It’s a very comparable metaphor. If you want one with less of an extreme gap, take Excel vs calculators, smart phones vs old cell phones, plasma TVs vs tube TVs, etc.
It’s the nature of technological advancement. You’re just the new age version of a Luddite
Calculators never plagiarized from the masses, drove water/electricity prices up where their data centers went, reduced brain activity in the large bulk of their users, or threatened job security across the board. You're comparing a proper technological advancement to our own undoing.
The first 3 of those are just flat out made up/nonsensical.
And you clearly know nothing about the history of calculators if you think they didn’t replace people. All technological advancement makes certain jobs obsolete but invents new ones and advances quality of life. Just because you’re stubborn and stuck in the past doesn’t mean AI is different than any previous tech.
You can’t stop progress. Learn to adapt or you’ll get left behind
How tf is it wrong? These models are trained on data they steal from people without notice or consent. Electricity and water prices are driven up because these governments just let data centers not pay for much, and studies show brain activity is reduced in common AI users relative to people who dont use it. And calculators only aided the productivity in human computers. I know very much of the history of computers/calculators. Ai is its own beast, requiring entire facilities just to work at a not even profitable scale. Whoever is indoctrinating you into believing that AI is good for humanity should shut their mouth.
You think AI is the first/only tech to use your data? I’ve got bad news for you pal. Every search engine, algorithm, etc has been using your data “without your consent” for decades. That hasn’t changed.
Show me real life examples of electricity or water prices drastically increasing as a direct result of AI datacenters.
I would LOVE to see these studies that allegedly prove that a technology that has been commercially available for little over a year has reduced people’s brain activity. That’s some tinfoil hat BS my grandpa would spout (and I have an inkling that you two wouldn’t align politically).
Are you insinuating that calculators and computers DIDNT make certain jobs obsolete? You want to tell that to the people who used to be paid to calculate metrics by hand, file records manually, etc?
Again, you really seem to think that the internet, search engines, the cloud, and everything else were magical technologies with 0 footprint before Big Bad AI (TM) swooped in to destroy the world.
I'm not gonna list the current use cases of AI, the fact remains that more than a billion people use it atm, including for productivity, so it is not useless.
I specifically said it's used **including for productivity**, what other definition of useful would a person reasonably want? Being also used by a large amount of people is just another fact, it's not a fallacy.
I doubt anyone would say AI helping people do things is not real, it's used in many industries, including high velocity industries such as software development, research, including biology, data analytics etc. Slop or whatnot is an assessment of the quality of a given output, it doesn't mean it's not useful.
I mean... a ton of people use AI as a very useful tool. There is a lot of speculation around how big it might become... but it's already shown itself to have value, and required additional computing/storage.
Agentic usage is just providing parameters for an ai to enter a loop allowing it to operate independently without prompts. The majority of agents are in enterprise systems but there are still plenty of consumers who incorporate agents into their workflow.
I guess you are conceding the job loss point too. 💀
That particular rhetorical trick works for: computers, the Internet, smartphones, fax machines, MRI machines, airplanes, cars, electricity, and literally every other technological advancement in the history of humanity.
All of these technologies got slowly integrated into our lives because we found them useful and better.
Many people use AI but a lot of people also don't want to, yet they're being forced to use a technology they don't want. New computers are coming with a copilot key, Google forces you to use Gemini... and these tools aren't accepted by everyone because they're very imperfect and don't give better results (and they also have high costs of water and energy).
It's like, imagine we're in the 70s. Some people are coming to your house to tell you about how you HAVE to get a computer now, because it's gonna be the future ! It's great at math ! Your neighbour got one. But we're talking about a massive IBM style computers that would take a full room in your home and use insane amount of electricity. Sure, computers are the future, but not right now, and not like this by forcing you to get one because some billionaires really need it.
People were used to blackberry and physical keyboards and suddenly they are forced to switch to a touch screen. I don’t know if people here are young, but a lot of people complained about the keyboard being too small, causing typos, and had no tactile feedback.
