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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

#331

Post by bawolff »

ars wrote: post #264
bawolff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be worse. Money tends to ruin collaborative communities.

It doesn't need to be collaborative, people write books for money all the time. It's how the vast majority of human knowledge has been stored and perpetuated for millennia. This new business of people writing up their knowledge for free (wikpedia, stackexchange, forums, reddit, etc) is relatively new, and only semi-working.

Not just in the past. People write books today just as much as in the past.

Even today, encyclopedia briticana is still selling an encyclopedia product for about $75 a year.

The new business model is competiting with the old one. Generally the new model is winning on price and breadth, by a fairly wide margin. Accuracy seems about the same for both business models.

A business model doesn't need to be perfect to win, it just needs to be slightly better.

> It's how the vast majority of human knowledge has been stored and perpetuated for millennia.

I think writing books for money is a newish phenomenom. I think historically you probably had more of a patronage system for most art. Selling your written work is a lot harder in the pre-printing press era.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#332

Post by immibis »

graemep wrote: post #97
immibis wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's that way because of successful marketing - just like smoking, or cars, or fast food.

People enjoyed drinking long before there was marketing. People have been enjoying alcohol for literally tens of thousands of years. It has been associated with celebrations for many thousands (e.g. Jesus giving people alcohol to keep a wedding reception going - and that is just something that comes to mind - I am sure there are MUCH earlier examples someone familiar with older stuff can come up with). I would correc…

Not to excess though?

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#333

Post by michael1999 »

umvi wrote: post #270
autoexec wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a user it's a great free ride though. Maybe there IS such a thing as a free lunch after all! if you consider the massive environmental harm AI has and continues to cause, the people whose work has been stolen to create it, the impacts on workers and salaries, and the abuses AI enables that free lunch starts looking more expensive.

> the people whose work has been stolen to create it "Stolen" is kind of a loaded word. It implies the content was for sale and was taken without payment. I don't think anyone would accuse a person of stealing if they purchased GRRM's books, studied the prose and then used the knowledge they gained from studying to write a fanfic in the style of GRRM (or better yet, the final 2 books). What was stolen? "the prose sty…

I think you are missing some context. They were using Anna's Archive! They paid for nothing, downloaded in violation of copyright, and processed it. They violated US copyright law even before they actually ingested it!

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#334

Post by coryrc »

yencabulator wrote: post #305
coryrc wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trump stooge activities cannot be blamed on data centers. The relevant technical authorities did not want this.

Oh yes environmentalism is clearly why the data center owners themselves are running generators 24/7.

"All of the electricity consumed by Amazon’s operations, including its data centers, was matched with 100% renewable energy in 2023."

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-renew...

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#335

Post by yencabulator »

coryrc wrote: post #334
yencabulator wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes environmentalism is clearly why the data center owners themselves are running generators 24/7.

"All of the electricity consumed by Amazon’s operations, including its data centers, was matched with 100% renewable energy in 2023." https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-renew...

AWS is perhaps the most established vendor in this space. They if any should have their architecture sorted out and have great execution on their growth.

Meanwhile,

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...

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

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#336

Post by Tuperoir »

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…

"they might upscore obvious sources of truth for things like government"

Please, don't bring the state into it. I don't want to speedrun the 1984 ending.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#337

Post by ars »

bawolff wrote: post #331
ars wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need to be collaborative, people write books for money all the time. It's how the vast majority of human knowledge has been stored and perpetuated for millennia. This new business of people writing up their knowledge for free (wikpedia, stackexchange, forums, reddit, etc) is relatively new, and only semi-working.

Not just in the past. People write books today just as much as in the past. Even today, encyclopedia briticana is still selling an encyclopedia product for about $75 a year. The new business model is competiting with the old one. Generally the new model is winning on price and breadth, by a fairly wide margin. Accuracy seems about the same for both business models. A business model doesn't need to be perfect to win,…

> Generally the new model is winning on price and breadth, by a fairly wide margin. Accuracy seems about the same for both business models.

I quite disagree on both counts. Unless by breadth you mean tons of different topics. But if you want info on a specific topic a book has far greater breadth than the new systems.

Accuracy is also hit or miss, it depends on the topic. Highly charged topics are rarely accurate - at least with a book the bias is known and you can pick multiple books, online articles are a popularity contest/majority rules, rather than actual accuracy.

Technical topics are pretty accurate, but often pretty shallow. Or worse: Great technical detail that is impossible to understand unless you already know the topic, in which case why do you need it?

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#338

Post by nagonago »

JimDabell wrote: post #325
autoexec wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a user it's a great free ride though. Maybe there IS such a thing as a free lunch after all! if you consider the massive environmental harm AI has and continues to cause, the people whose work has been stolen to create it, the impacts on workers and salaries, and the abuses AI enables that free lunch starts looking more expensive.

> Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment — https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-b... > What’s the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT? — https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/carbon-footprint-c...

The problem is not so much the carbon footprint of just using LLMs, but the impact from building and running massive data centers needed to train the models. Check out this report from the ITU:

https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/PR-2025-06-05-green...

> According to the latest edition of the report, electricity consumption by data centers — which power AI development and deployment, among other uses — increased by 12 per cent each year from 2017 to 2023, four times faster than global electricity growth.

> Four leading AI-focused companies alone saw their operational emissions increase in the reporting period by 150 per cent on average since 2020. This rise in energy that is either produced or purchased – known as Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions – underscores the urgent need to manage AI's environmental impact.

> In total, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions reported by the 166 digital companies covered by the report contributed 0.8 per cent of all global energy-related emissions in 2023.

It's worth noting that it's not all gloom and doom. As the report optimistically notes:

> Renewable energy adoption: 23 companies operated on 100 per cent renewable energy in 2023, up from 16 in 2022.

> Dedicated climate reporting: 49 companies released standalone climate reports, signaling greater transparency.

> Scope 3 consideration: The number of companies publishing targets on indirect emissions from supply chains and product use rose from 73 to 110, showing increasing awareness of industry impacts.

So the environmental impact is alarming, but at least companies seem to be growing more conscientious about it. We must continue to hold tech companies accountable for their environmental impact, and keep pushing for renewable energy.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#339

Post by kulahan »

yencabulator wrote: post #304
kulahan wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The silver lining on this very dark cloud is that it seems to have renewed interest in nuclear power, though that was inevitable with the coming climate crisis I suppose.

At a time when solar & batteries were just getting great, nah.

Neither is really true, and regardless, that’s 5% of a solution. For big boy energy tasks, we need real solutions.

Re: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

#340

Post by kulahan »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #318
kulahan wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The silver lining on this very dark cloud is that it seems to have renewed interest in nuclear power, though that was inevitable with the coming climate crisis I suppose.

Haha, I would have thought the reckless cuts of DOGE or willingness of the current US administration to rely on AI for decision making would have driven home exactly why governments can't be trusted to manage nuclear. It's just too dangerous to leave it in the hands of people who don't believe in science, and value money, power, and ideology more than anything else. Its happening now, and there is nothing to stop it…

Nuclear power plants do not achieve the fission rates required for an explosion, and the system failsafes are designed entirely with an absent crew in mind. Not sure why you think it’s somehow smarter or safer to let them control a hundred gigawatts of solar power but not nuclear power.
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