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The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

kaveland.no

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Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#251

Post by autoexec »

9dev wrote: post #117
Mistletoe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m constantly confused why Google wants me to use Gemini so much. Why would they want me to use an AI that doesn’t show ads, isn’t their search, and costs them money to generate the responses? The instant we see ads in LLMs we will stop using them, it will be as abrupt and as annoying as the vuvuzela example because using an LLM is a very intimate interaction. It will feel much more jarring when your intimate chat f…

Google has this pesky problem of carrying almost all their eggs in one basket: The moment their ad business doesn’t work anymore, the behemoth that Google is will come down to its knees. But due to the way the company is structured, they need search to drive users to the ads, and it’s all one big mess of entangled revenue streams that can’t be touched for fear of breaking something. Now if AI turns out to be the next…

> they need search to drive users to the ads

Why? The websites we visit can still be infested with google's ads, and so can our gmail accounts, and so can the youtube videos we watch, and they can push ads directly onto our cell phones 24/7. Google has plenty of ways to force ads into your life.

Google used to need search in order to build extensive dossiers on everyone. It told them what people were looking for online. What they were interested in. Now Google has their cell phones, their browser, and their DNS servers doing that for them. Most people are handing all of their browsing history to Google. Google doesn't need search, which is why it's been allowed to atrophy into uselessness.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#252

Post by sheiyei »

scrollaway wrote: post #184
jraph wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe there IS such a thing as a free lunch after all! A free lunch that costs our environment though, which is a big caveat :-)

Maybe. But to be honest, optimizing monstrously slow processes that cost weeks of human labour by automating them, that saves a ton of energy as well. It’s not zero sum, as the humans spend that energy elsewhere, but ideally they spend it on more productive things. This calculus can very quickly offset whatever energy is wasted generating cartoon images of vuvuzelas.

Humans will have the privilege of using that time to take out the trash and be taxi drivers for drug users

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#253

Post by svnt »

baggy_trough wrote: post #249
ksenzee wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re restarting coal-fired power plants to run AI datacenters. I don’t know what your personal threshold is for “massive” environmental harm, but that meets mine.

What's a specific example of that?

It has been widely reported. Here is an example not of a coal-fired but diesel and gas mobile power sources. If you spend time looking you will have no trouble finding sources.

> Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule clarification allowing the use of some mobile gas and diesel power sources for data centers. In a statement accompanying the rule, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed that the Biden administration's focus on addressing climate change had hampered AI development.

> "The Trump administration is taking action to rectify the previous administration's actions to weaken the reliability of the electricity grid and our ability to maintain our leadership on artificial intelligence," Zeldin said. "This is the first, and certainly not the last step, and I look forward to continue working with artificial intelligence and data center companies and utilities to resolve any outstanding challenges and make the U.S. the AI capital of the world."

https://www.newsweek.com/ai-race-fossil-powered-generators-a...

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#254

Post by baggy_trough »

svnt wrote: post #253
baggy_trough wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a specific example of that?

It has been widely reported. Here is an example not of a coal-fired but diesel and gas mobile power sources. If you spend time looking you will have no trouble finding sources. > Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule clarification allowing the use of some mobile gas and diesel power sources for data centers. In a statement accompanying the rule, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed that t…

I spent some time and could not find a specific example. You haven't shown one here, either.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#255

Post by svnt »

ranyume wrote: post #247
willvarfar wrote: post #59

My dream solution: The EU creates an institution for public knowledge, a kind of library+tech solution. It probably funds classic libraries in member countries, but it also invests in tech. It dovetails nicely into a big push to get science to thrive in the EU etc. The tech part makes a in-the-public-interest search engine and AI. The techies are incentivised to try and whack-a-mole the classic SEO. E.g. they might s…

You make it sound like the techies will be their own boss. Sorry, but politicians are in charge.

The democratically-elected politicians are in charge of creating an environment where capitalists can capitalist without consuming everything in the process.

This is pretty much the best arrangement we have come up with so far in human civilization. You seem to be suggesting a tragedy of the commons is instead the ideal we should strive for.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#256

Post by svnt »

baggy_trough wrote: post #254
svnt wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been widely reported. Here is an example not of a coal-fired but diesel and gas mobile power sources. If you spend time looking you will have no trouble finding sources. > Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule clarification allowing the use of some mobile gas and diesel power sources for data centers. In a statement accompanying the rule, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed that t…

I spent some time and could not find a specific example. You haven't shown one here, either.

Here is one: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-coal-fired-power-plant-...

Here is another: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/trump-coal-executive-order-...

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#257

Post by baggy_trough »

svnt wrote: post #256
baggy_trough wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent some time and could not find a specific example. You haven't shown one here, either.

Here is one: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-coal-fired-power-plant-... Here is another: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/trump-coal-executive-order-...

Sorry, but they simply are not.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#258

Post by culebron21 »

Absolutely agree. Especially Google search results became generic and useless. Their Youtube search is a list of 3 generic links and then just complete junk. DuckDuckGo had been lagging behind Google for years, but around 2022 it became on par if not superior.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#259

Post by baggy_trough »

gknoy wrote: post #250
baggy_trough wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this massive environmental harm? That sounds like hyperbole.

Training AI models uses a large amount of energy (according to what I've read / headlines I've seen /etc), and increases water usage. [0] I don't have a lot to offer as proof, merely that this is an idea that I have encountered enough that I was suprised you hadn't heard of it. I did a very cursory bit of googling, so the quality + dodginess distribution is a bit wild, but there appear to be indiustry reports [2, pag…

I agree that there is some incremental electricity usage. I do not think it can be characterized fairly as "massive environmental harm".

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#260

Post by ToucanLoucan »

crazygringo wrote: post #244
karel-3d wrote: post #78

The money situation is what gives me pause with LLMs. The amount of money it's burned on this is giant; those companies will need to make so much money to have any possibility of return. The idea is that we will all spend more money on AI that we spend on phones, and we will spend it on those companies only... I don't know, it just doesn't add up. As a user it's a great free ride though. Maybe there IS such a thing a…

> The amount of money it's burned on this is giant It's big, but it's honestly not that big. Most importantly, costs will quickly come down as we realize the limits of the models, the algorithms are optimized and even more-dedicated hardware is built. There's no reason to think it isn't sustainable, it will add up just fine. But yes, it will attract a ton of advertising, the same curve every service goes through, lik…

> the same curve every service goes through

This is honestly why I struggle to get excited for anything in our industry anymore. Whatever it is it just becomes yet another fucking vector for ad people to shove yet more disposable shit in front of me and jingle it like car keys to see if I'll pull out a credit card.

The exception being the Steam Deck, though one could argue it's just a massive loss-leader for Steam itself and thus game sales (though I don't think that would hold up to scrutiny, it's pretty costly and it's not like Valve was hurting for business but anyway) but yeah. LLMs will absolutely do the exact same, and Google's now fully given up on making search even decent, replacing it with shit AI nobody asked for that will do product placements any day now, I would bet a LOT of money on it.

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