Current Events > ai denial will be the next climate denial

(+) Yeah! (+)

Robot2600 posted...

"from my perspective the jedi are evil!"??

I'm just saying maybe you shouldn't call it things like "useless" when it is clearly being used, right now, present tense, by people who are negatively impacting the generic public in order to improve their own standing. if it was actually "useless" they wouldn't still be trying to make and use it. this maybe seems like semantics but I think it is important to not downplay its capabilities even if you are an AI hater because it helps to know what the enemy is capable of

Robot2600 posted...

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/03/how-the-us-public-and-ai-experts-view-artificial-intelligence/

interesting research. not what i'd expect to be honest.

I actually took the time to read this over now and you're right it's sort of weird. AI experts are fairly positive on AI overall, despite:

1) Majority thinking there need to be more restrictions
2) Majority having little confidence in government to enact these restrictions
3) Majority having little confidence in companies to develop and use it responsibly

Like to me this just reads as them not actually being positive, but acting as though they are since literally their job is hinging on it <_<

Cynrascal posted...

And I don't need those "supposed improvements". I get the job done and I don't care if it takes me "longer" to do so.

That's most technology ever. Very rarely do we do new things, we just do old things better. Why fly when trains get the job done? Why use power tools when hand tools get the job done? Hell, why invent the wheel, we can just use livestock?

reincarnator07 posted...

That's most technology ever.

Unlike the internal combustion engine and horses, generative AI barely works and it frequently takes a real human to basically go through what it sharted out, and debug it to the point where it actually works. So much so that it likely would have been cheaper just to have a human write it in the first place.

008Zulu posted...

Unlike the internal combustion engine and horses, generative AI barely works and it frequently takes a real human to basically go through what it sharted out, and debug it to the point where it actually works. So much so that it likely would have been cheaper just to have a human write it in the first place.

Engines are a couple of centuries old at this point, are directly threatening humanity through climate change and require specialist infrastructure and maintenance in order to be efficient, safe and useful. They also made horses obsolete as a form of transport, but this took decades. Horses are living animals and need to be fed, stabled and broken before they can be used, at which point you still need training to use them and they simply aren't as good as a car or bike in 99% of applications. Today, most people do not ride horses over driving or flying, despite the fact that there's nothing stopping most people from doing so. It's the same task, the horse is just worse at it.

Unless we crack artificial general intelligence, we will not be removing humans from tasks any time soon. For now, it's just an additional tool. The greatest tools are useless if you use them for the wrong task. There's no point in using AI as a search engine, it's too unreliable. It's also useless at art because it doesn't understand why things are the way they are. It's great at pattern recognition though. Just as an example, our local water company uses AI to help locate leaks and claim an improvement of 20%. Not only does it save them money and water, it also means less digging up the roads. There was also a trial through the NHS where they tried to see if it could spot cancer. Not only did it spot the same ones the doctors did, it identified some that the doctors missed. It was better than the humans at this task, as well as quicker and cheaper and it didn't suffer fatigue.

There are plenty of legit concerns about AI that need to be addressed, but to just dismiss it as a field of technology is asinine.

The AI worked well until his jaw fell off

reincarnator07 posted...

Engines are a couple of centuries old at this point, are directly threatening humanity through climate change and require specialist infrastructure and maintenance in order to be efficient, safe and useful.

But they are efficient, safe, and useful. Generative AI is none of these things.

Just as an example, our local water company uses AI to help locate leaks and claim an improvement of 20%. Not only does it save them money and water, it also means less digging up the roads. There was also a trial through the NHS where they tried to see if it could spot cancer.

Ok, but neither of these are examples of generative AI, whereas the examples you say are useless are generative AI. And neither example you offer replaces human observation with existing tools. Or rather, they shouldn't, but probably will.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fires-director-of-u-s-copyright-office-shira-perlmutter-sources/

The Trump administration has fired the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, two sources familiar with the situation confirmed to CBS News Saturday.

