'AI washing': firms are scrambling to rebrand themselves as tech-focused

FWIW: imo AI doesn't need to cure all disease and end poverty in order to prove incredibly useful and have a major impact on how we work and live. I don't care what AI maximalists say and that shouldn't be used against me. My daily life has already completely changed due to AI and I don't need a billionare CEO or the Pope to hype it for me. Even if it freezes in place (which it won't) there is no undoing that.

I'm also happy that the technology is approachable and doesn't require massive datacenters or major expense to run. And doesn't necessitate a winner takes all outcome imo.

Consider this: how much energy and expense does it cost to play Call of Duty on a local GPU for 4 hours compared to casual LLM use for 4 hours? You're going to hate this, but I just had Gemini do this comparison and it was interesting.

Yes, millions of people aren't all playing Call of Duty all the time, so the cumulative numbers are very different. But if Call of Duty could research or write code, they would.

I don't care about what AI maximalists say because I shouldn't have to defend their words. I'm only sharing my own experience. My job is drastically different than it was a year ago. The way I interact with computers to learn, research, and consume information is also entirely different. Whether or not that translates into massive social disruption or a major bubble pop, or both, I don't know. But the tech is already amazing imo and that's not a prediction or hype.

Way ahead of you.

> Never look up how to plant carrots on YouTube.

Books and trial and error are good too. In fact, old fashioned Boolean search engine worked just fine.

>Don't learn to play an instrument or paint.

Now you're just making yourself sound like a daft fool. We've been doing those things since long before the Internet, and none of the abuses of humanity I refuse to see pushed forward spur from growing in those directions.

>Anything that exploits public information and steals knowledge without compensation, like AI does, is off limits. Otherwise you'd be an incredible hypoctrite. Especially since you've already extracted your share of wealth from tech before you saw the light and converted to ludditism.

Your gotcha ain't landing. I ain't holding back anyone else. I'll share with anyone that wants it. Except the Sam A's, the Amodei's, the Trump's & their minions, and any other asshat who thinks their ambition and will to rule by default grants them entitlement to my shoulders. There comes a time in life where you look at what the rest of the world expects you to give, and a part of you looks at what the world is doing with it, and says "enough". I never sought to chain, or to bind, to automate kill chains, to decieve people into buying what they don't need, or to harm. Yet I look all around me, and that's all I see people around here get their jollies off doing some form of. You don't own me. You don't own my output. You don't get to lay claim to the precious little that is mine, and that I seek to shepherd for the poor sod's down the road who have the misfortune of being born into the hellscapes you people seem to aspire to see brought into existence. Where your moats enrich you while extracting from them, where they own nothing, and have no chance too, because no one is selling.

I will make sure there is someone there to do for them what was done for me.

I will make sure that they have as much of the same room to grow in as I did without the disgusting tendrils of a corrupted as fuck tree of knowledge being weaponized against them.

I don't give a damn if I'm inconvenient to your vision. I've walked that desert. I've dealt with that mirage. I have no delusions about what's underneath the hood of what's been built, or the countless lives that have been ploughed under to keep it trundling along. I have one damn choice I can make. I can chase a corpse of a future that's being smothered in it's cradle, or I can plant and cultivate a seed of what once was, and nourish it that maybe it can take root in more favorable soil. Point is, that means rescinding my consent to be leeched off of.

You call me a Luddite & a hypocrite. Doesn't bother me none. Called myself much worse, and would call myself much worse if I didn't draw the line somewhere. This is my line in the sand. Have fun calling me what you will. I don't have a damn thing to call you at all. Enough ugly things in the world without bothering to name another. Have a nice day.

This is the disconnect we're having.

If you share a repo and Github and I learn from it, and I'm influenced by it, and I create my own project that I couldn't have created otherwise, then I'm not stealing your output or claiming ownership. I'm not using your work. I learned from it. To me this is all AI is doing.

I do agree that if it reproduces copywrited or licensed material then that is stealing and it should be held liable for that. Just like Google can't serve up copywrited material. But learning and creating a derived work is not reproduction imo.

The fact that you're willing to use a search engine but not AI is illustrative to me. Because if you squint at it, AI is just a smarter search index.