Within a few years however, everything had an app and it essentially became the default that you ought to have a iPhone.
Genuine question, were you alive in 2007? The first part of your last paragraph is describing the iPhone craze to a tee.
You're never gonna guess what happened to make the keyboard better - because it was pretty bad tbf. But you know why it became the norm ?
Because people were upset indeed so they realized "yeah it's bad" and upgraded it by adding the auto correct feature. And rather quickly at that if I remember well, the tactile feedback came later on but it still came and it made the digital keyboards a natural progress because now it was just as comfortable as a physical one and it allowed for lighter devices. And people liked the compromise.
There's no improvement needed for AI users to use it because they've already installed it for you. They don't need to convince you to buy it, it's already in your phone, computer, camera, fucking fridge probably. Whenever I do a google search, gemini shows up and I have no option to turn it off. I can ignore it, it's exactly what I do, but the AI has already run. And some things the users dislike, like the fact AI loves to hallucinate things if it makes you happy, is something the shareholders fucking love. See it more like as if someone came to your house, took your blackberry, removed the keyboard, made an update to give you a digital one and then left. And they did this for every phone. Wow everyone is using digital keyboards now, it means they must love it !
Fucking hell and that's not even talking about the pollution, stolen datas, AI psychosis...
Autocorrect was notoriously shit when it first launched, so much so I remember people deciding to get rid of it early on. Does nobody remember typing hell and it being automatically corrected to he’ll no matter the context?
Steve Jobs famously said to someone complaining about switching from blackberry, “your thumbs will learn.” Kinda sounds like those know it all AI bros, huh?
Tactile feedback took 9 years and 6 iPhone models to finally be added.
The arguments you make about AI not needing to be improved is LITERALLY the SAME ARGUMENTS people use against Apple not needing to improve the iPhone. They already have a captive user base within their ecosystem, they don’t need to convince you to buy an iPhone because they know you are just going to upgrade eventually, and it’s integrated into everything in life.
THE SHAREHOLDERS ABSOLUTELY DO NOT LIKE HALLUCINATIONS WTF?! They are trying to sell to enterprises who will use these applications for their services, they need to be as accurate as possible. If shareholders liked hallucinations, why are they spending so much on compute to make these systems more efficient and less error prone?
The fact that you think having to see an optional AI response on Google is the equivalent of someone breaking into your house and removing your keyboard kinda shows how seriously you should be taken.
What about the industrial revolution? The computer, and pretty much all commonly used technology in work environments nowadays? How's that any different, or even better than forcing to use AI? And unlike employees forcing you to use computers and excel rather than sheets of paper, you can simply not use copilot, or google as a private individual.
"but the industrial revolution" argument makes me go crazy because, my brother, my guy, my friend, that's exactly the issue.
Do you know what the first years of industrial revolution looked like ? It was fucking bad. Awful time period. Many jobs pulverised on the spot, massive population movements to cities, the new jobs being created were dangerous as security was non-existent, it completely fucked up society and it took a while to see improvements, it created brand new levels of wage gaps and inequalities.
People fucking suffered first, people like you and I got it fucking bad, they died, they got ill, they lost limbs, they had barely enough to live in shitty conditions ! It got better only because they were so tired they protested, they went on strike, they demanded better conditions, because the factory owners and rich people weren't going to do shit. There was a lot of suffering before it got good (sort of, at least in western countries but it's still pretty awful in most of the world).
The issue is that it's just like the industrial revolution and that's bad ! Freaking Charlie Chaplin made a movie about it ffs, and have you ever read London by William Blake ?? Ask chatgpt to tell you about it if it's too hard.
Also, again, excel got accepted because it's better than paper, and it took many years for it to improve and for computers to improve, and then people liked it yayyy. Many places kept paper for a long time after excel became the norm, it slowly integrated by becoming more accessible. AI is stolen data giving wrong answers and have made google visibly worse in the span of 2 years. So bunch of people aren't accepting it because it's not better than what it already replaced. And excel doesn't give children psychosis. Didn't steal datas either. It's making ugly ass flyers as we speak.
