AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
1–10 of 467 posts
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#2Let's take the highest perspective possible:
What is the value of technology which allows people communicate clearly with other people of any language? That is what these large language models have achieved. We can now translate pretty much perfectly between all the languages in the world. The curse from the tower of Babel has been lifted.
There will be a time in the future, when people will not be able to comprehend that you couldn't exchange information regardless of personal language skills.
So what is the value of that? Economically, culturally, politically, spiritually?
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#3I think that what is really behind the AI bubble is the same thing behind most money, power, and influence: land and resources. The AI future that is promised, whether to you and me or to the billionaires, requires the same thing: lots of energy, lots of land, and lots of water.
If you just wanted land, water, and electricity, you could buy them directly instead of buying $100 million of computer hardware bundled with $2 million worth of land and water rights. Why are high end GPUs selling in record numbers if AI is just a cover story for the acquisition of land, electricity, and water?
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#4> To think that with enough compute we can code consciousness is like thinking that with enough rainbows one of them will have a pot of gold at its end.
What does consciousness have to do with AGI or the point(s) the article is trying to make? This is a distraction imo.
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#5Let's take the highest perspective possible: What is the value of technology which allows people communicate clearly with other people of any language? That is what these large language models have achieved. We can now translate pretty much perfectly between all the languages in the world. The curse from the tower of Babel has been lifted. There will be a time in the future, when people will not be able to comprehend…
We could communicate with people before LLMs just fine though? We have hand gestures and some people learn multiple languages and google translate was pretty solid. I got by just fine in countries where I didn’t know the language because hand gestures work or someone speaks English.
What is the value of losing our uniqueness to a computer that lies and makes us all talk the same?
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#6I think that what is really behind the AI bubble is the same thing behind most money, power, and influence: land and resources. The AI future that is promised, whether to you and me or to the billionaires, requires the same thing: lots of energy, lots of land, and lots of water. If you just wanted land, water, and electricity, you could buy them directly instead of buying $100 million of computer hardware bundled wit…
Because then you can buy calls on the GPU companies
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#7Many people use AI as the source for knowledge. Even though it is often wrong or misleading, it's advice is better on average than their own judgement or the judgement of people they know. When an AI is "smarter" than 95%? of the population, even if it does not reach superintelligence, will be a very big deal.
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#8I think that what is really behind the AI bubble is the same thing behind most money, power, and influence: land and resources. The AI future that is promised, whether to you and me or to the billionaires, requires the same thing: lots of energy, lots of land, and lots of water. If you just wanted land, water, and electricity, you could buy them directly instead of buying $100 million of computer hardware bundled wit…
But with this play they can inflate their company holdings and cash out in new rounds. It’s the ultimate self enrichment scheme! Nobody wants that crappy piece of land but now it’s got GPUs and we can leverage that into a loan for more GPUs and cash out along the way.
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#9Let's take the highest perspective possible: What is the value of technology which allows people communicate clearly with other people of any language? That is what these large language models have achieved. We can now translate pretty much perfectly between all the languages in the world. The curse from the tower of Babel has been lifted. There will be a time in the future, when people will not be able to comprehend…
Which languages couldn't we translate before? Not you, the individual. We, humanity?
Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power
#10I think this is the best part of the essay:
> But then I wonder about the true purpose of AI. As in, is it really for what they say it’s for?
> There is a vast chasm between what we, the users, and them, the investors, are “sold” in AI. We are told that AI will do our tasks faster and better than we can — that there is no future of work without AI. And that is a huge sell, one I’ve spent the majority of this post deconstructing from my, albeit limited, perspective. But they — the people who commit billions toward AI — are sold something entirely different. They are sold AGI, the idea of a transformative artificial intelligence, an idea so big that it can accommodate any hope or fear a billionaire might have. Their billions buy them ownership over what they are told will remake a future world nearly entirely monetized for them. And if not them, someone else. That’s where the fear comes in. It leads to Manhattan Project rationale, where any lingering doubt over the prudence of pursuing this technology is overpowered by the conviction of its inexorability. Someone will make it, so it should be them, because they can trust them.