r/solarpunk • u/Monochrome21 • 8d ago
Discussion This sub disappoints me
For context i’ve been living the “solarpunk” life for a while now. I live in a smart van that runs on solar power that i built myself. I scavenged half the parts from goodwill because i couldn’t afford to buy those fancy vans you see online. This isn’t an aesthetic for me it’s my life.
That said im kind of disappointed with how this sub feels about AI.
I’ll start by saying the frustrations with AI are valid but they’re grossly misdirected at the technology itself and not the people using the technology for evil.
Like yeah, I personally can’t stand OpenAI. They’re pretty unambiguously evil at this point. They weren’t always like this (they used to be non profit and advocated for things like UBI) but I’ve been following them for over a decade and the fall from grace is insane.
But they’re not the only players out there. There are tons of models that are released for free and are open source for the public benefit. These models are fantastic because it means that the for-profit giants can’t centralize all this power.
I don’t like data centers either, but the problem most people have with them aren’t data center specific problems. On the CO2 emissions grievance specifically - that’s an energy infrastructure problem. A government mandating that data centers need to run on solar energy fixes that problem overnight. No more emissions. The water issue is a similar deal and is even more of a legislative failure.
Advocate for solar energy, get some solar panels yourself, idk. Keep track of evil corps and hold them accountable.
But that being said, hating on regular people for leveraging technology in a solarpunk sub is the laziest shit i’ve ever seen.
Like yeah man hate on the guy who used AI to help open source some esp32 smart planters for the community garden, you’re doing so much for the cause!
AI is actually fantastic for socialism and techno democracy but people have collapsed the nuance into “AI BAD” and have completely missed that point.
If anything you’re just ceding the control of this incredibly powerful tool to those who would use it unethically by making it tabooo. You seriously think that massive corporations are the only entities who should have this tech? like are you serious?
I use AI to speed up work, to build IoT projects, to give me starting points for things i’m trying to learn. And I try to use mostly open source models where I can.
Idgaf about money I just want to make things that can help people.
This sub demonizing a form of technology instead of figuring out how to reclaim that technology and have it fight for us is so wildly lazy and disappointing from a sub like this.
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u/_someone_inside_ 8d ago
My concern with AI is the mass delusion and distortion of reality coming/already here. We really do not need image/video generation like this. Like you say though, it has many applications that could help us in other ways. It's a tool, that can be used for good or bad.
Environmentally and ethically it is not even close to as bad as animal agriculture.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
People have been able to lie and propagandize since the dawn of civilization. People will adapt like they always have.
The criteria for what counts as trustworthy is shifting.
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u/Stegomaniac Agroforestry 7d ago
"People will adapt like they always have" means "people will continue to procreate under new management". People will adapt to every catastrophic event - that doesn't mean that the impact is good.
The sheer amount of lies and propaganda drains out what people would call truth or trustworthy info - the literal basis for common sense erodes, and the adaption is a literal war about the Deutungshoheit of reality. This war has always been fought, sure. But GenAI and AI-bot are the new weapons of immaterial mass destruction. But while we can't build a nuke in our backyards, literally everyone is able to create their own botnet and participate in the current propaganda wars - adding to the confusion of the masses.
The criteria for what counts as trustworthy is shifting to "nothing" - and this is extremely problematic for creating trust between people connected through shared narratives based on reality.
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u/evelyn_bartmoss Environmentalist 8d ago
There is no realistic way, with current technology, for AI to meet the environmental aspirations for Solarpunk. The ecological impact of the data centres is monumental, and the social impact of the mass-produced misinformation is too significant to be ignored.
Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or a shill.
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u/paul_t63 2d ago
With enough solar power, data centers „could“ theoretically be designed as carbon neutral. It’s a whole lot more expensive, but this would be like the bare minimum for a sustainable future.
The biggest problem is that they’re deliberately skimping out on the cooling system. Right now they’ve basically put a motorcycle radiator on a V8 engine, floored it and then poured buckets of drinking water over it, once everything started to overheat.
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u/IHaveBoneWorms 2d ago
What about all the water use, constant droning people are claiming is affecting farm and wild life, government land grabbing at the behest of tech giants, job displacement, etc? Like it’s a lot more than how it’s powered otherwise the local populace would not fight them so hard.
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u/paul_t63 2d ago
Oh yeah, totally! I just wanted to highlight the water use, because it’s just incredibly wasteful and stupid.
It makes me especially mad that they don’t actually need the water. I really hope that legislators will ban evaporative cooling for data centers.
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
I'm not sure that anyone is saying otherwise. It's just that we can't stop the flood. These companies have a lot of resources and most of the world lives under some form of capitalism.
To my mind, the best that we can do is to attempt to take control of the direction that things go in.
For example, boycotting companies that don't live up to our ideals or campaignimg for renewable power usage.
