It has its ugly dangerous extinction of humanity risks for sure, kind of exciting too, but it's here to stay for bad or good.

It's actually a very fun time to be alive.

Wow

Even for people who generally like the function of AI (which seem to be fairly rare here) the absolutely obscene climate impact and implications for peopes jobs and livelihoods, privacy breaches, and general internet enshittification is surely reason enough to be against it.

Yeah check out the very next article in my feed:

( ° ͜ʖ͡°) lol exactly

A tool becomes "good" or "bad" based on its implementation.

The current trend towards massive unsustainable data centers is pretty objectively "bad" for humans and other creatures for questionable benefit.

Localized AI, on the other hand, would be less harmful, and more useful. This would move the needle towards a more objective "good".

The jobs thing i don't understand, its the distribution of productivity gains that's the issue, why we keep voting for the same politicians ensuring it goes to the wealthy is the real mystery.

People come to Lemmy precisely because they're tired of big algorithmic corporate platforms. They come here precisely to get away from AI slop on platforms like Facebook. Hell, half the people here have been banned from reddit based on comically flawed algorithmic AI moderation tools. This platform is heavily selected for people who dislike AI and AI content.

Yeah it’s like gmos. The biggest companies in the game are well documented as ill-intentioned profiteers. The technology isn’t inherently bad.

Two points

1. Living with a knife to your throat is also highly dangerous and exciting. I don't recommend it.
2. The tech can't be un-invented, but it's still very much up for discussion wether society puts significant resources into the data centres to run this. Regulations on responsible use are also up for discussion.

It's not a forgone conclusion by any means.

In some regards it still is.

Although I agree with the algorithmic abuses with AI, I didn't expect a group think to be so prevalent, especially in a tech-leaning group. I don't mind being popular, I guess the lack of AI might work to my advantage here.

Then be an activist. Never pay for AI, I don't. Maybe 30 dollars a year for tools I can't do without, but take everything for free. Make the unsustainability fall due to its own weight. That doesn't mean I don't use AI every day for work, spirituality, and learning. Take advantage of what you have available. Group think sucks.

I think you'll find that the gripe is more about it being implemented badly, and in a way that's harmful on multiple levels rather than the technology itself.

Oh yeah, Lemmy is overwhelmingly against AI in any capacity. I'm one of the few that finds it useful for a handful of things and generally defend that use. That being said, it's definitely important to understand that "hallucinations" are a thing (though not nearly as prevalent as those here would claim), it's a major problem for the arts industry at large, it's objectively making people dumber (great studies on students who over rely on it), and there are terrible climate implications.

It's just a tool, and like any other tool there are pros and cons, and it should be used responsibly. But yeah, Lemmy hates the shit out of anything AI

30 year IT professional here, whose company is starting to utilize AI. So far for my workflow it does not provide any benefit. With that said, I am working with my team to find somewhere in our business and technical processes to make things better. It just hasn't happened yet.

I am against it, but not dead set. What I am against are the insane things that are happening due to the over zealous investment into LLMs. The Three Mile Island #1 reactor is in the process of being brought back into operation by Microsoft, just to power an AI data center.

That is absolutely insane. TMI #1 is a 60 year old reactor design that was built over 50 years ago and that is at least two generations behind modern reactors. TMI #2 experienced a meltdown back in 1979, hence why it is not an option to bring back into operation. There are several documented issues with that reactor design (remember that #2 melted down? It was due to one of these issues.) that will require monitoring and processes in place to make sure the reactor stays safe. Monitoring that is not needed on more modern reactor designs.

Western Digital has announced that their entire production run of hard drives is completely sold out. Micron exited the consumer market in order to supply AI. So hard drive and memory prices are going to get even higher than what they are now. That means computers, phones, and any consumer device that uses memory or HDD storage will see massive price increases.

That's the issue I have with LLMs. If the role out was anywhere near sane, then my attitude would be different. Right now it just looks like massive amounts of resources and money are being thrown into a pit with a dim hope that there would be some kind of return. Instead of a deliberate and planned role out that is sustainable in the long term.

Oh, I absolutely agree. But currently, the people in charge of making those decisions have demonstrated moral bankruptcy and will absolutely ensure the productivity gains funnel to the top. Until that changes, AI impact on jobs will likely be devastating.

And I'm all for changing it. It's just going to be a long and/or violent process.

I get a strong impression that the whole extinction of humanity narrative is really just an astroturf marketing campaign by AI companies. They're basically scaremongering because it gets in the news, and the goal is to convince investors how smart these things are. It's the whole OpenAI claiming they're on the verge of AGI right before pivoting to doing horny chatbots. These are useful tools, and I also use them day to day, but the hype around them is absolutely incredible.

I think we have plenty of real risks to humanity to worry about, like the US starting a nuclear holocaust. We don't need to waste time worrying about imaginary risks like AGI here.

I'd also argue the whole energy consumption argument is very myopic. The reality is that these things have been getting more and more efficient, and there is little reason to think that's not going to be continue being the case going forward. It's completely new tech, and it's basically just moved past proof of concept stages. There's going to be a lot of optimization happening down the road. And even when you contextualize current energy usage, it's not as crazy as people seem to think https://www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-01-20-cc-impact/

We're also starting to see stuff like this happening https://www.anuragk.com/blog/posts/Taalas.html

I'm pretty excited to live to see western hegemony over the world finally breaking.

Productivity gains are not across the board, and is a subject of scrutiny and debate.

