holyra

"If you resist AI, it helps to ask why"

I am not intrinsically opposed AI. I am opposed to its environmental and social impacts. I constantly see spamming AI bots that send zillions of useless or poor-quality PRs to OSS. I see PRs that add features, but are really huge, making maintenance even harder in the future without the help of AI. AI creates bloatware everywhere. I see AI trained on stolen data without respecting licenses. I see data centers popping up at a scale never seen, consuming more and more energy. more and more resources (They basically consumed all RAM/SSD of 2026).

"It drives rising energy prices in poor communities, disrupts wildlife and fresh water supplies, increases pollution, and stresses global supply chains. It re-enforces the horrible, dangerous working conditions that miners in many African countries are enduring to supply rare metals like Cobalt for the billions of new chips that this boom demands. And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world’s total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies." [0]

I am tired of people that have no concerns about climate change or the impact of their collective actions on other humans. I hope that one day everyone will be judged for their role in this system.

[0] https://drewdevault.com/2026/03/25/2026-03-25-Forking-vim.ht...

The LLM has brainwashed so many devs that they now think they are nothing without it.

People can choose not to use AI. This is because they think it is inevitable that they will eventually use LLMs.

This comes from a dystopian book (Animal Farm). What is your point?

Yes the environmental impact of an AI agent performing a given task is lower. However we will not simply replace every programmer with an agent: in the process we will use more agents exceeding the previous environmental impact of humans. This is the rebound effect [0].

Your reasoning could be effective if we bounded the computing resources usable by all AI in order to meet carbon reduction goals.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation)

what about the environmental impact of AI, especially agentic AI? I keep reading praise for AI on the orange site, but its environmental impact is rarely discussed. It seems that everyone has already adopted this technology, which is destroying our world a little more.

Personally, I dismiss AI, mainly agenetic ones, because of its environmental impact. I hope that one day everyone will be held accountable for it.

Can you name specifics? What freedom does the press not have that they had a few months ago?

Every week, Trump is threatening the free press that criticizes him. He suspended the Associated Press from acceding to the Oval Office just because they speak about "Gulf of Mexico". He said that that negative cover of his actions should be illegal.

How is there any less democracy now than before?

A free press is an important pillar of democracy. By repeatedly threatening or even attacking it, you are attacking the very fabric of democracy. Democracy is not just voting, you have to be informed otherwise you are blind. You must also be educated to make decisions in your own best interest. A true democracy requires that anyone has access to education.

Democracy also needs time to make decisions, and to make decisions collectively (at least in a parliamentary way). Trump decides unilaterally by issuing decrees. This is closer to a dictatorship than a democracy. Moreover, he decides so quickly that the DOJ cannot ensure that the Constitution and Human rights are respected. Some of Trump's allies even claim that the USA will need him in 2029: they are ambiguously threatening the very existence of an election.

Trump is attacking free speech by banning the use of some terms in emails, attacking schools (e.g. Columbia) and threatening companies with DEI programs.

I could go on.

if anything these things are getting better by removing wasteful spending

Even if it was true, you need time to change something. Otherwise you break lives and companies.

The US values democracy and free speech more than any other country.

Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably press freedom).

Regarding freedom, I don't buy the US vision. The US culture values individual freedom at the expense of the many. From my point of view, freedom is not possible without equality between people. Otherwise, some people impose their will (their freedom) on others. In this sense, regulation is an instrument of freedom.

The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.

I am no longer considering the US as a democracy. From a west perspective, China doesn't want to annex Canada or Greenland.

From my perspective, US culture is more violent in the current era because of several factors:

- A large portion of the population is incarcerated

- The population is weaponized

- Many people are dying because they don't have proper access to health care

- The economy leave a lot of people on the side of the road producing highly anxious people

- School shoot / police violence

- ...

I am an EU citizen and I am concerned about the collapse of the US and more shortly about its expansionism claims. US has such a military dominance and violent culture that I am afraid it will produce a global war. I now think that the EU needs to rearm, not to defend against Russia, but to protect us against US collapse and expansionism. China is our better bet in this coming disaster.

Be careful, mental health is really precious...

I didn't have the courage to quit my PhD while I was alone (my supervisors were not involved in my work from the beginning; I had almost no comments on my writings, including my thesis...). It took me 5.5 years (instead of the average 3.5 years in my university) to graduate. I extended my 3-year contract with 2 years of teaching and the remaining 6 months I was without a contract.

I finished my thesis. However, It completely destroyed me: 2 years later I am still severely depressed with severe generalised anxiety disorders.

This sounds unreal. How did your supervisor managed his subordinates so they wound not spend their time in leisure activities?

Self-pressure? I cannot spend my work time in leisure time, otherwise I ashame. It is pretty even the opposite that I experienced: I felt ashame in my leisure time to not work to get more progress on my phd.

We were only two phd students supervised by the same pair of supervisors. In fact we saw our supervisors a lot. However this was more in a friend way. Every time we switch to work-related discussions they found excuses to leave or just say that they will take some time later to ask our questions / reveiw our drafts (and this never happen).

In the case of the other student, he was more lucky and find an unofficial supervisor that help him a lot. I find some support from another researcher at the end of my phd. And thanks to him I had some review of my manuscript. This gave me some confidence to finish the writing.

This is a harsh reply.

I also had the same issue as the author: absent supervisions. I had only two meetings during my phd and they never reviewed my papers (I tried everything to motivate them and I finally gave up). I did everything on my own. It was very hard. I learned the hard way (try and fail... do it again...). I finally finished my phd with great appreciations from the jury. However this ends with a considerable cost: I am completely broken. I now suffer of a severe depression and generalized anxiety disorders. I take several medications and this does not help so much. I lost a lot of friends. My life is basically a journey in hell since several years now.