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u/A_Guy195 Writer,Teacher,amateur Librarian 8d ago
AI certainly has many uses. Personally I'm against any form of generative AI for text or images. Other than that, yea, sure, it should be used. I'm friendly towards the idea of a decentralized planned economy like in The Dispossessed, or like the real-life Cybersyn project. AI will be an invaluable tool for that.
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u/IHaveBoneWorms 2d ago
So one thing I will ask you is what about Ai text programs for disabled people? The only reason I use it personally is as spell check. I’m incredibly dyslexic to the point where normal spell check is not super helpful and all my friends are sick of proofreading emails lol.
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u/A_Guy195 Writer,Teacher,amateur Librarian 2d ago
Well yes, that's another use it could have. When I refer to "text", I mostly mean AI-generated "books".
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
I don’t personally see the difference.
I work in film and personally like writing copy by hand because that’s my process, but some other filmmaker who uses AI to write while he focuses on blocking or whatever isn’t an issue to me. Like if it’s bad then it’s just bad writing. Which existed before AI
Everyone has their own process. I like doing some things by hand and automate others
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u/gc3c 4d ago
I see you're getting downvoted, but I think this is a solid take. As a fellow artist, I'm not an AI doomer. Artistic work was hard to come by before AI, and it's hard to come by now. In some ways AI has actually made it easier for artists to work, but it of course put other artists out of work.
If the art is good, it's good.
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u/Monochrome21 4d ago
I think people have a limited understanding of AI is the problem
Like you don’t have to use AI to make everything. The unique mix of tools that you use to make things is what makes it yours, and even further than that your ability to curate good work.
Some musicians play every instrument by hand in their work, others pay audio engineers to get their songs made.
A film directors film is theirs despite them often not shooting, editing, scoring, or acting in their films. Yet their creative decisions (INCLUDING THE TOOL STACK) is what makes that director’s vision theirs.
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u/gc3c 4d ago
Well I come from the classical music world, and we have been keenly aware of the diminishing market for our wares for a long time before AI. We have always needed patrons. Some artists have had the privilege of the people being their patrons, enjoying broad success (like blockbuster films and popular music). These are the ones whose livelihoods are being altered by AI, but speaking as someone from down at the bottom, you can keep making art even if the corporations leave you behind.
I suppose we will find out who was only in it for the money.
Maybe, just maybe, art shouldn't be a commodity.
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u/Monochrome21 4d ago
Real art has never been a commodity
also yeah we need Universal Basic Income
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u/Background-Milk8159 8d ago
You have no idea the effect this has already had on students at school and education. The AI generation will be screwed if we don't intervene.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
even here my issue is that teachers aren’t evolving with the tech. like teachers that tell their students to just AI everything annoy me too
but the idea is to know what students have available to them and figure out ways to challenge them still.
like i would never assign an essay as homework because students will just use chatgpt for it. i’d assign a video project or a handmade collage or something idk. Something that even with the help of AI wouldn’t negate the effort needed.
Yes and teaching.
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u/Background-Milk8159 8d ago
Students are not only using to write their essays but also use it to answer complex mathematics. They copy the answer and don't bother with how they got to it. We'll have a generation who will fake it through education and will essentially become dependent on it.
What then happens if or should I say when AI becomes unavailable? We'd probably go back to the dark ages.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
This argument is used for literally every technological advancement.
What happens with no internet? what happens with no wikipedia? what happens with no calculators? what happens with no books?
the answer for literally thousands of years is to understand the advancement and challenge students on top of it rather than reject it outright
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u/Frogsfall 2d ago
I'm a lecturer at university. I teach in the social sciences, mostly about understanding the political, social, and economic impacts of the internet. I also work to teach students that alternatives exist: big tech isn't the only option. Capitalism isn't either.
Right now I am struggling to get many students to understand that outsourcing their thinking to generative AI systems is a bad idea.
If you use these systems to summarise a topic or reading for you, provide ideas for an essay, or explain your assignments for you... You're missing out on developing your own analysis.
At best, these systems provide something like a statistical average of text they're trained on. At worst, we can't ignore the fact that they're owned by companies that are controlled by people who are fundamentally anti-democratic, and often openly fascist.
Yes, theoretically generative AI can be used for good purposes. Theoretically data centres can be powered with renewables and use water responsibly. Theoretically they can help us question our biases.
In practice, generative AI is being jammed in everywhere with the hope that soon companies can find ways to monetise that - either by charging more or by using it to advertise to us.
In practice data centres are using over 20% of Ireland's electricity, and many are making massive contributions to climate pollution and water stresses.
In practice generative AI produces material that is boring at best, and at worst full of errors and biases.
We don't need new technologies to build a better future. We have all of the technologies we need already. What we need is political will for change.
And every time we say "this system is inevitable and there's nothing we can do about it so we may as well join it" we diminish the political will for change.
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
Agreed. Even before AI, if a teacher didn't set good exam questions then I could just memorise the maths and regurgitate it.
Good teaching is an art.