But what AI really has done is basically redistributed American wealth to a smaller group of people, and therefore a smaller pool for the US politicians to focus on satisfying. If there is an AI bubble pop, what market watchers suspect is there's actually no other American sector to mitigate what is otherwise a recession.

There’s usually a sub argument here of what the models are trained on - local or not.

I'm against the LLM bubble. They're gobbling up all of our compute, electricity, water, and basically all investment capital while not even generating productivity gains or improving anyone's lives. Internet search is now dead, all my fan communities are just full of slop instead of art from artists, and the piggies that own the data centers are destroying all culture to feed their autocomplete machines. LLMs have accelerated the decay of civilization in a way that we might struggle to recover from when the bubble pops. Half the time it's not even AI, the real work is just outsourced to some superexploited workers in the Global South.

There are some legitimate use-cases for LLM technology, but the way they're trying to cram it into everything is actually just wrecking everything. It seems like they're destroying the world for a worse calculator that can pretend to be your girlfriend.

Yep i agree. If it was rolled out correctly it could possibly be a decent tool. Also i like the distiction here of AI and LLMs.

But as is its just a very expensive predictive engine that spits out copyright enfringement witj billion dollar datacenters. Its a novelty to me asva software dev but thats about it. It makes templates easier but for anything with real math and understanding...llms are very bad at those sort of things.

Are we talking about AI, LLMs or both?

My research was on AI but not llms.

The biggest risk in terms of human extinction is a government allowing an AI to make unchecked military (e.g. nuclear) decisions.

I’ll explain it in away that would make sense to you. It’s a vibe.

I have been working with LLMs for decades. I know what they can do and what they can't. I admit they have grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years because of the hype, but therein lies the issue: there is still way too much hype, it's not the end all solution some think it is, it's driving up hardware prices, the environmental impact is horrendous, and it's a new bullshit business marketing term that serves only to artificially inflate stock prices. "Agentic" is the new "data driven".

At this point, I'd trust the AI over the clowns running the Burger Reich.

It doesn't look like that energy consumption blog post account for the cost of training the model. Otherwise, it should be telling us how many queries/sessions are assumed to be run over the course of the lifetime of a model.

Being tech-leaning is exactly why we are against AI. We are just much more aware of the resource it's consuming, the privacy it's infringing, and the content it's stealing.

Marketing account.

Your Digital Workshop. We build websites and host them, as well as create content for your social media. witty.computer

Edit: the archived page with the marketing description.

There was a post on Mastodon that I sadly cannot find right now that really articulated the fact that there's not necessarily a single problem with LLMs and generative AI - the issue is that there's an entire stack of potential dangers associated with them. To paraphrase:

Use of and reliance on LLMs for certain tasks has shown to have deleterious effects on critical thinking skills.

Even if that isn't true or I weren't concerned about it, I'd be concerned about its effects on my psychological wellbeing.

Even if I weren't concerned about that, I'd be concerned about the ethical issues of how their training data was and is acquired.

Even if I weren't concerned about that, I'd be concerned about its effects on the job market and the further upward concentration of wealth.

Even if I weren't concerned about that, I'd be concerned about the massive energy costs and the associated effects on utility bills and greenhouse gas emissions.

Even if I weren't concerned about that, I'd be concerned about the massive cooling requirements and its effects on the global availability of clean water.

Even if certain approaches to or implementations of GAI solve one or a couple of these concerns, I'd have to overcome all of them (and likely others I've forgotten to list) to feel comfortable using GAI in any serious capacity, and even then it looks like I would end up with a tool that I'd have to constantly double-check to avoid hallucinations. It's just not worth it.

And nearly all of these arguments also to apply to others using GAI, so I'm forced to advocate against it.

Yup. I suspect on other social media that some of the positive sentiment towards AI is just astroturfing.

I hear you man. I agree, if I could disappear it, I would, but I can't and it's here. I think resisting it is just wasting energy. There is definitely a bubble of hype around it. Who knows, I don't.

yes, and? I live off AI. I promise, I'm not working for chatgpt to make you use it. Amazing. Warning: Potato guy here.

Who said that? You're imagining things.

No disrespect, but with that attitude you won't be tech-leaning for long. I understand where you're coming from, just the "We are" sounds a bit culty and I really dislike cults.

I'll admit "we are" is a bit of an exaggeration. That is only based on my observation of the community.

I think there is a lot of misdirected frustration. The technology isn't the issue, the way it's been implemented is the issue. There are some useful use cases for AI.

Most rational comment I've read. I'm going to have fun on Lemmy, I do appreciate you can be very unpopular and it doesn't silence you. Appreciate your comment too :)

It sounds like you continue to use it, though. How do you justify it in the face of what I laid out above? "Waste of energy" is a shitty excuse for engaging in bad behavior.

There a strong amount of astroturfing even over on Mastodon. I imagine it's worse on the billionaire owned socials.

If John Mastodon can't stop the astroturfing, there's no way those lesser founders can.

That I why I like small, specialized, locally hosted AI. Runs acceptably fast and quite on my gaming PC, it's private, and I can give it knowledge is small doses in specific topics and projects.

I don't excuse it. It was born unethically stealing all of the internet. But like I said, it's here, I sure as hell am not going to become amish and make cheese. I like living in the modern world. Maybe some day I'll retire to the woods, but for now I got to live in this world, so I might as well take it in the chin and accept the damn thing.

I totally respect people not using it, it's just I've found people on Lemmy kind of don't respect people using it. I'm not here to change the world, though, I'm happy I opened this discussion.

Completely agree.