Mods, Please Delete

[Zed Clampet]

retracted

@Kaamos_Llama @Frindis

Please delete

 

[BeardyHat]

And just to bring this back to gaming, they want your PC. They have no care for you or anything but money. And they will drive the cost of everyday computing to outrageous highs, all while accomplishing next to nothing.

I've repeatedly made fun of PC Gamer's keyboard-warrior-style anti-AI campaign, which is often just shadowboxing thin air, arguing without understanding, but we need to fight this. We really do. And this is the way.

There will be a break point, as with all things.

Companies are scooping up more and more hardware for compute, but where will it get them if the average consumer can't afford a new phone to use that AI with? Where will that get them when upgrading your whole suite of business PC's every year is so unaffordable that businesses just put it off? What about all the other things that require RAM, such as cars, TVs, appliances, water treatment infrastructure, stop lights, etc?

Eventually push will come to shove and the race for investors will slow; the juice will not be worth the squeeze due to the massive costs of building new data centers. The economy will tank further, given it's largely being held aloft by AI right now.

Eventually, legislation will happen. We probably won't see it at a Federal level given....*gestures broadly**...but we will probably begin to see some States flexing their muscles. California will likely come first, given it's general bent and status as a economic powerhouse.

I have no idea what the future holds, but it seems we're on track for environmental change whether we have AI or not. We'll see widespread unrest, climate refugees, the breakdown of the supply chain; I hope we don't, but it seems like that's the path we've chosen as a human race when we elect leaders that call these things a farce. AI is just a drop in the bucket.

Anyway, I'm mostly talking out of my posterior here. I like AI, but my own methodology for fighting it has been to try and minimize my use of stuff like Copilot and ChatGPT and instead focus on running my own local models. It's inconvenient, slow and not as good, but the tool is still useful and largely accomplishes what I would like to. Doing it this way at least ensures I'm using my own compute and it's largely "free" given my solar panels on my house.

 

[Zed Clampet]

There will be a break point, as with all things.

The problem with this is that the break point will likely come too late. You mention investors, but you don't mention that the biggest investors aren't in it for the money. AI is the biggest military advancement since the atomic bomb, and countries like the US, China and Russia are in an arms race. They will prop this up with the kind of financial backing that makes institutional investors seem like street hustlers. But the practical result of this is that they will also be, by accident, propping up the institutional investors. The amount of money available for the new cold war is only limited by our imaginations.

AI is just a drop in the bucket.

This, I can assure you, is not true.