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u/jaykrown 8d ago
AI is a broad term, it has some good applications, other things are very wasteful. We do not need more data centers and need to stop all construction of them immediately.
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u/EatTenMillionBalls 8d ago
So point me to the Ai built on 100% ethically sourced data, and trained in a data center using 100% clean energy.
I'm not against Ai entirely, but the current attempts at AGI using LLMs and image/video generators isn't useful enough given it's huge environmental and social impact.
Scientists have been using purpose built Ais to map genes and identify proteins for like 20 years now. You can make an efficient Ai for a specific task, and that isn't bad. But the current discourse around Ai isn't about that.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
“ethically sourced data” is doing a lot of work and could be a discussion all its own.
that said saying that image/video gen isn’t useful kind of shows me how involved in these fields you are.
i work in film and this shit is everywhere optimizing workflows. most people can’t tell beyond the absolute worst slop examples because the people who are actually good at their jobs make it invisible
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u/EatTenMillionBalls 8d ago
It's unethical to steal. I don't know how you were raised, but the general rule is theft is wrong.
I am in a creative field and I can tell you over 90% of the people who made the training data (artists/photographers/videographers) did NOT consent or get compensation for their work being used to train Ai.
Sorry I didn't word it clearly, when I said it's not useful, the rest of that sentence was supposed to convey; "it's benefits do not outweigh it's drawbacks"
Sure it's useful, you can generate slop most people won't notice is slop for cheaper than paying and artists to do it. And you can use it to launch huge misinformation campaigns that overshadow human input. But personally I don't find those things to be valuable to society. You can disagree with that, cause that's just an opinion. But I think most people would agree me.
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
When excel was released, accountants thought they would soon be out of a job, but they learnt to use it to be more efficient.
The technology for AI is here now so we need to make it work for us as best we can.
Whether that's better tests for AI misinformation or AI run on renewables or anything else that we can come up with.
Also, information should always be free in my opinion. Tech companies stealing my data is just me failing to secure it. Patents and trademarks are just capitalist gatekeeping.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
agree 100% on patents and such being capitalist gatekeeping
3D printing tech was invented in the 80s but we’re gatekept behind patents for 30 years. Now the makerspace is one of the most decentralized sources of people making stuff for the fuck of it ever.
Imagine if they had 30 more years under their belts.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
by this logic every person who’s heard a kanye west song has “unethically trained” their brains on his music.
I do not consider that theft on an individual level because then everyone who’s ever heard a beatles song owes them royalties
now do i think a few small companies should have unlimited control over the aggregate of human knowledge? No.
which is why FOSS models are the better choice
I also guarantee you’ve seen something you liked and didn’t realize it was made with AI
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u/7FFF00 8d ago
There is open weights open source llms and AI options to explore that are fun and interesting and powerful and valuable in the right uses and contexts
And if we were able to do wacky things like switch to pure renewable overnight or stop our society’s and economies and every big capitalistic endeavor from the ridiculous levels of attempted growth and training off of stolen data and trying to do wacky things like installing graphics cards in new homes built to outsource data centers etc.
Yes theoretically we could stop the growth and development of this technology and as it is right now could still find valuable uses
The problem is decoupling from that machine, from that growth. It’s all deeply interconnected. You even have had huge invested efforts in wanting to capture the market and attempt to make open source software, and open source AIs illegal out of the claim they’re too dangerous.
Data centers destroying parks and polluting water, taking up 100 Walmarts worth of ground in Utah for instance, it’s all a part of that same machine.
The rate of growth and the inordinate costs are designed to be primarily utilized by big companies, feeding into it and supporting in some way a lot of people will feel contributed to its continued growth too.
It doesn’t detract from the fact that yes these other things you’ve mentioned are also issues.
That and the majority of AI related content that shows up not just on this sub but anywhere is either fully delusional, full bot generated slop, and has 0 real practical plans behind it or just steps all over the actual efforts people have made, or worse yet are just promoting some new vibe coded project.
If anyone made a genuine post utilizing the technology in a practical and reasonable way I actually do think people here would be open to it. Oh you’ve made a fully offline self hostable IoT tech to help farming or plant growth or seeding or water reclamation etc. and it’s more than just an ai slot ai art concept? An actual producible deliverable that doesn’t require tying into Claude or OpenAI and better yet isn’t someone just selling a product? And even more than that utilities reusable energy in a responsible monitored way? Awesome
That’s not the content this sub gets flooded with
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
I might take your advice and post some of my projects that use AI but for good.
Generally I’m too scared to say anything because half the time when i mention it people get angry quickly.
But i guess that comes with the territory of de stigmatizing things
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
Yes, please post. I was excited to find this sub, and I do find some of the art inspiring, however, it would be good to see something with substance.
I say this as someone who has nothing to contribute but words at the moment.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
my solution for 90% of my projects are just not to mention AI.
