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This is not the future

blog.mathieui.net

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Re: This is not the future

#371

Post by nathan_compton »

Aperocky wrote: post #208
nathan_compton wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its hubris to believe that you can formulate the correct game theoretic model to make significant statements about what is and is not inevitable.

I don't think OP claimed that. There is no conflict between not able to formulate the true model vs the existence of that actual model. Just because we weren't able to discover all of the law of physics, doesn't mean they don't apply to us.

I guess, but there are significant differences between the laws of physics and a game theoretic description of human behavior. Fundamentally, you cannot game theoretically predict the future without a model of the participants and, as you perhaps have noticed, there is no single model for the behavior of human beings because, fundamentally, human beings are an abstraction which covers ~9 billion distinct globs of cells with different genes, gene expressions, culture, personal experiences, etc.

As a physicist I think people are more sure about what an electron is, for example, than they should be, given that there is no axiomatic formulation of quantum field theory that isn't trivial, but at least there we are in spitting distance of having something to talk about such that (in very limited situations, mind you) we can speak of the inevitable. But the OP rather casually suggested, implicitly, if not explicitly, that the submitted article was wrong because "game theory," which is both glib and just like technically not a conclusion one could reasonably come to with an honest appraisal of the limitations of these sorts of ways of thinking about the world.

Re: This is not the future

#372

Post by munificent »

terminalshort wrote: post #349
bcrl wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be fine if data centers paid the full cost of their existence, but that isn't what happens in our world. Instead the cost of pollution is externalised and placed on the backs of humanity's children. That includes the pollution created by those datacentres running off fossil fuel generators because it was cheaper to use gas in the short term than to invest in solar capacity and storage that pays back over the…

Given that data centers use less energy than the alternative human labor they replace, they actually improve pollution. Replacing those GPUs with more efficient models also improves pollution because those replacements use less electricity for the same workload than the units they replaced.

This is such a wild take. You're 100% correct that AI-generated art consumes less resources that humans making art and having to, you know, eat food and stuff.

Obviously, the optimal solution is to eliminate all humans and have data centers do everything.

Re: This is not the future

#374

Post by clydethefrog »

nostrademons wrote: post #38

I think a more accurate and more useful framing is: Game theory is inevitable . Because game theory is just math, the study of how independent actors react to incentives. The specific examples called out here may or may not be inevitable. It's true that the future is unknowable, but it's also true that the future is made up of 8B+ independent actors and that they're going to react to incentives. It's also true that y…

"in formal experiments the only people who behaved exactly according to the mathematical models created by game theory are economists themselves, and psychopaths" [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentar...

Re: This is not the future

#375

Post by simgt »

dj_gitmo wrote: post #225
simgt wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re Tiktok, what is definitely not inevitable is the monetization of human attention. It's only a matter of policy. Without it the incentives to make Tiktok would have been greatly reduced, if even economically possible at all.

> what is definitely not inevitable is the monetization of human attention. It's only a matter of policy. Without it the incentives to make Tiktok would have been greatly reduced, if even economically possible at all. This is not a new thing. TV monetizes human attention. Tiktok is just an evolution of TV. And Tiktok comes from China which has a very different society. If short-form algo slop video can thrive in both…

Radio broadcasting and newspapers monetized it even before TV. China is hyper-capitalist too, what is restricted is mainly political speech so that doesn't make much difference. If anything the EU is probably where advertisement is the most regulated. We can easily envision having way more constrains on advertisement and influencing, that would reduce drastically the value of human attention. Not sure many would get in the streets to protest against that.

Re: This is not the future

#376

Post by rmah »

jlawson wrote: post #249
rmah wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game theory is no more a description of nature than Euclidian geometry is.

Sure, but go try to build a house while ignoring what Euclidean geometry tells you about it.

I agree that both geometry and game theory are very useful tools.

Re: This is not the future

#377

Post by ToucanLoucan »

jrowen wrote: post #368
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This actually strikes me as a good thing. The more we can get big dumb ads out of meatspace and confine everything to devices, the better, in my opinion (though once they figure out targeted ads in public that could suck). I mean the issue is the billboards aren't going away, they're just costing less and less which means you get ads for shittier products (see aforementioned lawyers, reverse mortgages and other fin…

> If they were getting taken down I'd heartily agree with you. At some point it won't be worth it to maintain them, hopefully. > I still largely get the experience that after I buy a toilet seat for example on Amazon, Amazon then regularly shows me ads for additional toilet seats, as though I've taken up throne collecting as a hobby or something. This is definitely a thing, I feel like it's getting better though and…

> This is definitely a thing, I feel like it's getting better though and stuff like that drops off pretty quickly. But it still doesn't bother me nearly as much as watching the same 30 second TV commercial for the 100th time, I just swipe or scroll past, and overall it's still much better than seeing the lowest common denominator stuff.

I'll second the absolute shit out of that. My only exposure to TV anymore is hotels and I cannot fathom why anyone would spend ANY money on it as a service, let alone what I know cable costs. The ads are so LOUD now and they repeat the same like 4 or 5 of them over and over. Last business trip I could lipsync a Wendy's ad like I'd done it my whole life.

> I hear you, the attention economy is a brave new world, and there will probably be some course corrections. I don't think ads are really the problem though, in some ways everything vying for your attention is an ad now.

See I don't like the term attention economy, I vastly prefer anxiety economy. An attention economy implies at least some kind of give and take, where a user's attention is rewarded rather than simply their lack of it is attempted to be punished. The constant fomenting of FOMO and blatant use of psychological torments does not an amicable relationship make. It makes it feel like a constant back and forth of blows, disabling notifications, muting hashtags, unsubscribing from emails because you simply can't stand the NOISE anymore.

Re: This is not the future

#378

Post by Ritewut »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #305
Ritewut wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech artist here so I hit a middle ground. > I understand artists etc. Talking about AI in a negative sense, because they don’t really get it completely, or just it’s against their self interest which means they find bad arguments to support their own interest subconsciously >But somehow if a person “influenced” by people, ideas, art in less efficient way almost we applaud that because what else, invent the wheel aga…

It's not corps only though, AI at this point include many open models, and we'll have more of it as we go if needed. Just like how the original hacker culture was born, we have the open source movements, AI will follow it. When LLMs first gotten of, people were talking about how governments will control them, but anyone who knows the history of personal computing and hacker culture knew that's not the way things go i…

The people who "innovate" and build it are working for Meta and the companies that shamelessly steal from individuals. Companies are made up of individuals who make these decisions.

Re: This is not the future

#379

Post by trynumber9 »

doesnt_know wrote: post #311
chaseadam17 wrote: post #218

Agree with OP. This reminds me of fast food in the 90s. Executives rationalized selling poison as "if I don't, someone else will" and they were right until they weren't. Society develops antibodies to harmful technology but it happens generationally. We're already starting to view TikTok the way we view McDonalds. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Most food innovation is net positive but fast food too…

Obesity rates have never been higher and the top fast food franchises have double digit billions in revenue. I don’t think there is any redemption arc in there for public health since the 90s.

US adult obesity rates have been declining (slowly) for about 5 years now. Probably not a fluke.

Re: This is not the future

#380

Post by terminalshort »

munificent wrote: post #372
terminalshort wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that data centers use less energy than the alternative human labor they replace, they actually improve pollution. Replacing those GPUs with more efficient models also improves pollution because those replacements use less electricity for the same workload than the units they replaced.

This is such a wild take. You're 100% correct that AI-generated art consumes less resources that humans making art and having to, you know, eat food and stuff. Obviously, the optimal solution is to eliminate all humans and have data centers do everything.

But that was his objection, so that's what I responded to.
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