maegul (he/they)

TeamHuman: Keep Humans in Control of AI Don’t know any details about this. Still interesting that it is apparently a thing.

While this general story has its shape. The line at the end here… AI is stealing human discovery. Is striking in just how obviously true it’s been the whole time. It’s the business model, plain and simple. I hope this story highlights this better for some. But also, it’s frustrating that any of this is new or surprising to anyone.

Probably a shallow response … But I always figured AI/LLMs are basically apocalyptic for all sorts of individualistic values in computing (including privacy but also independence and diversity). Whether they’re good or useful etc, I just struggle to see how they will ever be justifiable against these sorts of values. Sure, local models and our hardware will get better … but better than the state of the art from the big labs and providers? Given that data and training are the big bottlenecks on quality … I struggle to see how AI isn’t a complete feudal capturing of information computing and processing. Not to mention what happens to the pipeline that produces information content if everyone is only consuming it through the models that train on it. So for me the big question is, what’s our call on a possible (likely even?) future where we are forever stuck using cloud provided AI along with all of its negatives, in the same way that basically all of us has been and still is stuck using MS windows, Google and the big-social-media hellscape? For me, I baulk at this.

Oh I hear you (and appreciate the response). For me, I can’t help but think of another alternative, which I’m surprised I haven’t heard of yet … stripping down one’s personal technological cognitive load to a stack of systems that can fit into one’s brain (like the Python mantra), focusing on learning that stack well building sustainable and stable systems, and then just detoxing from the increasingly polluted digital information stream (protected commons, traditional formats such as books and in person engagement … dunno). Depends on what the end goal is, but AIs seem to be about using tech more or just opting out of sovereignty. Something like the above seems to me to be about using tech less (in the end) and pushing toward being a secondary tool rather than an end of its own.

I hear what you’re saying … but earning a living may be a necessary priority after coming out of academia. And it certainly is a weird time to set course for a new career.

Ha yes … on the other hand, it was easy to forget how good damn expansive non-internet information is: the whole world ran on that shit for millennia.

Ya Rayah by Rachid Taha

wikipedia page

Loved it on first listen and it made me a fan of Taha’s. It’s kinda Arabic pop rock but with traditional instrumentation.

If you like this, maybe checkout the album Diwan 2 afterwards.