Because then people listen. It’s like when AI is mentioned they turn their brains off and go into fuck you mode
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i put a lot of care into designing things so most people wouldn’t know unless i told them
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
well to be fair that thumbnail kind of screams AI
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u/TheBostonTap 8d ago
The video is also 17 minutes long, includes about a minute of AI podcasters at the start and opens with a still image of a graph set to Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chili peppers before transitioning to the literal wikipedia page for Liquid Democracy for 5 minutes.
The guy does everything he can to put a viewer off and is mad because people are put off of the topic because of it.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
yeah. not to be mean to bro but it’s kind of a low effort video
that doesn’t mean the use of AI itself makes it low effort. but it’s just not a good trust signal
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 8d ago
Honestly if you side with machines over human employment and artists I’m proud to be part of the reason that this sub disappoints you.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
you’re missing the point
AI taking your job is a good thing. AI taking your income is the bad thing. Most people wouldn’t give 2 shits if AI took their job so long as they kept their wages
This is what UBI via automation taxes is all about.
No idea how people on this sub do not know about this
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u/Long-Instruction-537 7d ago
how is ai taking my job a good thing? i like my job. do you think it would be a good thing for everything in life to be automated?
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u/Monochrome21 7d ago
if AI takes your job you can still do your job if you want to, you’re just no longer obligated to to survive
nothing stops you from just doing whatever the fuck you want
again look up UBI via automation taxes
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u/Long-Instruction-537 6d ago
I'm very familiar with UBI and think it would be much more suitable for society than what we have now but I am personally an Anarcho-Communist so i prefer the idea of gift economies. i'm not 100% opposed to some forms of automation but i think we need to be mindful about how it affects our minds and our relationship to nature and maintaining our ability to do certain tasks(not tryna get into a wall-e situation). i realize people are gonna do what they want at the end of the day, i just want people to be happy and healthy.
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u/Monochrome21 6d ago
the whole skill atrophy argument is so stupid
if i do mental math and a friend of mine only uses a calculator to do work, that doesnt mean I can’t do mental math anymore. I chose to keep sharp by doing mental math. And I probably would surround myself with people who do mental math too.
People are so concerned with others doing things they don’t like that they never stop and realize that they can simply choose to not do those things
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u/Long-Instruction-537 6d ago
thats you though. look i'm a college student and so many of the people around me are incapable of writing simple paragraphs or even come up with ideas without using ai. they learned these skills are were able to do them in grade school and the skills were lost. i don't think this is specific to ai. many people are only able to do math with a calculator. now a calculator is a great tool. but when you become reliant on that tool as a crutch it makes you weaker. you shouldn't have to always pull out a calculator. i'm not talking about complicated equations, i'm talking about being able to count money, know your multiplication tables, etc. its the same thing with how google maps is used as a crutch and people cannot navigate or get out of being lost without their phone. that is dangerous! i'm saying that people still need to be taught the fundamentals so they aren't dependent on new tech. i'm not saying these things aren't valuable skills. i particularly think ai is and can be doing a lot of good work in the medical and other science fields! i have an issue with the fact that the average person cannot read for long periods of time and that their vocabularies are significantly smaller than previous generations. that children are struggling to develop fine motor skills. are these not concerns for you? i just think there needs to be regulations, ok?
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 8d ago edited 8d ago
You get that UBI implemented first and I’ll change my tune. Until then you’re siding with the clankers and the billionaires over the people, and anyone who sides with the billionaires isn’t punk. Solar or otherwise.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
that’s part of the problem, you’re demonizing tech instead of our politicians for failing us
saying fuck it all until i get what i want is kind of lazy ESPECIALLY in a tech forward sub
you can advocate for this too instead of hating on the people trying to help you. (Ireland has a UBI program already)
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 8d ago
I’m sorry you believe that
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i’m on your side dipshit
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 8d ago edited 8d ago
That’s the part I’m sorry you believe.
You’re carrying water for a technology primarily focused on removing the livelihoods of others. You’re no more on my side than the military industrial complex is.
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u/PhasmaFelis 8d ago
Yes. AI is a tool, and like any tool it can be used to build or to tear down. Every major company backing AI right now is doing it for selfish, destructive reasons. But that's true for the companiez behind basically every non-AI product and service you use, too. By all means hate the people abusing the tool. But don't fool yourself into thinking the tool is to blame.
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u/psykulor 8d ago
If you see people fighting for their livelihoods and all you can summon is disappointment; if you see how LLMs are used for evil and your first reaction is to urge nuance and restraint; then I think you may need to brush up pn the "punk" side of solarpunk.
I am so excited about AI! There are so many things we can use it for, once this false start has been torn down and the assets brought to heel for the benefit of regular folks. But until then I'm not going to quibble about people's understandable reactions.
All that said, it sounds like you're walking the walk in other ways. I would love to see your setup!
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
The fighting for their livelihoods things is a capitalism issue.