The firing of Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter came after Perlmutter and her office earlier this week issued part three of a lengthy report about artificial intelligence and expressed some concerns and questions about the usage of copyrighted materials by AI technology.

"It is an open question, however, how much data an AI developer needs, and the marginal effect of more data on a model's capabilities," the report read. "Not everyone agrees that further increases in data and test performance will necessarily lead to continued real world improvements in utility."

It's hard to take seriously the efforts to celebrate this technology's marginal efficiencies when we can see the big picture of what it's being used to do: steal from creators, put people out of work, pollute minority neighborhoods, create endless troves of revenge porn...

It feels more than a bit like when gun owners tout the joys of target shooting as a hobby after a mass shooting.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

But they are efficient, safe, and useful. Generative AI is none of these things.

Horses are no longer any of those and engines took several lifetimes to get to where they are today. My point is that AI is not limited to its current form, the same way the engine wasn't limited to how it was in the 1800s.

Ok, but neither of these are examples of generative AI, whereas the examples you say are useless are generative AI. And neither example you offer replaces human observation with existing tools. Or rather, they shouldn't, but probably will.

Generative AI is not the only form of AI, nor was it specified that we were talking exclusively about generative AI. Even then, it's all working off of the same pattern recognition. The difference is that art and conversation don't have "right" answers that can be predicted all the time.

You're right that it doesn't replace human observation, it adds onto it. It's no different than the software used to monitor infrastructure. It doesn't mean we get rid of humans, but it means the humans can accomplish more with the same resources.

reincarnator07 posted...

Horses are no longer any of those and engines took several lifetimes to get to where they are today. My point is that AI is not limited to its current form, the same way the engine wasn't limited to how it was in the 1800s.

Steam engines were demonstrably useful before the 1800's. It didn't need centuries of improvement before it could replace horses at certain tasks.

Also, generative AI is limited to its current form. Even if you could absolutely promise it will get better in 200 years, which you can't, that doesn't make it useful now, and we lose nothing by ignoring it until it's good enough.

Generative AI is not the only form of AI, nor was it specified that we were talking exclusively about generative AI.

Generative AI was specified in the very post you were replying to.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

Steam engines were demonstrably useful before the 1800's. It didn't need centuries of improvement before it could replace horses at certain tasks.

Also, generative AI is limited to its current form. Even if you could absolutely promise it will get better in 200 years, which you can't, that doesn't change its current status as an expensive, wasteful, and useless toy that churns out slop and makes society worse for it.

Generative AI was specified in the very post you were replying to.

In my first post, I did not specify generative AI and the topic in general didn't either. That the other poster decided to limit themselves to generative AI is on them, not me. The fact that many people only think of generative AI is kinda the sort of thing Asherlee has been saying for this topic, that most people simply do not understand the new tech.

reincarnator07 posted...

The fact that many people only think of generative AI is kinda the sort of thing Asherlee has been saying for this topic, that most people simply do not understand the new tech.

Partly this is the result of the tech industry's purposeful conflating of separate technologies. Everything from LLMs to machine learning has been lumped under the umbrella of "AI" in order to
1) sell AI to a copycat class of CEOs for whom AI is the latest buzzword
2) generate investment hype and publicity by associating their product with the sort of actually intelligent AI people have seen in sci-fi movies.

If the public seems uninformed about this stuff, you can watch basically any commercial break to see how much misinformation they've been given. See how many different products and services get promoted as either AI, or using AI.

Intro2Logic posted...

Partly this is the result of the tech industry's purposeful conflating of separate technologies. Everything from LLMs to machine learning has been lumped under the umbrella of "AI" in order to
1) sell AI to a copycat class of CEOs for whom AI is the latest buzzword
2) generate investment hype and publicity by associating their product with the sort of actually intelligent AI people have seen in sci-fi movies.

If the public seems uninformed about this stuff, you can watch basically any commercial break to see how much misinformation they've been given. See how many different products and services get promoted as either AI, or using AI.

