chaosCruiser

I know many people who use meta platforms, and they don’t seem to be very happy with the material they find. AI slop is getting totally out of control over there.

When I want to talk to friends and family, I just give them a call, send an SMS or have a group chat on signal. I don’t need meta platforms for that.

YouTube is a mixed bag though. I still find some value in there, but that’s through sheer quantity of videos in there. Finding good ones is getting harder every year. Alternative platforms are getting better, but the selection seems to be pretty narrow by comparison.

I tend to block most of the internet cancer out there and only hang out in places where the internet doesn’t suck that hard. Anything touched by Meta is obviously out of the question. So as far as what people generally call social media is concerned, I just avoid all of it. Nothing of value was lost when I abandoned that burning pile of trash. Lemmy is ok though. It’s clearly a social media, but everything about it is just so different that it probably doesn’t even count as a “social media” in this context.

What about AI then? It’s complicated. AI in general is pretty cool, but I’m using that word in a very broad sense. Stuff like isolating human voices from a messy audio signal involves AI. When a camera focuses on a human face, it’s using AI. When your postal service uses OCR to read the address off a letter, it’s using AI. Oh wait, nowadays even your phone can do OCR. Anyway, none of that really counts in this context, now does it? That’s not the AI people are angry about.

AI that generates text, audio, pictures and video definitely counts, but that’s just a fraction of what AI really is. It’s currently visible, popular, widely used and commonly discussed. That’s the type you’re really asking about, now isn’t it? My answer: it’s still complicated. The technology itself is just fine. The way it’s used to ruin the internet isn’t.

For example, LLMs love to use specific phrases and people love to use LLMs to generate text for anything and everything. What you get is AI slop text that has all the telltale signs of being generated by an LLM and proofread by nobody. The internet is filling up with low-effort trash like that, and I’m completely fed up with all of it. Still not fed up with AI as a whole though. Everything under the peak of that ice berg is still very cool.

They ran out of money long before LLMs took over the search business.

Exactly. Just trust the system, bro. It’ll be fine.

Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it can’t happen. When laws are no longer enforced, they lose their value, and the old system collapses. If you don’t see any value in the new system, it’s time to do something about it.

Also, due process got thrown out the window long ago. Seems to me that it’s just a matter of time until the rest of the constitution is just a decoration.

Just like any other tool, you need to know how to use it, and you need to adjust your expectations accordingly. Many people don’t seem to know what it’s good for or what to realistically expect from it. The way I see it, many people seem to have inflated expectations, but apparently the CEOs in the article are gradually coming to terms with reality. Clearly a step in the right direction IMO.

Lemmy is indeed a very special place. :D

Anyone with a balanced view on AI automatically attracts downvotes from a specific crowd in here. The problem isn’t that you explained what you use AI for. They couldn’t care less. The problem is that you clearly don’t hate AI with a burning passion.

I can see that there’s clearly some great potential to have fun with a crowd like this. Just haven’t figured out a good method for it yet.

People who vote, might end up voting for the “wrong candidate”, and we can’t have that now can we. People who enlist, don’t really have the opportunity to screw up like that.

Looks like AI is finally diving into the trough of disillusionment.

OK, so a basic radio antenna that emits the same kinds of signals a radar would? Why isn’t every army already doing this? Sounds so obvious. Imagine if these things could start attracting missiles that cost millions to fire.

Why on earth do you want to make these things social instead of private? If things are social like that, it just makes me cautious of my clicks online.

Oh, I can’t like that video, what would my friends think of me? Oh, I can’t install this app, because of stupid reasons. If I want to install all the wrong apps and like all the wrong videos, peer pressure shouldn’t stand in my way. What’s wrong with Meta.

Morality DLC was too expensive… Well, actually cheaper than the Ethnic Cleansing DLC, Dictatorship DLC or Warmongering DLC etc. So many to choose from, so obviously American got all of them, but ran out of money just before clicking buy on the Morality DLC. Oh well…

Anyway, Imperialism DLC just got updated, so maybe it’s about time to finally try that out.

We bombed only seven hospitals, whereas those guys bombed eight. They are clearly the worst, while we are the good guys, relatively speaking.

Oh that’s a nice one. Where did you steal that from?

The 40k universe is clearly inspired by real-world politics. There are only bad guys, villains, and monsters. Nobody has the moral high ground in this mess.

That could work too. Superstitions and religions were in at the time, so I think there’s plenty to exploit.

You could call coal the Devil’s rock, and spread rumors about it being cursed and haunted. You cal talk about the smoke causing vice, moral decay and sin. Oil could be seen as the blood of the Earth, tears from ancient curses, bad omens etc. Only rebellious sorcerers and heretics would dare to tamper with the natural order of things by burning oil. As the un-godly un-natural smoke poisons the air, it poisons the soul etc. God gave you the sun and wind, so using them is the only righteous choice… You get the idea. The 1800s was a magical period of time.

I have a plan B too, but it’s not so gentle.

The goal is to become the number one energy producer and stomp out all opposition and competition before it has a chance to grow. There are no laws against cartels and monopolies, so you exploit the hell out of it. You file extremely broad patents to prevent fossil fuels and combustion based motors from ever becoming a thing. You play super dirty, no mercy, no remorse. It’s going to be basically like the East-India Company, but with renewable energy.

You lobby governments to adopt renewable energy and electrical devices you provide. You influence the public opinion on fossil fuels by spreading information about climate change, pollution and negative health effects. If the global energy company becomes big enough, you should make your own private army and conquer all the places where large oil deposits exist, and establish massive natural reserve parks in those areas. Lobby the governments to make other similar areas legally protected from all industrial development for the next 1000 years.

You would become the supervillain billionaire of the 1800s, but you put the whole world on a renewable trajectory.

I would go to the year 1800, and bring with me a bunch of books on science and engineering. Basically all the building blocks you need to build wind farms and solar power. I would visit all the universities I can and drop these books in library shelves. Some climate change literature could be nice too.

Back to the basics: Start carrying a yellow pages book with you so that you can find addresses of various businesses. If you need restaurant descriptions, you need one of those tourist guide books too.