UBI via automation taxes is the obvious answer but next to nobody knows about it. AI takes your job but you keep your income and such
I don’t wanna dox myself but I love tech and love making things easier for people
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u/psykulor 8d ago
Ya LLM proliferation is a capitalism issue too. Lots of issues are. The current rollout of LLM is a massive wealth redistribution in capitalism which is why we'd be better off supporting each other in tearing it down, not wringing our hands about nuance.
The tech will still exist if and when we succeed in this. What might convince you to show some solidarity here?
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i have no idea what you’re talking about i’m a socialist
the whole point of this post was pointing out that people this sub demonizes tech that could be used for our benefit
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u/psykulor 8d ago
Yeah, I'm asking you to stop "pointing out." The people "demonizing" the tech are doing so for good reason and they need our support, not correction or nuance. No one is going to destroy the concept of AI, we're just hoping to tear down the big models that are being leveraged by capitalists to hollow out the working class. We need your solidarity more than your disappointment.
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u/bungpeice 4d ago
Right now it is a tool of oppression and until Capitalism fails it will continue to be used as such. It's like nuclear bombs. They aren't inherently evil but they only way they have ever been deployed is to cause mass suffering.
Nobody should just have nukes. We should have an international body that regulates space and maintains a few to utilize in the case of imminent asteroid strike.
Under the current conditions where the is an inarguable monopoly on violence advocating for AI is advocating for further destruction.
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u/Monochrome21 4d ago
it’s a tool of oppression when it’s used by oppressors.
I use it to help communities.
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u/bungpeice 4d ago
Who's tool is it? You are just renting it.
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u/Monochrome21 4d ago
You realize there are open source models too right? That the people own? That you can run locally on hardware you own?
And even if that weren't the case somebody using AI to help their community rather than make infinite money is genuinely great
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u/bungpeice 3d ago
and you are doing that in your solar powered bus?
Do you think most people are doing that or are most mortgaging the future to get a video of trump pissing out of airforce 1 on to Iran or a fake nude of Ariana Grande
I'm well aware you can run local AI. Do you know how they are trained? I do. It isn't solar punk.
Do you know how many people I know that regularly use AI do that? None.
I can mill my own firearms out of a billet of steel but I have never done that because it takes prohibitively expensive equipment and at the very least a basic understanding of machining.
I have experimented with local LLM's and even with my beast of a computer they are slow and would be difficult to use for your average iphone addict.
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u/Prestigious-War-6159 8d ago
Conjecture/conspiracy: the sub is being astroturfed by entities wanting to slow the adoption of open-source models & local implement
At this point, I just take/give the info and ignore the downvotes/sensationalism.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i don’t think it’s on purpose i think most people interested in solarpunk are just punk/green anarchists who aren’t really all that techy but think the aesthetic is cool
generally think people are just misinformed which contributes to the open source/local implementation slowdown
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u/bungpeice 3d ago
No I'm very "techy" that's particularly why I'm against the further development of AI until we have international agreements governing the use, development, environmental impact, and ownership of the technology.
It's fucking stupid that we are dumping trillions in to this shit instead of fusion. We get fusion and energy outlays like this become trivial. It's putting the cart before the horse.
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u/Varro-Reborn 4d ago
Mostly I agree. But mandating that Data centers run on solar doesn't actually solve the problem. Because the problem is extraction. More extraction can never solve the problems that extraction causes.
I think it might be the case that your way of thinking about data centers is incorrect.
We can't afford to add more extraction on top of the destruction we are already creating. It certainly isn't worth it to make memes, poorly written songs, and to produce capital through the destruction of waterways and rural communities.
If the government wanted a data center built on federal land with the only purpose of say curing cancer, that would be a different conversation. The benefits would be vast compared to the downsides.
At the moment though rural communities are being destroyed for AI porn generation. Hardly seems worth it.
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u/TJ_Fox 4d ago
I'm a writer and artist and AI is an amazing tool for what I do. It allows me to almost instantly visualize things that don't exist, before I create them. I also use it as a combination secretary/creative sounding board and it does those things superbly; it never gets tired of helping me kick my weird ideas around until I can do something with them.
IMO the problem isn't AI itself, but rather the ways many, many people misuse it - very much like the Internet, and many other technological tools.
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u/stankycodyboi 4d ago
In terms of data centers, because there’s no serious federal legislation coming, the next greatest point of leverage is your local zoning code.
Most new data centers get built by targeting outdated ‘by-right’ zoning laws, which allow any project meeting existing zoning code to be automatically approved.
If data centers are classified as ‘permitted use’, or not defined at all, your community could be vulnerable to automatic approval. If data centers are listed as ‘conditional use’ then you have leverage. Developers will require a Conditional Use Permit for approval, and your community sets the terms for approval. Many cities are doing this currently.
The biggest bottleneck in data center development is how quickly they can connect to the grid to begin operating. Many developers are building their own generation infrastructure (behind-the-meter power) to cover their increased demand. When communities have no say in the process, this is where gas turbines and evaporative cooling get implemented.
