vouaobrasil

I can use AI for coding after decades of coding. I can't use it for theoretical physics because I can't evaluate the responses.

That is what will happen though to future generations: they won't be able to use it for anything because none of them will have the "decades of coding" experience that you have had the privelege to have without AI.

I don't think chatgpt could have come to this on its own without the amount of steering he did, which just validates the idea that AI is not a replacement for human expertise but an amplifier.

The problem is that, what happens to human expertise as people start to use AI earlier and earlier in their careers, so that in 50 years? The problem is that Terry Tao spent decades as a mathematician before ever encoutering AI. Of course he and people his age will be able to drive AI somewhat sanely and use it to their advantage.

But as more people grow up with AI, they will likely not reach levels like Terry Tao because their exposure to AI and the temptation to use it will certainly dull raw human intellect over time.

That's because people can't handle speed. With a natural delay, they could cool down or at least become more detached. Society needs natural points where people are forced to detach from what they do. That's one reason why AI and high-speed communications are so dangerous: they accelerate what we do too quickly to remain balanced. (And I am speaking in general here, of course there will be a minority who can handle it.)

Because it's already distributed. Better targets for government services would be things that are owned by monopolies.

Nuclear is good though, it's the single densest source of energy in the world (and, well, outside of it too).

It would be good if the energy were used in critical applications. Wasted energy is stil wasted.

I don't get your argument though, where has it "accelerated consumerism?"

Are you serious? It is making people richer, allowing people to make products faster, including software. Of course that makes consumption faster.

And you can't be serious about its medical applications, I doubt more people would die from its incremental climate change effects (as compared to, say, car accidents, much less car pollution in cities) as compared to being saved from death.

No, I am serious. And it will get much worse in the future. Check out [1], [2], etc.. And lets not forget the increased storms, flooding, etc. We are all responsible for that. But those that use electricity like big tech should be held especially responsible because they encourage the bad behaviour and use resources directly.

Even outside of the scientific fields, AI sure is solving a lot of my problems, saying one is an "enemy of humanity" is the sort of hyperbole I'd only see on HN.

Solving your problems doesn't really mean solving the world's problems, just like making the top 10% richer doesn't make the world a better place. I absolutely consider them the enemy of humanity.

1. https://ourworldindata.org/part-two-how-many-people-die-from...

2. https://www.weforum.org/press/2024/01/wef24-climate-crisis-h...

Not if spending a little extra money and keeping with the inefficiency helps make money in other ways, such as getting the product out faster or allowing their workers to focus on the tech stack. Saving a little electricity cost might cost them in their development, so they're likely to use the cheap electricity and offset the cost to the environment.

Let's not also forget material use. According to [1], "Global AI demand is expected to consume 4.2-6.6 billion cubic meters of water by 2027, surpassing Denmark’s total annual water withdrawal of 4-6 billion cubic meters." And there's also all the mining required for the materials to build the computers, and the fossil fuels shipping them and making them in the first place in places like Taiwan.

Reference:

1. https://unric.org/en/artificial-intelligence-how-much-energy...

Many things don't have to be the way they are. But as long as the powerful big tech can subsidize their costs on the commons of the environment in the form of environmental damage without regulation, they will only pay lip service to making things more efficient. Money is a much more powerful motivator to the unscrupulous than protecting the long-term health of the commons.

I think AI does help people do better research faster, which is a significant uplift to humanity,

One must consider both sides. Better research also contributes (no question) to more consumerism and the furthering of technology, which also uses more fossil fuels. It's time we acknowledged that research isn't free, and all of the damage to the biosphere was mainly enabled by science.

And AI uses a huge ton of energy. For example, according to [1], "In Ireland, [...] electricity demand from data centres represented 17% of the country’s total electricity consumption for 2022". And we also have to consider the raw materials and mining used.

1. In Ireland, where the data centre market is developing rapidly, electricity demand from data centres represented 17% of the country’s total electricity consumption for 2022

Of course you are wrong. "IEA's models project that data centres will use 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2030, roughly equivalent to the current annual electricity consumption of Japan." [1] And don't forget the recent announcement by Fermi America to build a 6 gigawatt nuclear datacenter in Texas. And what are we getting in return:

(1) AI is primarily used, by and far, to accelerate consumerism.

(2) AI has very few applications that are actually solving the world's problems (the world's problems are mostly nontechnical problems). The cited ones of scientific or medical are either too abstract, or else they are likely to make the problem worse. And in the case of medical, maybe the AI applications will help a few hundreds of thousands of people – but hurt/kill many more with its contribution to climate change. So not worth it.

I consider those who promote AI to be enemies of humanity and biological life since they are using a commodity that we should be using less of with reckless abandon.

1. https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/10/2019233/data-ce...

