Comment on Should I feel guilty using AI? - Simon Clark
Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com 2 weeks agoThe question is: Should I feel guilty about using AI? Regardless of the rest of the video, the answer is Yes.
On top of all the issues you mentioned, AI is a plagiarism machine that is diluting Art and Language. It has infected academic writing and is being used in fields where its hallucinations could be fatal.
AI is a massive drain on our environment, what with the amount of energy it uses every time someone asks it to draw another naked anime girl with 12 fingers. But people use it daily for the tiniest task, because being too lazy to read an email is a great reason to fuck the planet.
I 100% agree that we should stand against the people who are delivering us this slop, but to say we shouldn’t be ashamed of being a part of that is wrong.
Should you be ashamed of using AI? Yes. Absolutely.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
My point, and the conclusion of the video is more of a “Probably, but its also not a big deal.” As he discusses, AI use isn’t completely insignificant, but much of the cost (in all aspects) is in R&D and hardware, rather than the results it produces. Its in the same vein as how yes, you should probably feel guilty for using a paper or disposable platic grocery bag over a reusable one, but even if everyone in the world did so, it would make little difference when companies (who do 99.99% of the damage) will continue doing the exact same thing at every opportunity. As AI is driven by speculation rather than by product sales, not using it doesn’t stop their IP theft, it may reduce their energy use but likely not a lot (esspecially factoring in human cost to complete a task), and it doesn’t stop these companies from manipulating our politics and walking over our laws.
While, technically the video does agree that the answer is ‘Yes’, the majority of the video is about why that Yes needs a half-dozen asterisks. Simplifying it to just a ‘yes’ shifts blame away from the ones doing 99.9% of the damage onto individuals who do a tiny fraction of the damage, and who have much less understanding of or influence over the technology.