AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow
I don't usually keep the author's name in the suggested hed, but here I think he's recognizable enough that it adds value.
I am a science-fiction writer, which means that my job is to make up futuristic parables about our current techno-social arrangements to interrogate not just what a gadget does, but who it does it for, and who it does it to.What I do not do is predict the future. No one can predict the future, which is a good thing, since if the future were predictable, that would mean we couldn’t change it.
Now, not everyone understands the distinction. They think science-fiction writers are oracles. Even some of my colleagues labor under the delusion that we can “see the future”.
Then there are science-fiction fans who believe that they are reading the future. A depressing number of those people appear to have become AI bros. These guys can’t shut up about the day that their spicy autocomplete machine will wake up and turn us all into paperclips has led many confused journalists and conference organizers to try to get me to comment on the future of AI.
That’s something I used to strenuously resist doing, because I wasted two years of my life explaining patiently and repeatedly why I thought crypto was stupid, and getting relentlessly bollocked by cryptocurrency cultists who at first insisted that I just didn’t understand crypto. And then, when I made it clear that I did understand crypto, they insisted that I must be a paid shill.
This is literally what happens when you argue with Scientologists, and life is just too short. That said, people would not stop asking – so I’m going to explain what I think about AI and how to be a good AI critic. By which I mean: “How to be a critic whose criticism inflicts maximum damage on the parts of AI that are doing the most harm.”
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage
AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its rootsCory Doctorow (The Guardian)
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Lembot_0006
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Ok.
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U7826391786239
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Lembot_0006
in reply to U7826391786239 • • •"The way it is" is based on a huge statistics material. Claiming some future results without huge statistics material is called "prediction".
The guy is just PRing on the anti-AI sentiment.
Lag
in reply to Lembot_0006 • • •Lembot_0006
in reply to Lag • • •Lag
in reply to Lembot_0006 • • •Lembot_0006
in reply to Lag • • •You're correct. I believe at this moment I have heard the full specter of anti-LLM arguments and most of the are pathetic; and those few that are somewhat reasonable are not actually anti-LLM but against consumer practices (ragarding as companies who try to shovel-in LLMs to anything without any reason, and end-consumers as well, who use LLMs for the purposes it never was made for and where it is still completely ineffective)
DaGeek247
in reply to Lembot_0006 • • •Bazell
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Micromot
in reply to Bazell • • •Pat
in reply to Powderhorn • • •That’s a great article, tanks for posting.
Cory has a way for getting right to the heart of things, and does so marvellously here. Great explanation of why the investments continue despite the dogshit economics of this industry.
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Hirom
in reply to Powderhorn • • •chicken
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... Show more...He goes on to say that prohibiting AI works from being copyrighted and worker collective bargaining are better solutions, and I really agree with the arguments for this. I also liked this bit about how some of what remains past the bubble could be useful:
He goes on to say that prohibiting AI works from being copyrighted and worker collective bargaining are better solutions, and I really agree with the arguments for this. I also liked this bit about how some of what remains past the bubble could be useful:
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