I don't consider that anything good. Design is just about making new products faster, which is a bad thing as it accelerates consumerism. And medical scans? That might help maybe a thousand extra people at the cost of gigagwatts of energy used that is polluting the entire planet.

To me, all of those positives are dwarfed by negatives.

You can't be serious. This is a highly specialized field in a topic that a few dozen people have interest in. Rather useless and basically a mental stimulating game for some professors. I have a math PhD and know very well that math went well past its point of diminishing returns in solving real-world problems a long time ago.

they have solved thorny problems.

Like what then? Let's hear some examples.

Unproductive for the person perhaps, but not for the development of technology. But I do agree in general that using AI is not a great strategy for human beings. Read a book indeed.

Maybe on break but while deep-working I just want the information necessary to do the job, the communication being there to communicate the information, efficiently.

The problem is that we are slowly be pushed to become cogs who only really think this way. We shouldn't just want to be the most efficient possible. Technology already reduces the ability for us to connect, which is why connections at work seem weird or shallow in the first place. We simply don't need each other as much, so it makes sense that AI seems like the next logical step.

Your sentiments are just your instinctual desire to move to the next local maximum in a sequence of descending maxima that lead to the bottom.

My argument is that using a machine to replace your thinking, your voice, or your relationships is a very bad thing. Humans have intrinsic worth—machines do not.

I agree with that, and the only logical path if we are to preserve this principle is to eradicate AI, and not try and control it. There is no way to control it (think prisoner's dilemma, greedy individuals, etc.)

That is true. What will happen in with the world is that consumerism and capitalism will be pushed aside for direct technological construction. In this world, AI, rather than the market, optimizes.

I am not saying that LLMs are worthless—they are marvels of engineering and can solve some particularly thorny problems that have confounded us for decades.

Disagree with that, because firstly, they have not really solved any problems that outweight the negatives that they have unleashed and will unleash on society.

So they make programmers more effective: is that actually a good thing, though? Fact is, most software is designed to make consumerism and corporations more effective, and that's not really a good thing for the long-term health of the planet.

Your article also indicates a sort of independence between keeping intellectual tasks primarily human and allowing AI/LLMs to work in specific domains. However, those with the power don't care about principles. They just want to replace as much as they can and use the human instinct to get ahead quickly to do so. And no amount of priniciple will stop them. AI is just too powerful to be used in a way that is consistent with human beings keeping their intellectual environment healthy.

Absolutely right. However, it's not good to replace too much manual labor, either. There is also a balance between too much and too little (i.e. not learning enough manual skills to take care of yourself).

There is a balance in both the mental and physical domains. Those who have a high intellectual capacity will probably think otherwise because intellectual activities is what THEY like to do. But the truth is, some people enjoy manual labor and it's not good to completely replace them either because there is art in manual work as well.

Is the author a manual laborer? If not, why? Because humans evented machines!

For physical labor it might make sense, but for mental labor it does not.

On the other hand, looking things up yourself allows you to become quite familiar with the way things work in a more detailed way than just getting the answer through an LLM.

I don't really think "fairness" matters to those who've imposed the bond. It's just a matter of economics, as always.

That is right. Worldwide quarantine was also an even more difficult task in some ways if you really think about it but the world was much better at that (even if some countries lagged behind) because there was an immediate pain felt, not unlike a parent threatening the immediate revocation of priveleges. With climate change, there is no such immediate threat to the average high-consumption individual.

True, but the degree to which they are so is proportional to the power and wealth they have.

Well, that point itself is invalid. Because ameliorations such as the mapping solution actually makes it less likely that people will do something about the root cause – same as air conditioning makes it less likely that the rich will care about a warming climate.

I already got out of the tech career. But not because I didn't embrace AI – even though I never will. It's exactly because of people like Thomas Dohmke. What an irritating and contemptible individual.

Personally, I'm preparing the people I know to be against AI and to understand why it's a problem. We shouldn't prepare people to be more efficient, because efficiency beyond a certain point is not compatible with the enjoyment of life.

Well that is true. No argument there. We do need to hit rock bottom, because humans only respond to immediate pain. We are too stupid to collectively work together.

That's a slippery slope all the was to absurd. They're not talking about millions of requests a second. They're talking about a browsing session (few page views) [...]

My statement was meant as an analogy. I'm not saying an argument against Perplexity and agents is about requests per second. I'm saying there's an analogous argument: that the power of AI to transform the browsing experience is akin to the power of a server farm and thus a net negative. Therefore, your interpretation of what I was saying is wrong.

Your assumption is incorrect, because the article doesn't say "the goal is to bond people who overstay their visa frequently." (quoted from you). It says (quoted from article):

"to impose bonds on visitors from countries with high rates of visa overstays"

Quite different, as the latter means it applies to people who don't overstay their visas, but who have a great many fellow citizens who overstay their visas.