I've never been so conflicted about a technology
marcjenkins.co.uk
I've never been so conflicted about a technology
1–10 of 125 posts
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#2Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology.
> Firstly, there’s the environmental impact
Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger point.
I say this without discounting the real environmental costs associated with technology, but LLMs / AI isnt uniquely problamatic.
Your latest macbook, iphone, datacenter, ssds.. all have impact.
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#3> Firstly, there’s the environmental impact. Models require massive amounts of electricity and water (to cool servers). An AI chatbot contributes more to the climate crisis than a Google search.
I really dislike the "people should be better and use less energy" argument for solving macro-problems like this
> My naive optimism led me to believe that technology would help us fight climate change. I was wrong: AI and Crypto are net negatives in this regard.
...why? why would technology that specifically requires a lot of energy help "fight climate change"?
this entirely article is missing any point to me -- it's very vague and speaking in generalities.
> “If you’re going to use generative tools powered by large language models, don’t pretend you don’t know how your sausage is made.”
why? if you generate code with a LLM, then read and deeply understand the code, what's wrong?
> I can’t help but feel the web would be a better place if the technology had never existed in the first place.
if we didn't invent the wheel, we wouldn't have so many cars/trucks polluting the planet
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#4Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmental impact Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger po…
Correct. We have to order by impact and refrain from spending effort on all but the issue at the top of the list.
If we choose to affect any lower-priority issue, it is an example of hypocriticality that de-legitimizes the whole project.
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#5Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmental impact Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger po…
Your argument seems to be flattening everything so it's just the same - "everything has an impact" - but different things have different impacts, and each needs to be measured against their utility. Me ordering a coffee at my local cafe has an impact, but it's a good deal less than me driving from London to Edinburgh. The author's argument, as I read it and generally agree, is that we don't really need LLMs to get things done, but their use comes with a large environmental cost. I don't think that will stop its use, unfortunately. There's just too much capital behind them at the moment.
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#6I think it's harsh to start the accounting so soon after the breakthrough.
Yes, of course AI uses a lot of energy. But we have to give it a bit of time to see if there are benefits that come with this cost. I think there will be. Whether the tradeoff was worthwhile, I think we are not even close to being able to conclude.
Something like social media, which has a good long while behind it, I could accept if you started to close the book on the plus-minus.
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#7Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmental impact Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger po…
Correct. We have to order by impact and refrain from spending effort on all but the issue at the top of the list. If we choose to affect any lower-priority issue, it is an example of hypocriticality that de-legitimizes the whole project.
If we had stayed farmers, we wouldn't have these issues. Most people would be still happy. Intelligence is both destruction and savior.
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#8[flagged]
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#9> Models require massive amounts of electricity and water (to cool servers).
Does it?
https://prospect.org/environment/2024-09-27-water-not-the-pr...
> training GPT-3 used as much water as just under twice what is required for the average American’s beef consumption. In other words, just two people swearing off beef would more than compensate.
https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa...
> It would be a sad meaningless distraction for people who care about the climate to freak out about how often they use Google search. Imagine what your reaction would be to someone telling you they did ten Google searches. You should have the same reaction to someone telling you they prompted ChatGPT.
Re: I've never been so conflicted about a technology
#10Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmental impact Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger po…
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