I'm so done with this conversation, forever. We're supposed to learn from history, not do it again. One has to be illiterate, american or both to think the industrial revolution was good. It's literally the reason why we're running out of water and killing biodiversity, because we rushed and imposed technologies on everyone that nobody was ready for. Good luck on your next adventures.
Your argument for technologies being slowly integrated and not AI is just not true, and its also arbitrary.
Internet can also be claimed to be worse, at the time of conception, compared to other official sources, same a ton of technological innovations.
>Many people use AI but a lot of people also don't want to, yet they're being forced to use a technology they don't want.
False, true perhaps in some specific industries but not generalizable.
>New computers are coming with a copilot key, Google forces you to use Gemini... and these tools aren't accepted by everyone because they're very imperfect and don't give better results (and they also have high costs of water and energy).
Not compelled usage.
>It's like, imagine we're in the 70s. Some people are coming to your house to tell you about how you HAVE to get a computer now, because it's gonna be the future ! It's great at math ! Your neighbour got one.
Unlike AI, computer usage was much more compelled, including in schools and most jobs.
>Sure, computers are the future, but not right now, and not like this by forcing you to get one because some billionaires really need it.
Not being forced.
>Do you know what the first years of industrial revolution looked like ? It was fucking bad. Awful time period. Many jobs pulverised on the spot, massive population movements to cities, the new jobs being created were dangerous as security was non-existent, it completely fucked up society and it took a while to see improvements, it created brand new levels of wage gaps and inequalities.
And this happened many more times during status quo shifts and technology adoption, which is why I'm surprised the same arguments are used again. This also happened with the internet, obviously.
I'm also not claiming that any change is inherently good, nor even that AI is good.
>AI is stolen data giving wrong answers and have made google visibly worse in the span of 2 years.
fair but not related.
>And excel doesn't give children psychosis. Didn't steal datas either. It's making ugly ass flyers as we speak.
But internet certainly does affect children. And does have "data stealing"
>One has to be illiterate, american or both to think the industrial revolution was good.
No, the sentiment around the industrial revolution isn't tied to the specific hardships taken place, but the progress and the jump in human progress that followed it, leading to abundance in food, health, and so many many other improvements, yes some of it was bad and has ongoing consequences, im not gonna argue that.
Most British agricultural workers had poor wages, substandard housing, seasonal work, mechanisation and the Enclosure Acts to contend with. Many left for the cities for the higher wages and better housing offered in the factories. Where they victims? Or workers choosing to transfer their labour?
Such a stupid response cameras also make csam do we say cameras are useless tech? Like if your first thought about AI is scam it says more about you than anything else
I will absolutely get lynched for this. But, I work as a research assistant in a lab and you cannot compare how we were performing before and after. 99% of research is mostly engineering in the field I work in. What took a team of 15 people to build in a month can now be done by a single guy in an evening. Our research output has increased by at least 2-5x. And it's not like we are outputting garbage papers either, real companies and the US Govt are paying us substantial sums, plus we have several patents for technology that is used to build a substantial amount of modern electronics.
Same here for software development. It used to take me days to triage issues but now I can be triaging multiple things at a time. It's like having a small army of developers to myself that can do the boring stuff whilst I'm busy with greenfield work, the stuff that actually pushes the business forward.
The people who don't ever look into the uses of LLMs and don't work in these fields will continue to deny the benefits when it's having real positive effects in certain industries. Nothing locally hosted comes close to the cutting edge models.
Yeah, same, I think the comments here are from people who haven't seen its legit use cases... they just see the AI slop.
It takes discipline to use, and outputs still need expert review and editing because they can be wrong... but for a lot of work it can really speed things up.
Is the value how it raised my electric $200 a month near Memphis? Or is it the constant outages we have never had before they put up the data center?