Completely agree, especially with regarding to aiming it at businesses rather than individuals. I think this is a mixture of there being way more money to be made from them rather than consumers, but also the fact that the majority of actual benefits are really not for consumers in the modern day. What Google is achieving with their Pixel lineup imo is near the limit for stuff that normal people would benefit from.

Lots of tech-illiterate people in this topic not understanding the state of AI

Try asking Deepseek questions and tell me AI is useless (or try generating images/audio). Chat GPT sucks because OpenAI is a garbage company in the corporate looting phase.

reincarnator07 posted...

What Google is achieving with their Pixel lineup imo is near the limit for stuff that normal people would benefit from.

And my question is: are those achievements deserving of the world-shattering, life changing hype this product has received? Or, for that matter, the financial investment?

wtf would i ask deepseek when i have ce

lot's of optimistic people who think general ai can just be "cracked" or that ai has made one single "advancement" since Hinton's work...

deepseek proves we don't need gigantic data centers, and that things can be open sourced. those are both great things but i still don't need deepseek.

I don't need it to generate images. I can draw.

I don't need it to generate music, that's just a vibe smoothie. Also i can make music.

Some of us can already do all these things...

reincarnator07 posted...

That the other poster decided to limit themselves to generative AI is on them, not me.

That's not how conversation works. You responded to a claim that was limited to generative AI, your response is therefore assumed to be talking about the same thing. If you meant "okay, I agree that generative AI sucks, but other kinds are going to emerge over the next 200 years and be so much better! Really!!" then you should have said that to begin with.

HeeathLivesOn posted...

Try asking Deepseek questions and tell me AI is useless (or try generating images/audio).

Deepseek screwed up before I even got to ask a question.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/468bccf8.png

he's just got an ai cat

Intro2Logic posted...

And my question is: are those achievements deserving of the world-shattering, life changing hype this product has received? Or, for that matter, the financial investment?

What world shattering life changing hype have the Pixels received? They're great Android phones, but they aren't really presented as anything beyond that.

Robot2600 posted...

I don't need it to generate images. I can draw.

I don't need it to generate music, that's just a vibe smoothie. Also i can make music.

Some of us can already do all these things...

Some of us can not. I can play music and it took several months before I could play something resembling what I wanted and several years before I got what I'd describe as decent. I can't draw to save my life. Now if I was doing something remotely proper or professional, I'd commission an artist because they're still far beyond what AI can do. For playing an RPG with my friends? Hell yeah I'm gonna use AI for character portraits or locations.

I don't see AI as a replacement for art, only as a replacement for using the services of an artist. Ethically, it's like finding a shitty intern to "make" slop by stealing from real artists. If you wouldn't use stolen slop, you shouldn't use AI.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

That's not how conversation works. You responded to a claim that was limited to generative AI, your response is therefore assumed to be talking about the same thing. If you meant "okay, I agree that generative AI sucks, but other kinds are going to emerge over the next 200 years and be so much better! Really!!" then you should have said that to begin with.

They responded to my claim that had no such limitation, which was in response to someone else's message that lacked that limitation, in a topic that also lacked that limitation. If you want to ignore what I've been saying to "win" through pedantry then feel free to continue, but that's a waste of time for both of us when this isn't a debate to win.

reincarnator07 posted...

They responded to my claim that had no such limitation

And that's fair game. Your claim was a generalized statement about technology, and it is fine for a counter-claim to use a specific example to demonstrate otherwise. A counter-counter-claim is henceforth presumed to be discussing that specific example.

If you want to ignore what I've been saying to "win" through pedantry then feel free to continue

This is not "pedantry." This is basic rules of conversation that most people intuitively understand without it needing to be explained to them.

For playing an RPG with my friends? Hell yeah I'm gonna use AI for character portraits or locations.

