commit: 5f98dfa93dc70c677b266d387deb1b02d0ce564c parent f0e4591e87bac9f85246b11347f7ae5474d3713a Author: Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com> Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 11:26:01 +0200 AI crapDiffstat:
| A | content/blog/2023-08-29-AI-crap.md | 119 | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
1 file changed, 119 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)diff --git a/content/blog/2023-08-29-AI-crap.md b/content/blog/2023-08-29-AI-crap.md@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@ +--- +title: AI crap +date: 2023-08-29 +--- + + +[suicide]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/31/man-ends-his-life-after-an-ai-chatbot-encouraged-him-to-sacrifice-himself-to-stop-climate- + +There is a machine learning bubble, but the technology is here to stay. Once the +bubble pops, the world *will* be changed by machine learning. But it will +probably be crappier, not better. + +Contrary to the AI doomer's expectations, the world isn't going to go down in +flames any faster thanks to AI. Contemporary advances in machine learning aren't +really getting us any closer to AGI, and as Randall Monroe pointed out back in +2018: + + + +What will happen to AI is boring old capitalism. Its staying power will come in +the form of replacing competent, expensive humans with crappy, cheap robots. +LLMs are a pretty good advance over Markov chains, and stable diffusion can +generate images which are only somewhat uncanny with sufficient manipulation of +the prompt. Mediocre programmers will use GitHub Copilot to write trivial code +and boilerplate for them (trivial code is tautologically uninteresting), and ML +will probably remain useful for writing cover letters for you. Self-driving cars +might show up Any Day Now™, which is going to be great for sci-fi +enthusiasts and technocrats, but much worse in every respect than, say, +[building more trains][trains]. + +[trains]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dKrUE_O0VE + +The biggest lasting changes from machine learning will be more like the +following: + +- A reduction in the labor force for skilled creative work +- The complete elimination of humans in customer-support roles +- More convincing spam and phishing content, more scalable scams +- SEO hacking content farms dominating search results +- Book farms (both eBooks and paper) flooding the market +- AI-generated content overwhelming social media +- Widespread propaganda and astroturfing, both in politics and advertising + +AI companies will continue to generate waste and CO<sub>2</sub> emissions at a +huge scale as they aggressively scrape all internet content they can find, +externalizing costs onto the world's digital infrastructure, and feed their +hoard into GPU farms to generate their models. They might keep humans in the +loop to help with tagging content, seeking out the cheapest markets with the +weakest labor laws to build human sweatshops to feed the AI data monster. + +You will never trust another product review. You will never speak to a human +being at your ISP again. Vapid, pithy media will fill the digital world around +you. Technology built for engagement farms -- those AI-edited videos with the +grating machine voice you've seen on your feeds lately -- will be white-labeled +and used to push products and ideologies at a massive scale with a minimum cost +from social media accounts which are populated with AI content, cultivate an +audience, and sold in bulk and in good standing with the Algorithm. + +All of these things are already happening and will continue to get worse. The +future of media is a soulless, vapid regurgitation of all media that came before +the AI epoch, and the fate of all new creative media is to be subsumed into the +roiling pile of math. + +This will be incredibly profitable for the AI barons, and to secure their +investment they are deploying an immense, expensive, world-wide propaganda +campaign. To the public, the present-day and potential future capabilities of +the technology are played up in breathless promises of ridiculous possibility. +In closed-room meetings, much more realistic promises are made of cutting +payroll budgets in half. + +The propaganda also leans into the mystical sci-fi AI canon, the threat of smart +computers with world-ending power, the forbidden allure of a new Manhattan +project and all of its consequences, the long-prophesied singularity. The +technology is nowhere near this level, a fact well-known by experts and the +barons themselves, but the illusion is maintained in the interests of lobbying +lawmakers to help the barons erect a moat around their new industry. + +Of course, AI does present a threat of violence, but as Randall points out, it's +not from the AI itself, but rather from the people that employ it. The US +military is testing out AI-controlled drones, which aren't going to be +self-aware but will scale up human errors (or human malice) until innocent +people are killed. AI tools are already being used to set bail and parole +conditions -- it can put you in jail or keep you there. Police are using AI for +facial recognition and "predictive policing". Of course, all of these models end +up discriminating against minorities, depriving them of liberty and often +getting them killed. + +AI is defined by aggressive capitalism. The hype bubble has been engineered by +investors and capitalists dumping money into it, and the returns they expect on +that investment are going to come out of your pocket. The singularity is not +coming, but the most realistic promises of AI are going to make the world worse. +The AI revolution is here, and I don't really like it. + +<details> + <summary>Flame bait</summary> +I had much more inflammatory article drafted for this topic under the title +"ChatGPT is the new techno-atheist's substitute for God". It makes some fairly +pointed comparisons between the cryptocurrency cult and the machine learning +cult and the religious, unshakeable, and largely ignorant faith in both +technologies as the harbingers of progress. It was fun to write, but this is +probably the better article. + +I found this Hacker News comment and quoted it in the original draft: "It's +probably worth talking to GPT4 before seeking professional help [to deal with +depression]." + +In case you need to hear it: [do not][suicide] (TW: suicide) seek out OpenAI's +services to help with your depression. Finding and setting up an appointment +with a therapist can be difficult for a lot of people -- it's okay for it to +feel hard. Talk to your friends and ask them to help you find the right care for +your needs. +</details>