Thread by @ChrisAlvino

I still can't get over how bad AI has become. And this is coming from a computer scientist who spent over a decade studying and programming AI.

I fucking LOVE AI, but here are 10 reasons I absolutely fucking hate it now, a 🧵 ...

1) the massive training sets required to train them cannot be obtained legally so they are stealing huge amounts of content w/o consent, all in the name of "innovation"

businessinsider.com/openai-destroy…
mit-genai.pubpub.org/pub/uk7op8zs/r…

2) the energy required to run their data centers is starting to overwhelm our power grids (and during a time of climate crisis too!)
washingtonpost.com/business/2024/…

3) the water demands for cooling said data centers is depleting our scarcest resource at an alarming rate (there's literally not enough water to meet their projected demands!)

forbes.com/sites/cindygor…
theconversation.com/ais-excessive-…

4) the actual output of these AIs is usually horrendous and nowhere near good enough for release, especially not for anything that's mission critical. Can you imagine a mission critical system hallucinating?! (That was the plot of War Games BTW)
mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/basics/addr…

5) AI is already killing many jobs, and it's poised to kill even more in the near future. (And it's doing so using stolen works in its training sets, how ironic)

wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-rep…
abcnews.go.com/Business/ai-el…

6) Did I mention the output of these generative AI is typically bad? Social media is beginning to be filled with AI spam posts, which is only going to increase in the coming years, making social media and the Internet at large mostly useless
npr.org/2024/05/14/125…

7) I talked about lack of consent with the training sets, but what about with the output? AI has a HUGE problem with generating nonconsensual porn as well apnews.com/article/ai-dee…

8) Whenever AI is added to existing software, it's almost always a downgrade that no one even asked for. Users hate AI. It made Google worse, it made Adobe worse, it's making most software worse


browsermedia.agency/blog/google-ro…

9) And I'm not even mentioning all the problems that come with the regular AI of old like having biases baked into the AI that cannot be controlled for, or the lack of transparency/black box nature of the training process, or the myriad of other ethical concerns...

9 cont) These problems have all been around since the first neural networks were being created. But the current gen of AI has done nothing to address them (if anything they've just exasperated many of these existing issues)

10) I do not see the (very little) good these AI systems are generating outweighing all the bad they are causing (and it's only going to get worse). There's no way to sugar coat it—these companies need to be stopped. Which deeply saddens me...

I was the kid who spent his teen years learning how to code neural networks from books at his local library! My mom was just telling me how cute it was that, as a teen, instead of partying with friends, I spent all my free time at the library learning how to code 😂

In college I did research on neural networks for protein folding and in the development of A-life. I've been an AI super fan almost my entire life and was actually kind of excited when ChatGPT and its ilk were in development; it sounded like really cool tech.

Unfortunately, it's trash. Worse than trash actually bc it's actively destroying our planet and eroding our communities. Not only that, but capitalists who have no connection to the arts or their own humanity are actively seeking to replace all of human creation with AI.

They see artists and creators as obstacles to be overcome, impediments on their way to faster and more reliable profits. They do not understand that creation—acts of creativity—are an essential part of the human experience, and we NEED to struggle with the act of creation.

An AI could never create Beethoven's 5th, or "The Dark Knight", or "Anna Karenina", bc you need to have worked on it, to have struggled, to have something to say, something human, for people to connect with. And that only comes from being human.

Hell, I can't tell you how great it was for my spirit to have written this thread! It's been mulling around in my head for weeks, and now that I've finally gotten it out, and struggled with it, do I feel great! Even little acts of creation are essential for the human spirit.

Machines... they don't have anything to say. And they never will. At least not in our lifetimes. What we have now are soulless imitations of humans, imitations that are wrecking both the planet & society at breakneck speeds.

We need less AI right now, not more. We need to be prioritizing our people & our planet, not corporate profits. And we need a slew of new laws to protect us from the dangerous & exploitative nature of this new AI... before the machines take over... *cue The Terminator music*

Damn, so this thread really popped off. If you have the means, consider helping my disabled friend Jazz who is in dire straits right now and desperately needs financial help:

And if you'd like to help support my mom, whose social security benefits were taken away due to a bureaucratic nightmare after my dad died, consider donating to our family's GFM: gofund.me/e45f4bbe

And my close friend Amanda is currently homeless after developing long COVID and becoming disabled. She can really use some help right now too. Consider donating to help her into housing again: spotfund.com/story/3bb199fb…