I would rather play a game with no art than AI art. If your campaign is so devoid of artistic merit that there's nothing to compromise by using advanced pattern recognition cobbled from sources that know nothing of your vision, then I'd prefer you just tell me what things look like in words and let me envision it myself. Or if you need AI to describe your characters and locations, then I'd rather you just tell me "you're an elf fighter and this a dungeon" and let me imagine the rest.

And yes, that goes for cheap art in general. I've played RPGs that used stolen generic clip art for character portraits before. At no point did I ever think that having them was an improvement to the experience. Ultima IV didn't have the budget for professional character portraits, so it just had the words "Iolo the Bard" on top of a character sheet and this was fine.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

I would rather play a game with no art than AI art. If your campaign is so devoid of artistic merit that there's nothing to compromise by using advanced pattern recognition cobbled from sources that know nothing of your vision, then I'd prefer you just tell me what things look like in words and let me envision it myself. Or if you need AI to describe your characters and locations, then I'd rather you just tell me "you're an elf fighter and this a dungeon" and let me imagine the rest.

And yes, that goes for cheap art in general. I've played RPGs that used stolen generic clip art for character portraits before. At no point did I ever think that having them was an improvement to the experience. Ultima IV didn't have the budget for professional character portraits, so it just had the words "Iolo the Bard" on top of a character sheet and this was fine.

Personally I agree that I'd prefer a description over bad art, but not everyone is so imaginative in the modern day. For games between friends, it's really not that deep.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

Deepseek screwed up before I even got to ask a question.

I have no idea what the app is like but using the site I don't see those problems

reincarnator07 posted...

Personally I agree that I'd prefer a description over bad art, but not everyone is so imaginative in the modern day.

If unimaginative, talentless people want to use expensive technology to churn out low-effort swill and pretend they created something, I can't stop them, but I don't want to waste my time or brain cells consuming any of it.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

The hype is way disproportionate to the proven utility. This shouldn't be hard to understand.

HeeathLivesOn posted...

I have no idea what the app is like but using the site I don't see those problems

That was the site.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

The hype is way disproportionate to the proven utility. This shouldn't be hard to understand.

This is my real problem with AI. Even though I don't particularly have a use for it, they're selling it like it's the understanding of fire 2.0 and... it may have such an impact some day pending on how much advances(or if, profit seeking is a bitch), but for now? It's basically a little ahead of every other "rise of the chatbot" before it, except they actually found practical and useful applications for it instead of trying to force it to be a thing it just isn't ready to be...

And then they forced it to be things it isn't ready to be. Again.

Robot2600 posted...

people will insist that

1. we need ai
2. ai is awesome
3. if you disagree you don't understand it

obviously these people will not be able to explain what a transformer neural net is nor how it works.

what's the best play here? like, imagine that your job will come to you in the next 1-2 years and demand you come up with a plan to use ai more. what are you gonna do?

Get AI to answer why each of those three things are good and develop a swift counter argument to each one.

ppl who shill AI are the same type of person who shilled NFTs

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Theyre literally selling snake oil at this point.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Disappear from social media for one month and become the most dangerous person in the room by mastering these AI tools

Literally everyone selling AI services.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Okay.

We also are now diverting water and power away from people to support an industry that does not as yet actually do anything. Inefficiently.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I feel like I provided several examples in support of my argument.

Dont make your argument about me.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Is it, though? The hallucinations being spat out by these products are getting worse, not better
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/technology/ai-hallucinations-chatgpt-google.html

If you just handwave the fundamental inviability of the industry then sure

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Since you provide no reason why AI is useful what you said reduces down to you think its bad because you loathe it.

Honestly until my first point changes all of this is moot.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

There's incredible overlap between the people touting AI now and those touting NFTs, crypto and the Metaverse not that long ago.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


its all coming from tech bros

so yes its call coming from the same place

I think the last few years should have disabused us of the idea that CEOs and industry leaders necessarily know what they're doing. Again, it really wasn't that long ago that many of these companies were all in on blockchain or NFTs

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Meta spent $10 billion on the Metaverse in 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/technology/meta-facebook-earnings-metaverse.html

Mark Zuckerberg said his company was going all in on the metaverse last year. On Wednesday, he showed the costs of making that transition.

