What's Wrong with AI?

kamranjon

"In some instances, AI data centres are powered completely by renewable energy. Unfortunately, unless the data centre builds new renewable energy sources to supply 100% of its power, this still results in an increase in fossil fuel usage. Why? Because if the data centre is using pre-existing sources for renewable energy, it is taking that energy away from other consumers that need it. To pick up the slack, we must generate more energy, and most of that generation is done using coal or natural gas." -- strangely I had never actually thought about this

TimByte

AI is clearly useful, but usefulness doesn't automatically justify unlimited deployment, opaque training practices or turning every public service and workplace into an experiment

burlesona

I think the case is well-made, but it's not a game of chicken, it's an arms race.

mmilunic

Unlike a lot of anti-AI writing I have seen which can drift into the territory of reactionist rhetoric, this feels very grounded. As a student entering the job market, I personally am quite conflicted about my usage of AI, due to all the effects you have said. Especially when testing out more recent “agentic” coding tools where they do literally all the work, not only are there the moral qualms but they’re also not enjoyable to use. However, in the tech bubble I live in to use these tools for as much as possible in order to “make it” in some sense and actually be employable. Like you said it is a game of chicken. Perhaps the best strategy (for me) is to campaign for institutional guardrails on usage while continuing to individually try to be competitive?

skiing_crawling

I don't understand the water argument? I thought places like data centers would use something akin a closed loop and a radiator. Are they taking water from the town pipe, heating it once, and then launching it into the sun? Is there some other use for the water other than cooling?

semiquaver

> AI Psychosis So much written about this but nothing about anti-ai-psychosis, which this article is a clear example of. There is no possible response to any of the issues raised would make a whit of difference to the author, since they have made a quasi-religious and certainly political determination that anything associated with AI is bad and should be avoided. So the article itself can be basically ignored, it’s not written in good faith, it’s essentially propaganda in service of a fixed political viewpoint.

charcircuit

>Energy Use >Asking ChatGPT a question uses approximately 10x as much energy as a traditional search engine I stopped reading here. It is more energy efficient to have ChatGPT write the code than a developer on their workstation. It in fact can save energy by having AI do it.

meeton

> Asking ChatGPT a question uses approximately 10x as much energy as a traditional search engine Traditional search engines use vanishingly little energy, and 10x vanishingly little is still very small. > It is estimated that AI alone will evaporate between 4 and 7 billion cubic metres of water per year in 2027 ChatGPT has 1 billion users every week, so AI is adding 1% to their water usage?

tim333

>Do you think that people like Sam Altman, Elon Musk, or Dario Amodei really have our best interests at heart... The great thing about market competition is the bosses may be bastards but they are forced to make good products so as to compete with other companies, hence pretty good cars and satellite coms from Musk for example. I'm cheered that the AI companies have little moat and stiff competition amongst themselves.