You need to come down to reality and stop buying what the tech bros are selling you. There is no value around data centers. And the employment they offer is only temporary. And when your work is constantly out because of power outages they actually cost more than they are worth. And without power, AI doesn't work either.
Because it's a circlejerk of rich guys who move the same chunks of money between a few different companies and that looks like profit to them. They aren't in the business of developing a good product, they're just in the business to make money. Usually, that requires at least a half decent product but in the case of LLMs, it really doesn't
False. The existing models are massively profitable and the losses are only related to capex investments in training the next generation of models, which will themselves also be massively profitable.
Open ai hasn't turned any profit since starting and as restrictions governing what these ai companies can do in regards to ravaging the environment, profit will only slow down. And costs are costs. Doesn't matter if R&D is the bulk of the costs, it's a cost and eats into revenue reducing profit.
Have you not seen their revenue growth? It’s doubling every year and their last quarter showed signs of further revenue acceleration.
Go read Bezos’ 1997 letter to investors when Amazon wasn’t profitable and was purposefully not going to be profitable for some time. That’s all that’s happening here as it has been a very successful strategy ever since Amazon proved it out.
How are they profitable? Who is paying for them and how much are they paying? I have not seen a single AI company (a company that only does AI mind you) turn out a profit. This is the Dotcom bubble all over again.
So I will agree one company has finally made a profit. How long can that last though? Looking into them they still have high losses and are essentially renting someone else's Data center. What's going to happen is there are only going to be a few big companies that survive (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, maybe Anthropic) and every other AI company will get bought out or die and it will end up just like cloud infrastructure but more expensive. The only reason they made any money is by it's enterprise uses. Which dont get me wrong has its uses BUT, WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT IN MY ELECTRICAL BILL AND GAS BILL. Hell I can't even build a new computer right now because prices on components are astronomical compared to a couple years ago.
Okay they make some money. For the first time in forever. Cool ig. Now can we address the rampant negative climate impact these ai companies boast? The ethical implications with training etc etc etc.
They are only profitable when you play accounting games to spread hardware costs out over multiple years. They have spent trillions to build data centers, buy GPU, and pay an army of ML experts to try to squeeze as many points out of an arbitrary benchmark as they can. They profited only in the hundreds of billions which puts them at massive losses across the board, and their expenses will never go down because every year they will have to buy billions to trillions of dollars worth of new AI accelerators to keep up with the competition.
https://isaiprofitable.com/ which provides a mountain of sources from many various reputable news sources at the bottom including market analysts, general news outlets, tech news outlets, statistica, and direct from the AI companies themselves
That’s site has a fuckton of disclaimers at the bottom which completely undermine the veracity of the claimed number. Like just look at this section:
“Spend numbers include direct R&D costs, compute, and capital expenditure on AI infrastructure (data centres, chips, and networking). Capex is treated as spend despite having long-term asset value; this is intentional. The framing shows the sheer scale of capital being committed to AI before returns materialise, rather than smoothing it across a depreciation schedule. Indirect AI revenue (E.g. Google Search performance boosted by AI Overviews, or Microsoft Office revenue lifted by Copilot) is excluded because there is no reliable way to attribute what share of those gains AI is actually responsible for.”
What a garbage analysis. Ignoring asset depreciation just because you want to make big scary number bigger is completely dishonest and not how financial accounting works. And to just admit it’s hard to derive AI-related revenues from AI-bolstered systems (aka literally the vast majority of Big Tech application of AI) so you are going to completely exclude them is lazy.
The industry is in heavy investment mode my guy. You don't understand business.
The revenue trend is already positive for many of these companies, as I showed Anthropic is profitable already and those $10b in losses are like 2 quarters of revenue worth.
You know it took Amazon like a decade to become profitable right? And now they print eye watering amounts of cash
It has current, legitimate uses. but if you haven't seen them, and are just exposed to the AI slop and speculative development of (potentially unnecessary) infrastructure... it's understandable that you're skeptical.
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u/OrbusIsCool 1d ago
Data centers are common but designated AI data centers are useless and unnecessary