Meta, the company that Mr. Zuckerberg founded as Facebook, said that its Reality Labs division, which makes virtual-reality goggles, smart glasses and other yet-to-be-released products, lost more than $10 billion in 2021 as it built the business. Those products are key to Mr. Zuckerbergs vision of the metaverse, a next generation of the internet where people would share virtual worlds and experiences across different software and hardware platforms.

It was the first time that Meta revealed the results of its hardware division. In the past, the company had not broken out those numbers because products like virtual-reality headsets were a small part of its overall business, which is dependent on social networking and digital advertising. Investing $10 billion in the metaverse is more than five times the amount of money Facebook paid to purchase the Oculus VR business in 2014 and 10 times what it paid to buy Instagram in 2012.

The spending dragged down Metas quarterly profits, which fell 8 percent, to $10.3 billion, in the three months ending in December from a year earlier, even as revenue rose 20 percent, to $33.7 billion, over the same period. Wall Street analysts had predicted profit of $10.9 billion on revenue of $33.4 billion.

And AI has yet to show any suggestion of profit for the companies currently pouring billions into it
https://www.wheresyoured.at/wheres-the-money/

2024 Revenue: According to reporting by The Information, OpenAI's revenue was likely somewhere in the region of $4 billion.
Burn Rate: The Information also reports that OpenAI lost $5 billion after revenue in 2024, excluding stock-based compensation, which OpenAI, like other startups, uses as a means of compensation on top of cash. Nevertheless, the more it gives away, the less it has for capital raises. To put this in blunt terms, based on reporting by The Information, running OpenAI cost $9 billion dollars in 2024. The cost of the compute to train models alone ($3 billion) obliterates the entirety of its subscription revenue, and the compute from running models ($2 billion) takes the rest, and then some. It doesnt just cost more to run OpenAI than it makes it costs the company a billion dollars more than the entirety of its revenue to run the software it sells before any other costs.
OpenAI also spends an alarming amount of money on salaries over $700 million in 2024 before you consider stock-based compensation, a number that will also have to increase because its growing which means hiring as many people as possible, and its paying through the nose.
How Does It Make Money: The majority of its revenue (70+%) comes from subscriptions to premium versions of ChatGPT, with the rest coming from selling access to its models via its API.
The Information also reported that OpenAI now has 15.5 million paying subscribers, though it's unclear what level of OpenAI's premium products they're paying for, or how sticky those customers are, or the cost of customer acquisition, or any other metric that would tell us how valuable those customers are to the bottom line. Nevertheless, OpenAI loses money on every single paying customer, just like with its free users. Increasing paid subscribers also, somehow, increases OpenAI's burn rate. This is not a real company.
The New York Times reports that OpenAI projects it'll make $11.6 billion in 2025, and assuming that OpenAI burns at the same rate it did in 2024 spending $2.25 to make $1 OpenAI is on course to burn over $26 billion in 2025 for a loss of $14.4 billion. Who knows what its actual costs will be, and as a private company (or, more accurately, entity, as for the moment it remains a weird for-profit/nonprofit hybrid) its not obligated to disclose its financials. The only information well get will come from leaked documents and dogged reporting, like the excellent work from The New York Times and The Information cited above.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It's a response to your claim that "Very rarely do entire industries invest in technologies, tools, and concepts that do not generate profit."

Actually these people are wrong just as often as you and me. Google glass! 3D TVs! Media outlets pivoting to video! Apple Vision Pro!

The past decade and a half is littered with Silicon Valley failing to follow up on the smart phone with an equally significant new product. The fact that they're all in on this one isn't necessarily evidence that it will be any more successful.

Sony invested $16b in AI last month.