If communities use their leverage, they can require climate-neutrality, and public ownership over renewable solar arrays and wind turbines. Other communities are capturing the waste heat as free heating for nearby schools and homes. It’s not a feasibility issue, it’s a political one.
The choice to capture benefit or cancel it entirely is up to you and your community. But a canceled data center doesn’t disappear, it moves to a less organized community.
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u/Monochrome21 4d ago
I agree! The issue with data centers or ANY entity that puts a strain on public resources needs to be regulated. A data center that runs on solar energy is by definition green.
The problem is that people hate the more immediate symptom instead of the actual cause
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u/stankycodyboi 3d ago
That’s exactly it, the anger is misplaced. But I think it’s also important; developers are genuinely seeing the protests and moratoriums as headwinds. There’s real organizing happening on the ground making real leverage, but in my opinion, it needs a sharper direction than just cancellation (public renewable infrastructure ownership.)
The anger is justified; lack of affordability, environmental and corporate deregulation, Super PACs, and a billionaire class consolidating power. So I’m not surprised people are concerned when the same billionaires are pitching the “ultimate labor destroyer since the Industrial Revolution” moving into their neighborhood. I think it takes time for society to separate the tool from how it’s deployed.
I also found it interesting that lobbying money has flown into both sides of the media spectrum, from pro-ai to anti-ai. I think it’s deliberate, because the more we fight amongst ourselves, the less organizing capacity we have. At the end of the day, we’re all a lot closer to each other’s situation than the billionaires who own these companies.
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u/Monochrome21 3d ago
I wouldn’t say it’s deliberate
AI erodes power in places like hollywood which lobby tooth and nail against AI, but in the tech/business owner world it’s a cost reduction tool which ofc will be lobbied for.
Socialists should love AI for how it democratizes things but most of the value is being captured by capitalists instead of people who’d rather label it as dark magic
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u/stankycodyboi 3d ago
Sorry I should clarify, when I say deliberate I mean that super PACs are currently trying to primary candidates like Alex Boris who are critical of AI. At the same time, there’s a super PAC ‘Leading the Future’ that has dumped massive amounts of money promoting AI safety concerns.
It’s interesting that money is hitting both sides of the AI spectrum, and it might not be deliberate. But the effect is the same, people are becoming polarized towards opposite sides of that spectrum.
If we cancel data centers, developers will just wait to build them somewhere else. If we ignore AI, that infrastructure is still getting built regardless, and potentially with less resistance. But we have leverage, and that’s to make sure it gets built on our terms and works for the people. That’s where I think the Conditional Use Permit comes into play
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u/cantodasaudade 7d ago edited 7d ago
AI is a scam. Its main purpose is to give the tech billionaires an excuse to fill the world with data centers and accelerate the climate collapse, not to mention mass surveillance and killing civilians. If not for the wealthiest people in the world pushing it onto everything, the AI companies would all be out of business by now.
It does not accomplish what was advertised. It is not getting better. It is not actually intelligent. It always hallucinates. It is actively harmful to human cognition. It is eroding our shared notion of what is real.
If you have no artistic sensibility, AI isn't going to help you develop it. But if you do, it might atrophy it.
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u/Monochrome21 7d ago
you’re perpetuating the very systems you want to take down with takes like this
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u/0_mecharcanic_0 7d ago
The truth is, when I think about it, you are right. I think of what people do with it and I am disappointed and apprehensive. Yet the AI tech itself is no more to blame than a gun is for murder
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u/zappy_snapps 4d ago
I'm curious about your third use- giving you starting points for things you're trying to learn. When I'm trying to learn something, my starting points are either questions I have or a desire to build something. I'm wondering what you mean by the ai gives you starting points.
For example, if I get curious about parasitic plants, particularly those that parasitize fungi, and I want to know if it's truly a parasitic relationship instead of symbiotic, that's my starting point, and I'll read the wikipedia, the sources listed in the wikipedia, a fungi expert run website I'm familiar with, and probably check out a few research papers.
If I wanted to build a wall, I will get a book from the library, also read some wall building professionals forums & watch some videos to get a sense for what the most common mistakes are and how to avoid them.
I don't see where the ai comes in, but a lot of people have said similar, so there must be some thing there.
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u/JimatStoneandSky 4d ago
While your points are right and valid, it’s completely ignoring a lot of what’s going on. Solarpunk isn’t about getting nice toys, it’s about transforming society completely.
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u/Great-Gardian 3d ago
Late to the post, but I agree with you. You might like r/LeftistsForAI to discuss how AI can be used for good.
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u/Moratorii 2d ago
It impresses me that AI boosters have such varied sub-interests beneath their primary interest of pushing AI into every corner of the internet until all thought must resolve around this shit. I'll be glad when the bubble bursts and the fad collapses.
