Epistemic status: been thinking about this a contradiction I’ve seen in some of my friends views on AI and think its likely that a lot of people think in this way, especially in communities that really don’t like it (eg. most of Lemmy). I know a ton of math and read/work a lot on AI theory+mech interp+safety, so I think I have a pretty strong understanding of the underlying mechanics. I’m fairly confident on the general ideas in this post, but as I explain at the end: a very nuanced understanding involves holding many of these otherwise contradictory viewpoints as true. Writing this because I genuinely want those against AI to have an easier time convincing people.
(for this AI=LLM)
It is not reasonable to think both that
- AIs are going to be forever incompetent or
- AIs cannot create new things (excluding creative works) or
- AIs cannot do very simple tasks
and
- AI will replace my job or
- AI will bring mass surveillance or
- AI can produce deepfakes that are 100% convincing or
- AI can be superpersuasive, manipulative (can cause AI psychosis)
(a lot of popular articles on AI fall into one of the above categories, and are often targeted towards the same people)
On another note, I have yet to hear a person against datacenters to give me a good reply to the question “Isn’t the water just recycled back into the system?”, and in fact they’re usually uncertain why the datacenters need the water in the first place. I’m not some accelerationist and I don’t think we need to cover the globe in datacenters, but those strongly against AI should have more concrete views than AI = bad, and then be able to back them up without having to do a search for sources, just from memory.
And yes there are exceptions to this in which holding both views make sense but this requires a lot more nuance but unless you are interested in this, that extra info probably would just clutter up your worldview.
It is reasonable to believe A) AIs are a poor substitute for a human at most jobs, and B) company management is still going to replace people in search of short-term profits, even at the expense of long-term stability.
Those two things are not contradictory.
Second, “AIs cannot create new, original things” is not the opposite of “AI can produce deepfakes”. That would be like saying every shuffle of a deck of cards is functionally unique (true), therefore I invented a new card game (false).
I don’t know enough to be sure that AI can’t be useful for something, or that data centers are definitely bad for the environment. I certainly think they are, but I could be wrong. I don’t hate them for that probable but unconfirmed notion, I hate them because the corrupt system is pushing them hard, simple as that.
You will never know enough about the world to identify every scam and trick that comes your way for what it is, but you can often identify clear scammers and tricksters, and when you do, you should immediately refuse anything related to them out of an abundance of caution. I’d rather turn down a good idea from a bad person than fall for another trick just because I couldn’t specifically prove how and why it’s a trick. If the idea is good, it’ll come around again from someone more trustworthy than a tech billionaire, and they’ll be able to properly explain why it’s good.
As far as I’m concerned, everything that anyone worth over $10 million says, does, or creates is at least partially evil. It’s better to assume that than waste time splitting hairs as the world burns due to their actions.
Isn’t the water just recycled back into the system?
Not localy. They use evaporative cooling. The water goes into the atmosphere. Eventually it’ll rain down someplace, maybe someplace useful, maybe not.
