You can't put the genie back in the bottle 🤡
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@jenniferplusplus
"You can't put the genie back in the bottle" - spoiler alert: it wasn't Jeannie anyway, but her evil sister!@SmartmanApps @jenniferplusplus
It is a funny metaphor, because all it takes to put a genie back in a bottle is three wishes.
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@jenniferplusplus I wonder whether it will actually lead to us getting more analog in the end. Basically reverting to what it’s been like before computers became mainstream. Cause if you piss off your consumer base little too much they can decide to ditch your whole set of artificial limits all together. I see many people doing just that with social media now, we cut heavily on our use, select things like Mastodon instead of the Meta, resorting to books for entertainment etc.
@architektdiewelt @jenniferplusplus
my growing numbers of homeless friends have wire snips and contractor bags full of zebra mussels.oh, and one more thing:
they have nothing left to lose. -
For the record, AI is a technocratic political project for the purpose of industrializing knowledge work.
That industrialization of knowledge work has 2 parts. First, is mechanization. Making knowledge work dependent on some particular machine. This is already the case, with computers generally. Knowledge work is thoroughly computerized. But, those computers are small, cheap, universally available commodities. That doesn't serve the second part, so they're forcing in new layers of mechanization, and removing access to the old machines.
Second, they ensure those machines can only be obtained through large investments of capital. Thus, all knowledge work can be done only at the pleasure of the capitalists who own the machines. Personal computers don't help them, there. But a black box hosted service that consumes the entire web to build and a whole country's worth of electricity to operate sure as hell does.
"AI" is merely the banner under which they are organizing and justifying this project. The implementation details are just the implementation details.
@jenniferplusplus this is such a good description of what I've been thinking too, but couldn't figure out how to put into words
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You can't put the genie back in the bottle
Meanwhile, the genie is only kept out of the bottle by the force of literally the entirety of the world's available investment capital
@jenniferplusplus well said
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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So you can see how that genie is extremely prone to returning to it's bottle.
It only stays out as long as they can keep shoveling an ever increasing amount of real resources into it. And it turns out the resources available are finite
@jenniferplusplus how do small language models that can be run locally or self hosted factor into this? Perhaps they represent tools that can still be controlled locally rather than by large investors.
Counter arguments:
1. They still need to be trained
2. Hardware prices are rising, hardware capable of running even small models may become out of reach -
@jenniferplusplus how do small language models that can be run locally or self hosted factor into this? Perhaps they represent tools that can still be controlled locally rather than by large investors.
Counter arguments:
1. They still need to be trained
2. Hardware prices are rising, hardware capable of running even small models may become out of reach@alter_kaker mostly by recruiting people who should know better to defend the AI project, it seems
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You can't put the genie back in the bottle
Meanwhile, the genie is only kept out of the bottle by the force of literally the entirety of the world's available investment capital
@jenniferplusplus this is one of those statements that sounds hyperbolic but really isn't 🫠
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@jenniferplusplus I wonder whether it will actually lead to us getting more analog in the end. Basically reverting to what it’s been like before computers became mainstream. Cause if you piss off your consumer base little too much they can decide to ditch your whole set of artificial limits all together. I see many people doing just that with social media now, we cut heavily on our use, select things like Mastodon instead of the Meta, resorting to books for entertainment etc.
>> ditch...all together
I hope this will happen, and personally plan for it, too.
Once the total surveillance will come, that is currently masked as "age verification", I think I'll just stop using >95% of the online world. Will I shed some tears ? Maybe yes, but on the other hand it will be so much fun to build local networks again, and to open up new spaces which are not controlled by this unholy government/bigtech melange. Kind of like the 90s.
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@jenniferplusplus this is a brilliant thread, thank you!
@jenniferplusplus @cairobraga Apple has run out of most Mac Studio and Mini models because there are so many people who understand this, and do not wish to be subservient to the cloud any longer. Silver lining: Another crack at a world where every household as a decent server and every neighborhood has a small tech geeks co-op to steward them.
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@alter_kaker mostly by recruiting people who should know better to defend the AI project, it seems
@jenniferplusplus I'm sorry, I don't understand
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@jenniferplusplus I'm sorry, I don't understand
@alter_kaker how do small language models that can be run locally or self hosted factor into this?
They don't change anything at all about the power dynamics. They don't change anything at all about whether you can do or economically benefit from work that capitalists disapprove of. What they do is distract people who are concerned about those facts, and make everyone else spend time explaining to them that they don't actually change the political situation at all.
