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Do not use ai (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 days ago by to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world/p/1758477/using-fascist-technology-to-fight-fascism-still-promotes-fascist-technology

Using fascist technology to fight fascism still promotes fascist technology.

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[–] 33 points 5 days ago* (3 children)

I can see the argument for local or at least open source models, but most people who use LLMs are using ChatGPT and other Big Tech LLM services, which are clearly run by fascists.

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  • [–] 33 points 5 days ago* (2 children)

    Yes, but it is very important to distinguish between LLMs, which are amoral math, and OpenAI et al, which are corporations run by fascists that offer LLM-based public surveillance / disinformation platforms. There is no technology on earth that cannot be bent to malign purpose if malicious people are inclined to do so. LLMs are just the popular useful technology du jour.

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  • [–] 27 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Thank you. I just wrote this in another comment:

    I've been an AI researcher for 12 years now. I work primarily in climate and environment, and right now I'm using AI for super resolution of wind field predictions, to better forecast wildfire spread. Prior to this project I was using AI and remote sensing to monitor and predict wheat crop health in northern India to feed into various food security monitoring systems (e.g. FEWSNET). There are millions of AI use cases that tangibly improve the world.

    At the same time, those same underlying principles of AI are being used to develop tools to better surveil people, control them, and profit off of them so the tech fascists can gain even more control. Both things can be true. It's the billionaires who are funding these massive investments that are evil. It's always the billionaires.

    Steel can be used to construct buildings and can also be used to construct weapons. You wouldn't say steel is evil right?

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  • [–] -3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    I don't believe your analogy holds water. I believe computers are a lot closer to steel than "AI" is, in that they're both foundational technologies with a very very wide array of proven uses such that the benefits of the development and use of steel/computers far outweigh the associated costs. Weapons/"AI" on the otherhand are both specific, narrower applications of steel/computer technology with a few particular beneficial uses, but those uses pale in comparison to costs of the existence and development these technologies, so much so that both weapons and "AI" should be put on a metaphorical shelf out of reach until we as a global society can grow up to develop and use these technologies in a more responsible and conscientious manner.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago

    I see what you're saying, but they're all on a continuum and it just depends where your perspective window lies. I could see AI as foundational to many new technologies in the future.

    I agree we should shelf any AGI or ASI (which supposedly doesn't exist yet), however I think AI has many tangibly beneficial applications. The problem comes from the incentive structure of the Epstein class and their investments into surveillance and profit extraction.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago

    Could you directly address the use-cases that the person you replied to brought up, because they seem pretty important to this discussion to get swept aside?

    Forecasting wildfire spread, feeding people better... finding novel drugs, curing illnesses, cheap accurate translation, these all "pale in comparison" to the costs? Even though those uses have all existed for years before ChatGPT?

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    I got called unethical today for using a small-scale locally hosted open model trained on Wikipedia and Stack Exchange. A LOT of the anti-AI people are universalists that have decided carte blanche that it is an evil technology and everyone who uses it is bad.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago

    Even most of of the local and "open" models are exploiting the work of others by training off unethically sourced data without even so much as consent.

    There is such a thing as ethical AI, but damn near zero people are doing it that way.

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