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Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

frank.computer

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Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#111

Post by zahlman »

crote wrote: post #58
bruce511 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the power, nor cooling, requirements are necessarily environmentally harmful. As always ymmv. First water; there are plenty of places on the planet where water is bountiful. If you site a data center well (say on a big lake in a rainfall area) then water is not an issue. An "using" water in this way doesn't affect water scarce areas. Equally lots of electricity can be generated in environmentally harmless way…

Sure, it's possible , but we don't seem to live in a world where that is actually the case in practice . The large AI companies are perfectly happy to draw water to the point that local residents no longer have access to clean tap water, and they are perfectly happy using dirty "temporary" gas generators for power. We should judge it for its actual use, not its ideal use.

> We should judge it for its actual use, not its ideal use.

We should judge the companies for their actual behaviour.

We should judge technologies for their ideal application. Because they don't, in and of themselves, do anything.

Otherwise, you have the same basic fallacies that inhibit nuclear power.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#112

Post by zahlman »

microflash wrote: post #73

To me, “AI is just a tool” argument sounds so fake and hypocritical because that is not how the proponents of AI talk about it. Instead, it is marketed as “the tool” and in some cases, “the only tool”. This completely shifts the incentives, the balance of empowerment and narrative from the users to toolmakers. At that point, AI stops being “a” tool.

I don't care what "the proponents" say. If AI is "just a tool", then I wish to believe exactly that (https://www.lesswrong.com/w/litany-of-tarski). And right now, the evidence is strongly leading me in that direction.

Marketers believing their own hype, leading to companies taking bad actions, is bad. But it is neither my problem, nor does it change what the truth is.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#113

Post by zahlman »

createful wrote: post #56
PixelForg wrote: post #47

I find it hard to see AI in a positive light when it is the root cause behind my friends not being able to afford gaming pcs and consoles, every thing is getting more expensive. I use it at work (because it is mandatory) and objectively speaking it has helped me, but the negative effects are hard to ignore.

But really, blaming AI (software) for this is a similar situation to "old man yells at cloud". The software didn't want more RAM. AI companies did. Not to mention that RAM companies may have purposely raised prices and blamed it on AI, I've heard about a class-action lawsuit against the big three RAM companies for coordinating a price increase. If you don't want to use AI at work, you should really file a complaint.…

> Not to mention that RAM companies may have purposely raised prices and blamed it on AI... The root cause of not being able to afford PCs might just be RAM companies themselves, along with some real demand from AI companies.

I mean, it sounds to me like responding to market forces. It's not as if the RAM companies can charge the AI companies a higher unit price than everyone else. The bigger question is why the AI companies have so much capital (including borrowing) at their disposal.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#114

Post by zahlman »

keiferski wrote: post #59

One of the most salient examples of this attitude is how the sub-field of the philosophy of technology is basically ignored by all technologists. “Why should doers care what thinkers think,” you might wonder? Well, because they might have important insights that you, as a practitioner, aren’t immediately aware of. The medical profession pays a lot of attention to bioethics and cares what philosophers think about issu…

But the thinkers aren't speaking out against scalpels, protein-folding simulation software, chemical synthesis techniques etc. because they might be used wrongly.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#115

Post by zahlman »

witx wrote: post #72

It's sad to see a forum called _Hacker_ News try to argue so much against the reality that LLMs are having a tremendous negative impact on society, environment and economy, and being on the side of corporations. Corporations which stole the work from many open source developers that worked for free, torrented books and actively move against open source ideals. Corporations which are pushing for data centers regardles…

> try to argue so much against the reality that LLMs are having a tremendous negative impact on society, environment and economy, and being on the side of corporations.

This is not the actual argument being made, or the side being taken. (See for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930934, almost directly below as I read this. Or for more detail, try https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930791 .)

And we get popular anti-LLM submissions here constantly. (And other kinds of anti-corporatist submissions, too.)

But TFA is not any kind of insightful analysis, it's just ideological muck-raking.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#116

Post by user43928 »

leecommamichael wrote: post #102
user43928 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion AI is good for: - developing all but the most complex software - maintaining a >100k LOC codebase on your own - generating illustrations and animations My iOS codebase has 95k LOC + another 40k tests, and it is working great. It has been months of work.

What does your application do?

Something like media management.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#117

Post by bawolff »

michaelt wrote: post #45

As I understand it, in America "it's just a tool" is shorthand for "guns should be regulated like hammers, i.e. barely at all, responsibility lies with the user not those who make, market and sell it" Needless to say a lot of people disagree with that, because of the shootings. And internationally, a lot of societies regulate guns a great deal. I'm not saying this to steer the conversation towards gun control, or to…

But we regulate lots of tools. Cars are tools, you still need a license.

I'm fully pro gun control. I still think guns are instrinsically tools, neither inherently good nor evil. They are still dangerous and should be regulated as such just like any dangerous tool.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#118

Post by bawolff »

kykat wrote: post #26

I've read "amusing ourselves to death" and there the author also criticises the idea that new technologies are "just tools". The invention of the telegraph changed how information is traded and the contents of newspapers, the invention of the TV changed politics, and so on. The medium shapes the message and induces behaviours from us. We never thought about wanting to promt chatgpt, or watch people doing sports on a…

> The invention of the telegraph changed how information is traded and the contents of newspapers, the invention of the TV changed politics, and so on.

Isn't that kind of the definition of a tool? Something that does something useful and as a result changes the way the world works (whether in a big way or a small way)? Wouldn't be much of a tool if it wasn't useful. It wouldn't be very useful if it didn't have an impact.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#119

Post by bawolff »

keiferski wrote: post #59

One of the most salient examples of this attitude is how the sub-field of the philosophy of technology is basically ignored by all technologists. “Why should doers care what thinkers think,” you might wonder? Well, because they might have important insights that you, as a practitioner, aren’t immediately aware of. The medical profession pays a lot of attention to bioethics and cares what philosophers think about issu…

Just because thinkers think something doesn't make them right. Thinkers are expected to defend their thoughts with arguments and logic. If they can't convince the do-ers, maybe their thoughts just aren't very deep and should rightly be ignored.

Re: Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used

#120

Post by pj_mukh »

zombot wrote: post #86
pj_mukh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digression, but gun laws (or lack thereof) apply equally to cities where most people live and where guns wreck most of their havoc and cities are banned from passing any laws to help fix. Different issue entirely. In fact this kind of case-by-case handling is exactly what I’m asking for in AI as opposed to blanket laws.

No case-by-case handling can negate the energy costs and other side effects of datacenters, for instance. Your arguments are sophistry.

Energy costs are a function of energy supply. We have infinite energy being beamed down to us everyday. Using energy as a cudgel to suppress demand and deflate economic growth is the real sophistry.
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