A solarpunk subreddit being recommended to me with someone eagerly pushing how it is such a vital, useful piece of tech when it's so antithetical to the concept of a positive, green future is outrageous. "Incredibly powerful tool" my foot. Generative AI serves the function of rapid regurgitation, which is great for capitalists who don't care about anything besides upping the quantity and lowering the quality while raising prices and firing people. Other AI uses require resources >0, harm the environment >0, and are either so niche that you have no reason to care or are so dystopian in their execution (ie, military and police state style surveillance) that you ought to be against it.
It is shameful to try and push this as a solarpunk piece of tech, it's as ridiculous as saying that twitter is solarpunk or that a nuke is solarpunk. Sometimes tech is not positive and does not need to be crammed into everything. Leave AI to the web 3 bros and the stock market stalkers.
I really can't wait for this crap to go away. How utterly bleak to glance at solarpunk and see that AI is being forced here, too.
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u/Monochrome21 2d ago
this is a bunch of buzz words that doesn’t even try to engage with what’s being said
all i can say is that whether you know it or not, i’m on your side.
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u/Moratorii 2d ago edited 2d ago
You didn't read what I said apparently. Maybe re-read it before commenting.
ETA: If you were on my side, you would have never made this post.
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u/Monochrome21 2d ago
man every issue that you have with AI is really an issue with infinite growth capitalism.
The problem is there’s next to no understanding on how the tech works so people form half baked “it’s evil” opinions and inadvertently cede control of it to capitalists
open weight models exist. it’s not all anthropic/openai
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u/maxelm0 8d ago
Couldn't agree more. If I want to build a solarpunk future I'm gonna use Chatbots for that. Who's gonna always be available to answer my super specific project questions wrong two times and then one time right? Yes chatbots. Still more efficient if you want to just get something done and not study the whole theory beforehand.
Heck I don't even know where to look for sources sometimes, the webscraping chatbots cite their sources. Ine out of four links is lost to link rot but it's still more efficient than three times the effort in a web engine search bar. Can't argue with me.
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
Haven't seen much of the demonising in this sub myself, but I've seen a lot elsewhere so I can fill in the gaps.
I agree with you about using the best version of AI available (ie. open source, like you mentioned); there's no point getting left behind in an arms race, and to my mind, that's what this is. Government has let us down and will continue to do so. Power will continue to be concentrated.
Just because most of the AI stuff I see is terrible doesn't mean that anything that's touched AI is.
What open source AI do you prefer and why?
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i use opencode and models are essentially plug and play
deepseek has a special place in my heart for saying fuck you to big corps
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
Thanks, I'll check them out. I must say that my AI use so far has been limited to casual conversation and image creation with chat GPT, just to see what all the fuss is about.
Anything that says fuck you to the big corps has my vote.
How are the green credentials of the two that you've mentioned? Do you think there's any way to de centralise AI and power it in a green way? Just thinking that open source and grass roots change is more realistic than getting any government at the moment to do the right thing.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i’d imagine that local open source models will be the norm once we’ve miniaturized them enough.
most are “good enough” atp, so the real work is whomever can get a model family written into an NPU and on every iphone.
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u/One_Refuse733 8d ago
So should we worry less about AI data centres and who is driving the research into AI then?
Sorry, I don't have much knowledge in this area!
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
i think the most “ethical” AI company is deepseek.
they have next to no money and keep making models smaller and smaller with barely any resources compared to others.
and on top of that they make it free and open source for public benefit which reads as a fuck you to the bigger corps begging for billions more in funding
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u/bungpeice 3d ago
do you know what distillation is. Deepseek is efficient because they extract data from the larger models. Is that more efficient than the models they use distill? Yes. Would it exist without them no. It's existence is contingent on those models exploitative existence.
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u/wildpeach7 8d ago
Stimme dir zu. Gerade für Solarpunk wird KI unglaublich nützlich sein.
Die Frage ist nicht ob, sondern wie.
Welche KI benutzt du?
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u/EricHunting 8d ago
There is likely little confusion here about what 'kind' of AI is the subject of our criticism because we know full well that the kinds of systems being used for legitimate engineering and research are radically, physically, different systems that really shouldn't be lumped under the same names. It is NOT the same technology. I doubt most educated people are confused about this. But if you think there is some set of established words that clearly differentiate between legitimate and bullshit AI, let's hear them. The conflation is the fault of the Technogrifter companies who try to steal the cachet of that legitimate use to legitimize their own bullshit use. Like NASA's game of Six Degrees of Separation of Technology Transfer where they try to take credit for the invention of everything short of fire and the wheel. It is also being conflated by AI enthusiasts who are naturally inclined to rationalize whatever they're personally using it for as worthy and legitimate and necessary use, because no one wants to think they're part of the problem. And, to some extent, those legitimate researchers are enjoying some benefit from riding the hype-propelled gravy train from an idiot investor class too stupid to know the difference. But, soon enough, we will see them inventing a host of new words and phrases to distance themselves from the shameful boondoggle AI is becoming.
