Ashelyn

I think it's grime from well over a decade of cooking oil splattering to the side, only occasionally getting wiped down as it collected dust and became discolored

Don't just state—regurgitate!

I'm not against automation of jobs either. I'm against automation of jobs under capitalism, especially when said automation is controlled by the capitalists and jobs are still required to live, and there aren't suitable replacements waiting to be filled that pay enough. Capital will let us starve to drive up quarterly profits an extra 0.1% before it concedes that the economy is supposed to serve the people and not the other way around.

My concern is that these tools are powerful enough that, through the miasma of low-effort propaganda they can create, the most powerful models will be used by the powers that be to retain their chokehold. Infinite cheap digital labor if you own a nuclear power plant isn't going to empower the working class under the current organization of things. It's going to be used to further entrench what already exists. Blanket deployments of AI to scour everything on the Internet which presents a threat to capital and send goons to deal with the people producing it. It doesn't matter if it's a blunt force tool with false-positives if it gets the intended target in the process. That's the American way after all! What's the solution? A home-brewed miasma of pro-communist propaganda, hosted on guerilla mesh networks connected over TOR?

How do we win this fight? If we are obsolete in the process of making the money go round, and there's enough domestic military boots in the form of Police (and police drones) to deal with us stepping out of line, we can simply be ignored. Like I don't think it's impossible to achieve, but I think as time goes on, the more power-serving automation exists, the smaller that windows of opportunity shrinks until it's effectively gone.

I do think video streaming is a problem. I would honestly be ok returning to a world where 480p or even 360p streams are the norm because these bandwidths are insane. Unfortunately YouTube by default won't even let you do that! They'd rather incur the extra cost to try and upsell audio-only on music and podcasts as a premium feature. Offline downloads are another great way to save bandwidth for repeat watches/listens but that is not available either in lieu of monetizing always-online, on-demand streaming services. Perhaps if bandwidth and electricity become much more scarce in the imperial core this will change, but I do not know if/when that would be the case.

Back on water use, there's a pretty valid case by Hank Green I saw about AI where, in terms of water usage, it's a little silly to go after it when even its predictions on water use in the medium term are a fraction of what the US corn farming requires right now. It's subsidized, has been for decades, and it's been shoehorned into everything just to keep corn farmers having jobs farming corn. One of the biggest uses of the stuff is literally just to feed cattle to produce one of the least thermodynamically-efficient foods possible (let alone the ethical issues of meat consumption).

Same on games to play with friends

I think in terms of energy usage on this issue, as per usual it's not so much about individual consumption habits as it is corporate spending and ecologically destructive habits.

• Collectively, big players in AI are ramping up the construction of AI datacenter megaprojects that will consume massive amounts of electricity and water. If managed well this will be in areas of the world where there is electricity and water to spare, or added to grids that will be expanded in responsible ways. Utility companies in the US often seem all too happy to put the cost burden from expanding infrastructure onto individual users, instead of the massive corporation who wants to build the massive thing. This is bad when most people are barely scraping by.
• Training AI uses a lot more resources than using it when it's done. Developers of commercial AI models such as OpenAI spend a ton of resources on models that will never be used, and these practices are fairly opaque. Additionally, it's very hard to measure the full cost of developing a model against that of any individual query because a lot of usage data isn't public.
• The point of AI is to replace workers. So so many people are struggling as a result of broader economic issues in addition to the new tech putting them out of a job, in a deregulated economic system where it's increasingly work or die. This technology is not unique in the regard that it replaces human jobs, but it threatens increasingly more people, and increasingly centralizes resources and control into fewer and fewer hands. I don't think that's particularly good or healthy for society.
• The AI industry now is trying to do what Uber did over the last decade: beat out the competition, monopolize, and enshittify to squeeze its users for better returns every quarter until the end of time. Using ChatGPT may be fine now, but if it's the only game in town I guarantee it will start costing a lot more and get a lot worse too. OpenAI in particular has not turned a profit since it went public and doesn't expect to turn one until 2029.

Most importantly, using these tools signals to the companies making them that there is demand for them to tap into. Your use is not significant on its own, but in so using it you are making yourself into a part of their market. That gives them more justification and green light to keep going, and to waste ever more resources on ever marginal improvements.

I don't think the issue is primarily where things are at now in terms of resource consumption by AI, but that the industry shows little to no signs of slowing down let alone stopping without popping the catastrophically large investment bubble it's developed into. No matter how this ends, it likely doesn't end well.

Other way around but yea

I mean if any police departments near you have some as fleet vehicles, it already was

You can see bait and acknowledge what it's trying to do without engaging with it on its artist's terms. Do you disagree with the above commenter's assessment? You seem really stuck on a specific point, trying to paint people as offended when it's really just a matter of identifying what's there.

Do you have any sources on the worst case scenario outcomes? I had a write up I put together but should probably do some more reading before posting a 5 paragraph essay on the matter

I like to shorten this one to tit skits

Pepsi

Here's a list of 30 hotlines that will call the cops on you if you tell them you're actually that close to the edge, and will hang up on you if you don't. I bet you feel so cared for now, no need to thank me ☺️