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You can't put the genie back in the bottle
Meanwhile, the genie is only kept out of the bottle by the force of literally the entirety of the world's available investment capital
@jenniferplusplus you know, that's a good point. I'll remember that next time someone says that to me in "meatspace"
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Obviously, the models are going to continue to exist. Probably. So will the data sets, the libraries, and the generalized knowledge of how to build them and what that gets you, in a technical sense.
And if you think that's what AI is?
@jenniferplusplus This thread is
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@jenniferplusplus @cairobraga Apple has run out of most Mac Studio and Mini models because there are so many people who understand this, and do not wish to be subservient to the cloud any longer. Silver lining: Another crack at a world where every household as a decent server and every neighborhood has a small tech geeks co-op to steward them.
@slowenough @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga I love the idea of neighborhood IT co-ops. Fo any actually exist? Are there resources to help set this sort of thing up?
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@jenniferplusplus Recently called it "a social weapon masquerading as a technology" because of ALL of this and more.
@joshuaelliott @jenniferplusplus The GPT has been weaponized. The noosphere is under assault. The contingency must be handled. The consequences are potentially species ending. AGI and ASI are fantasies here -- the true adversaries are human. The really sad part is that the technology isn't even fit for purpose, but the market fundamentalist vs state capitalist factions are using it to engage in what is a noospheric hot war. The Potemkin effect in mass media: Total Information Warfare.
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@joshuaelliott @jenniferplusplus The GPT has been weaponized. The noosphere is under assault. The contingency must be handled. The consequences are potentially species ending. AGI and ASI are fantasies here -- the true adversaries are human. The really sad part is that the technology isn't even fit for purpose, but the market fundamentalist vs state capitalist factions are using it to engage in what is a noospheric hot war. The Potemkin effect in mass media: Total Information Warfare.
@joshuaelliott @jenniferplusplus The "garden rake" effect of GenAI technologies is something to behold. I literally cannot use LLMs in particular for serious computer science applications without engaging in the same prompt/context/temperature adjustment boondoggles, even if I do, I'm up against proprietary system prompting and token burn, and it's a distraction from my actual work. I could just pivot to deep learning but down that road leads future serfdom.
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So you can see how that genie is extremely prone to returning to it's bottle.
It only stays out as long as they can keep shoveling an ever increasing amount of real resources into it. And it turns out the resources available are finite
Anyway, AI fans keep claiming that AI is like the industrial revolution, and yeah, it is. But somehow, for some reason, people broadly view that as a good thing. But it wasn't. It was this. It's the thing I just described, but for physical goods. And now they're coming after art, and science, and correspondence, and law, and medicine, and bookkeeping, and it is incomprehensible to me that anyone at all would be in favor of this
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Anyway, AI fans keep claiming that AI is like the industrial revolution, and yeah, it is. But somehow, for some reason, people broadly view that as a good thing. But it wasn't. It was this. It's the thing I just described, but for physical goods. And now they're coming after art, and science, and correspondence, and law, and medicine, and bookkeeping, and it is incomprehensible to me that anyone at all would be in favor of this
@jenniferplusplus
It is a lot like the industrial revolution: depressing wages, degrading working conditions, and destroying the environment -
You can't put the genie back in the bottle
Meanwhile, the genie is only kept out of the bottle by the force of literally the entirety of the world's available investment capital
@jenniferplusplus I look at it like the blockchain, and NFT crazes we went through. Those genies are still out of the bottle but it doesn't occupy too much attention any more.
I worked at an AI startup for a while (I needed a job) and the CEO cited both those periods for his current company.
I think AI might have more staying power as it can be used (for good and bad) by regular folks, but I think the bubble is busting open soon enough. That job I had showed me that the market isn't there.
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@slowenough @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga I love the idea of neighborhood IT co-ops. Fo any actually exist? Are there resources to help set this sort of thing up?
@RedFacedUakari @jenniferplusplus @cairobraga There are definitely a bunch of co-op incubators out there, for example: https://belovedcommunityincubator.org/
I don't know of any neighborhood tech co-ops, but people's interest in switching away from big tech providers is pretty high right now, so I believe there is hope at least for many small tech co-ops to succeed even if they couldn't yet make a living doing tech infrastructure & support for literally just their neighborhood. #cooperatives