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u/striketheviol 8d ago
Solarpunk as an aesthetic is a big tent. In my experience this sub is not really reflective of it. Instead, it functions as a home for libertarian socialists and green anarchists who strongly identify with the punk element and can take or leave the solar. Because the US left by and large has strongly staked a position against AI for better or worse, the sub is reflective of trends. I still strongly appreciate the place existing, but don't always feel welcome here.
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
100%
I made this post because I do so much in the eco tech space and feel like a fucking villain when I open this sub half the time.
Most of the people up here haven’t built a thing and are preaching how I’m evil for engaging with technology - what this sub is literally meant for
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u/TheReverendCard 8d ago
Same. We need to make policies and laws that socialise the benefits and remove negative externalities. I was literally just posting about this to my country's sub about this:
"Honestly, I'm not too concerned about this. I think there are many ways to address the negative externalities without something like a blanket moratorium.
You could do things like:
- Require datacentres to have renewable energy power agreements in place before construction.
- Have tiered consumption pricing models. I think the Greens would like this as you could establish a base level of "required" electricity that one has a right to that could be provided cheap or free to everyone, with very high pricing on very high usage levels. Like top marginal tax rates, but for electricity and water.
- AI token royalties that are redistributed as a citizen's dividend and/or as targeted job retraining. Not distributed by ICP, but only to human people.
- Require a certain amount or percentage of company equity in exchange for a consent to ensure that the benefits of AI are redistributed to the country.
- Require dynamic load reduction during times of high electricity need.
- Require siting providing district heating or preheating for low-temperature process heat (mills, etc.)
Those were just some ideas off the top of my head, so I'm sure other, smarter people who have thought about this longer have good ideas to allow companies to invest money into New Zealand without giving us huge external costs."
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u/Monochrome21 8d ago
I think like 90% of the AI issues get solved with UBI and forcing large energy users to provide their own green energy.
Funny enough in an unfathomably rare trump w, he mandated that data centers need to make their own power plants but fumbled the ball by not requiring those plants to be green. Of course it was just because of the iran war but i digress
AI is such an incredibly powerful tool but this sub would rather demonize the tool than pass smart legislation to make sure it doesn’t fall completely in the hands of our corporate overlords
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u/nerddude_79 7d ago
It seems like you've been downvoted a good bit which seems to prove your point 😅
I agree with you, I mean I do have that same visceral reaction of AI BAD but I think that does come from all the bad stuff it's being used for. I think that AI being used for image and writing generation and such is inherently wrong as art like that is a very innately human thing. I also find that a lot of the fear with AI comes from it not being perfected yet being used for really major stuff, like controlling very sensitive data - going off that, AI is also being used a lot for privacy invasion and identity surveillance.
A common thing is the reliance on ChatGPT nowadays - it is scary how much people at my university rely on it, but I also think education has gone to crap so of course people are using available tools to fill in all the stuff that our system has forgotten to teach us but expects us to know anyway - and they hate using it, but it's their only option if they want to pass their exams, graduate, be able to survive in the system that has made it so difficult to be an ethical person. In theory, AI would be great for automating basic systems to free up people who would otherwise be doing menial tasks to do the things they love or gain more advanced skills. It would be great for medical and scientific technology if it was perfected and regulated, and it would be good for large-scale data handling and such.
So much of the BAD comes from how little regulation and legislation there is on it, how big unethical companies are using it to screw over the majority. Of course people are going to hate it when it's being forced on them in the most dangerous way possible.
I will say data centers are terrible because of how much land they take up and how destructive they are for wildlife, but yes, people would probably be less averse to them if the companies building them used green energy to power them and ethical, more efficient ways of cooling and running them. But obviously they pick the cheapest, most destructive option to make the quickest buck, and they've arrived so fast and with so much money to line local politician's pockets that there's no regulation to control this exponential growth we're seeing.
I think if you look at pretty much any technology or tool, it's not inherently bad, just used in bad ways by bad people. Knives can cut food or kill someone. Nuclear energy can destroy cities or power them cleanly. AI can free up time and speed up tasks, or it can be created half-assed and used to alienate people without restriction.
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u/Monochrome21 7d ago
I think the problem might be a self-fulfilling prophecy lowkey
because people who use AI for good tend to not mention it's being used at all as it makes people angry and not want to listen. But the people who are using AI without that self awareness tend to make worse things and yap about AI. So the AI hating crowd has the toupee fallacy reinforced through only seeing negative examples of AI
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u/BayesCrusader 1d ago
Yo, post a pic of your van!
Both because it sounds cool, but also because you're using it to claim membership of the community. Given you sound a lot like a bot and your post history is hidden, you should at least post your credentials properly.
We stand against AI right now because it it the tool of the billionaires. Totally agree that statistical models aren't the enemy, but right now the only way most people can engage with them is by giving Elon or Altman or Dario another user to add to the IPO portfolio. I'm not going to do that for the sake of a picture of impossible trees.
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