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You Don’t Hate AI, You Hate Capitalism (www.artnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

One more thing: you may want to look at the numbers for just how vastly extensive and wasteful current "AI" usage is among tech companies and how much more they intend to expand its use, whether people ask for it or not, pretty much everywhere.

If you haven't heard of the Jevons Paradox, it also helps explain why increasingly efficient gasoline engines haven't actually reduced overall carbon waste because more and more of those more efficient gasoline engines were used all the while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm well aware of Jevons Paradox, however what it says is that we'll always find new use for energy surplus. If it wasn't LLMs then it would just be something else. There's nothing uniquely bad about AI, it's just a technology that can be used in a sensible way or not. The thing we need to be focusing on is how we structure our society to ensure that we're not using technology in ways that's harmful to us.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

If it wasn't LLMs then it would just be something else.

Again, I'm not down with inevitabilism arguments. May as well say the Joad's house was going to get torn down somehow too.

If one believes nothing can or even should be done about destructive excesses of capitalism, where's the leftism part even begin?

There's nothing uniquely bad about AI

There actually is considering the jobs and consequent material conditions affected by it that were otherwise unaffected before its use. Just saying it's all the same sounds like downright drilposting.

The thing we need to be focusing on is how we structure our society to ensure that we're not using technology in ways that's harmful to us.

No shit. Same deal with CFCs, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and leaded gasoline. Saying "do nothing, it's inevitable and no different than anything before and it can't be helped" yet also "restructure society" is downright paradoxical to me here.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Well you brought up Jevons paradox here, which kind of is an inevitabilist argument. My view is simply that Jevons paradox is an observation of how capitalist system operates, and as long as this system of relations remains in place we will see problems with how technology is used.

If one believes nothing can or even should be done about destructive excesses of capitalism, where’s the leftism part even begin?

I think I was very clear that I think that destructive excesses of capitalism are precisely the problem here. What I continue to point out that, that's a completely separate discussion from whether LLMs exist or not.

There actually is considering the jobs and consequent material conditions affected by it that were otherwise unaffected before its use. Just saying it’s all the same sounds like downright drilposting.

The jobs and consequent material conditions are affected by the capitalist system of relations and how it uses automation in ways that are hostile to workers. Automation itself is not the problem here.

No shit. Same deal with CFCs, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and leaded gasoline. Saying “do nothing, it’s inevitable and no different than anything before and it can’t be helped” yet also “restructure society” is downright paradoxical to me here.

Nowhere did I say do nothing. What I actually said repeatedly is that you're focusing on the wrong thing and that I don't see technology itself as the problem.