For those unaware, Linus Torvalds this year has deeply cast his lot with the hyperscale LLMs for development of Linux code, dismissing arguments that this is an abdication of responsibility over that code base.
Copying my comment from another post that cherry-picked a specific quote of his, but ultimately I believe still applies.
My last use of AI is in my post history and was fairly down voted because I was being foolishly ironic.
This said, I don’t really disagree with his take here despite keeping away from AI as much as I am reasonably able. I do my own critical thinking and hate that I have to jump through hoops on the internet to have a simple question answered without some layman’s AI summary that may or may not be even remotely correct or actionable. Even still, when I asked it to check on local real estate laws and provide summaries of possible actions based on a very strict set of parameters, it gave me information that my wife and I were able to bring to a human agent and have things work out better than we had actually expected.
I think a better way of putting it - and I’m still gonna ruffle feathers - is that AI is becoming the new electricity.
Put down your pitchfork and lemme explain.
When electricity came out, people rather reasonably pointed out that simply coming into contact with an electrical device could result in death if one wasn’t careful. On top of that, the infrastructure required for it was expensive, unsightly, and at the time incredibly disruptive to daily life. It was going to ruin and disrupt entire industries that had existed for centuries because it could do things a human could not do unaided.
All of this is to one degree or another entirely true even through to modern times, but electricity has become a ubiquitous resource that humanity would now deeply struggle to live without. I won’t dare compare AI that far as i genuinely believe humans would be significantly better off without it, but the initial Luddite response to electricity has a historical echo here.
I think Linus’ point is more that it can undoubtedly be a useful tool when used in a measured, controlled, intelligent manner, and that it is a genie that is very clearly unwilling to be put back in its bottle. Like it or not it exists, and while we can absolutely be unhappy about it, being blind to its actual real world beneficial uses because the companies that make it are actual festering waste is a bit silly - especially when in the hands of the right chaotic neutral parties these companies are about to have a massive lesson in just how messy their tools have made things.
You should read up on thr Luddites, because you’re mischaracterising them. They weren’t anti technology, they were anti capitalist.
IMO, this is the think Linus is missing - the shit has massive political implications in multiple dimensions (it’s being built by fascists and capitalists bent on control of broader business, government, and social systems) and he’s just treating it as if it’s as politically agnostic as a screwdriver.
I am familiar with their actual history, but the colloquialism has taken on its own life just as the term “nimrod” no longer describes the famous hunter of that name but rather a bumbling buffoon.
As regards the politics of it, we can split these hairs all day. Where do we draw the line between a tool and a weapon? Which tools are acceptable to use and in what ways?
That AI is being used as a political bludgeon is not the fault of AI any more than gunshot wounds are the direct fault of the gun; they are tools being used for particular aims. I consider both equally dangerous in the right (wrong) hands, but by that same token a gun can be used to feed a family when used for hunting just as AI has provided monetary benefits to regular working people.
A tool cannot in and of itself be political. Its use and application absolutely can.
ETA: Upon re-reading I see that my “nimrod” comparison can read as an insult. I meant it more in how Bugs Bunny altered the colloquial meaning. I was not trying to be disparaging in any way and apologize if I offended.
A tool cannot in and of itself be political.
I disagree, and I’m not alone: https://gomakethings.com/articles/all-tech-is-political/
I wouldn’t dare do the disservice of judging the article (in full) purely on title, but “technology” includes the hammer, the wheel, and all the way around to sticks and fire.
Again, I am willing to debate the ethics of use of any given technology all day as that is absolutely a conversation worth having, especially with some technologies like spy satellites and permanently-connected IOT devices alongside LLMs.
But technology itself isn’t inherently political.
Now I’m clicking the link.
Edit: Upon reading, I fully take their point, but my own lens of it is more that everything is within the realm of politics rather than innately political itself. Tractors aren’t inherently political, but John Deere managed to make them so. Actors using, to my earlier point, any technology as a lever for politics doesn’t inherently make that technology political.
I appreciate that viewpoint immensely however, even though I don’t fully align with it myself.
Obviously there is a spectrum between sewing needles and nuclear weapons… But I think it’s clear that even e.g. stone axes have had meaningful impacts on the structure of society and also on politics as a subset of that (e.g. their use had implications for power relationships, perhaps as a weapon, perhaps as a way to increase socioeconomic status, etc.)
it’s being built by fascists and capitalists bent on control of broader business, government, and social systems
Which makes it about as politically agnostic as a computer. Technology doesn’t have morality.
I don’t know automated turrets that target children in Gaza sounds pretty immoral. I could say the baby skull seeking bullets them selves aren’t nessisarly immoral but its the use of said bullets that makes them evil, but I don’t see the need to make a distinction.
Algorithms that face book used for no reason other than to make you feel depressed to sell more ads feels pretty immoral too. Systems and tools developed to perpetuate slavery, is another one.
There’s so much technology that was explicitly made for evil intent that serves no purpose outside of its original intent, where I feel I can blanketly call it immoral.
Technology use does though, and technology without use is… Nothing?
But products have, and in our society, can we separate technology from products?
in a vacuum i would agree with his take but the entire thing is inextricably linked to theft and massive copyright infringement. until the matter is settled in court there’s no way to know if using these things professionally is even legal. it’s a potential poison pill for the kernel and the fact that he’s not acknowledging that is insane to me.
AI is a quarter as old as electricity at this rate, nothing has changed over the past 5 decades nor will. No one smart is arguing anything otherwise.
LLMs are just an expensive ass marketing campaign covering up the largest scale piracy we’ve seen since copyright was invented.
So some people want to take ownership of others work and feel entitled cause its way easier than actually paying people for their work, but that concept is older than humanity.
Add in the lack of reliability and its a joke to use AI in anything other than a hobby project (which Linux technically is I guess)
A nuanced and rational take on AI on MY Lemmy?! Unacceptable!!
I can, uh, go read some Marx if you need? Would that make it better?
Then go make your own if you disagree, the fork button is right there
So, is this image even slop? Sexy Tux appears to have both a human hand and a flipper holding onto its own foot.
It’s an edit of this.
I think this could also just be regular image editing, just copypasting a tux into another drawing.
