361
Generative AI hype is ending – and now the technology might actually become useful
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
361 points (91.7% liked)
Technology
59569 readers
3825 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Useful in the way that it increases emissions and hopefully leads to our demise because that's what we deserve for this stupid technology.
While the consumption for AI train can be large, there are arguments to be made for its net effect in the long run.
The article's last section gives a few examples that are interesting to me from an environmental perspective. Using smaller problem-specific models can have a large effect in reducing AI emissions, since their relation to model size is not linear. AI assistance can indeed increase worker productivity, which does not necessarily decrease emissions but we have to keep in mind that our bodies are pretty inefficient meat bags. Last but not least, AI literacy can lead to better legislation and regulation.
The argument that our bodies are inefficient meat bags doesn't make sense. AI isn't replacing the inefficient meat bag unless I'm unaware of an AI killing people off and so far I've yet to see AI make any meaningful dent in overall emissions or research. A chatgpt query can use 10x more power than a regular Google search and there is no chance the result is 10x more useful. AI feels more like it's adding to the enshittification of the internet and because of its energy use the enshittification of our planet. IMO if these companies can't afford to build renewables to support their use then they can fuck off.
Sure, if you consider anything at all to be "AI". I'm pretty sure my spellchecker is relatively efficient.
What do I need to read about my spellchecker? What legislation and regulation does it need?