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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

#51

Post by Frieren »

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…

> To others it's a statement that corporations should be held blameless, and access is a moral right that shoudn't be limited on consequentialist grounds.

The old, what is better for the rich VS what is better for society.

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

#53

Post by foxglacier »

Quothling wrote: post #28

I think the environmental aspect is interesting and worth discussing. Around the offices the common joke is that people will "just burn down a piece of the rainforest" when they fire up their AI to solve some complex problem. Which certainly isn't what the world needs right now, and you can't have the "tool" without also the massive water consumption in a world where not everyone has access to clean water. Though as…

I wonder if this fatalism comes from a feeling that the enormous power of AI must somehow come with some sort of proportional cost. There isn't really any clearly known cost so maybe that's why people talk up the water and global warming and social impact fears and all that.

In comparison, does anybody say they're burning down a bit of rainforest when they go to the toilet (and flush it)? Or when they cook dinner at home with more waste heat than factory cooked food? Or throw away a pen that's run out of ink? The environmental impact of all the mundane things in life is far greater than using AI but the impact of each mundane thing is perhaps also far less impressive.

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

#54

Post by hardbass »

jdw64 wrote: post #20

Right. AI is a tool that helps some people "make their situation better." I don't believe technology is value neutral either. Say a tractor does the work of ten farmers, and the farm owner lays off those ten farmers. Is that the tractor's fault? It's just the farm owner's fault. But we usually say the tractor took the ten farmers' jobs, because the farm owner trusted the productivity gain and made the cuts. That's th…

Who is stopping the third world from using and forking open source tools? I think its a nonsense excuse. Many of their people become accomplished developers when they immigrate to first world countries so foss is not the one at fault but crappy governments and crappy cultures are.

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

#55

Post by youre-wrong3 »

vaylian wrote: post #50

Are there upsides to using AI? Yes. Are there downsides? Definitely yes. And the problem is that most people ignore these downsides. Either due to ignorance, or because they got too used to using AI that they don't want to go back. AI is not just a tool, but a mechanism for dehumanization. Not because it replaces humans, but because it replaces human interactions, which have made us so successful as a species.

[flagged]

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

#56

Post by createful »

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. Again, the software didn't do anything, someone else did something to force it on you.

I'm not saying this as something to anger people, but because hating AI has no effect on whether you make AI optional at work or stop big tech companies and RAM manufacturers from price increases. Software has no mind or consciousness, it has no sense of being evil and purposely doing these things. People do, and people do it on purpose. People made AI, after all. It didn't spawn into existence.

The root cause of not being able to afford PCs might just be RAM companies themselves, along with some real demand from AI companies.

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

#57

Post by resonious »

> But artificial intelligence, far more than any tool we’ve ever created, intends us not just to sit forward and behave, but to cease to think critically, to cease to imagine, and, most temptingly, to cease to feel struggle and pain.

If I don't think critically, AI causes me to feel struggle and pain.

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

#58

Post by crote »

bruce511 wrote: post #39
Quothling wrote: post #28

I think the environmental aspect is interesting and worth discussing. Around the offices the common joke is that people will "just burn down a piece of the rainforest" when they fire up their AI to solve some complex problem. Which certainly isn't what the world needs right now, and you can't have the "tool" without also the massive water consumption in a world where not everyone has access to clean water. Though as…

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.

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

#59

Post by keiferski »

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 issues like abortion, patient end-of-life rights, etc. Scientists care about the ethics of using test subjects. And so on.

But when it comes to technology and business, the attitude is just, “not my problem - there’s too much money and cool stuff to make.”

At the end of the day, there is just too much money, power, and knowledge at stake for people to stop and think seriously about the tech they’re building.

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

#60

Post by user43928 »

leecommamichael wrote: post #12

I'm of the opinion that it can be a tool if used as one, but that most people are currently interested in experimenting with various sci-fi visions. I don't ascribe any emotion or judgment to that, either. We should be doing the things we're excited to do if it doesn't cause too much harm. There are boring and reliable uses for these things, but then the wins are smaller, so they're not as worth talking about. We all…

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.

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