Guys, Guys, Guys... I know AI is probably evil, but I had the best win today. ChatGPT helped me write a Python program to rename 100 files with the correct course name instead of the gobbledegook that comes out of the program that creates the files. It helped me figure out how to install Python and run it. It saved me HOURS of opening the files and renaming them and then saving them to Box.

That's impressive! I know AI is being used to make significant breakthroughs in medicine now. And when I went to Josh's memorial, I talked to an attorney who was incorporating high level AI into his law firm, and it sounded like it had a lot of utility.

I'm not sure there's anything intrinsically evil about AI, it was just very unethical in the way it scraped its data.

It is going to eliminate whole bands of jobs though in the fairly near future, and it would be nice if countries started figuring out Universal Basic Income instead of dumping a large chunk of humanity into unemployability, with a gross top layer of have-it-all billionaires and their adjacents.

As a bonus, I'll add Cintra Wilson's encounter with ChatGPT which kinda blew her mind: [link]

I'm not sure there's anything intrinsically evil about AI, it was just very unethical in the way it scraped its data.

It's terrible for the environment.

It's terrible for the environment.

Really really really terrible. It burns horrendous amounts of power, and uses up a lot of water. Data centers use more power than all but a handful of countries: [link]

It's one of many reasons I am pretty anti-AI. The actual uses for science are much less destructive because they have smaller, targeted databases. But the big LLMs that are stolen data by Meta and Google? And the use of AI that leads to people using it to "write" and cheat on tests, and in legal briefings? Nah. Count me out.

It's terrible for the environment.

Like cars, airplanes and the industrial revolution in general, I think the genie is out of the bottle.

Historically humans have chosen any number of downgrades in quality in exchange for convenience.

It is here. It horrifies me but fascinates me too.

ION, hot diggity damn my coffee is good this morning. I'm already two-thirds done and it's making me sad that it will be empty soon.

I wish I could loop those first few sips for an hour without burning a hole in my stomach.

It's one of many reasons I am pretty anti-AI. The actual uses for science are much less destructive because they have smaller, targeted databases. But the big LLMs that are stolen data by Meta and Google? And the use of AI that leads to people using it to "write" and cheat on tests, and in legal briefings? Nah. Count me out.

Me too.

Like cars, airplanes and the industrial revolution in general, I think the genie is out of the bottle.

I know and understand the multitude of reasons to oppose AI, but there is no halting technology. Perhaps safeguards can be imposed, but judging from the changes in only my lifetime, I can only imagine what life will be like in another decade. The change only becomes more rapid. Will we meet George Jetson in my lifetime, maybe? My only hope is that the good outweighs the bad, but change is inevitable.

Like cars, airplanes and the industrial revolution in general, I think the genie is out of the bottle.

Yeah, no. That’s like saying, “womp womp. Might as well burn coal and drive a gas guzzling SUV. It’s too late to do anything so why not make it worse?”

Yeah, no. That’s like saying, “womp womp. Might as well burn coal and drive a gas guzzling SUV. It’s too late to do anything so why not make it worse?”

I'm not saying you're obliged to use it directly or like it, but it's already been widely integrated into just about everything. Even when you're not directly engaged with something like ChatGPT you're interacting with it.

You won't have the kind of choice you'd have between buying an electric vehicle and an oversized pickup because it's being so thoroughly woven into the business structure.

Everywhere there's Capitalism there will be AI because AI eliminates labor costs.

I think it's just acknowledging reality. Humanity ain't great when it comes to long-term thinking vs. short-term gains, as Hec says, and AI's unlikely to go anywhere. There are some ways its impact can be lessened [link] but I'm mostly just trying to figure out how to get to retirement age without it replacing me.