677: I Accept the Battery Costhttps://atp.fm/677
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@caseyliss @jon I've wondered about this one. It occurred to me that I did not know where Fahrenheit got his scale. It is, in fact, based on human perception of our body temperature (huh! Casey has a point)
@sayrer @caseyliss @jon Obviously you haven’t been in Finland and in Finnish sauna <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna>. If the temperature in the sauna is less than 80°C the sauna is considered to be cold. So the typical temperature range is 80°–100°C and hot sauna is over 100°C.
Lately we have had outside temperatures from -35°C to –10°C in Finland. So, Celsius temperature scale is much better. Q.E.D. -
@Colman So will you, and everyone else, eventually—for better AND for worse. (See also: electricity, automobiles, modern agriculture, manufactured goods of all kinds, etc.)
@siracusa i do not like the comparison with electricity etc i must say.. those provide huge benefits for everyone. AI uses so much power and stolen material to provide benefits for a relatively small group of the population. Electricity made us all beter and more equal, AI is making it worse.
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677: I Accept the Battery Cost
https://atp.fm/677If you really don’t like AI, we have some bad news for you.
@atpfm I'm not sure we are thinking through the long term impacts of "agentic" AI writing software.
None of these tools make money: Claude Code loses money at $20/month and $100/month. What happens when they start charging what it takes to show a profit margin?
I think these tools work when used by otherwise experienced programmers - there's a big risk that it leads to fewer good software engineers and then we have a lot of obtuse machine written code (often written in a language that the writer of claude.md may not know).
it's all fine for a low stakes dashboard, it seems fraught for production.
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@sayrer @caseyliss @jon Obviously you haven’t been in Finland and in Finnish sauna <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna>. If the temperature in the sauna is less than 80°C the sauna is considered to be cold. So the typical temperature range is 80°–100°C and hot sauna is over 100°C.
Lately we have had outside temperatures from -35°C to –10°C in Finland. So, Celsius temperature scale is much better. Q.E.D.@aahonen @caseyliss @jon oh boy, here we go.
Firstly, I have been there / done that, but it's been a while, and only around Helsinki. Celsius is nice for heating up water like that (Casey said for cooking, but same idea). Celsius is not so good for the outside. In Fahrenheit, 0 is about -18. That's where you better be careful. Above that, just wear a coat and gloves. -
677: I Accept the Battery Cost
https://atp.fm/677If you really don’t like AI, we have some bad news for you.
@atpfm Google Maps however is much worse than Waze for incident reports, aka for speed traps, items in the road, etc. Over the years the teams merged, and Google Maps in theory got more of that, but when testing both side by side Waze continues to report drastically more in this has always been the biggest benefit of Waze. Apple Maps interface blows both away for an Apple user, but as you noted lacks the data Google has.
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@atpfm Google Maps however is much worse than Waze for incident reports, aka for speed traps, items in the road, etc. Over the years the teams merged, and Google Maps in theory got more of that, but when testing both side by side Waze continues to report drastically more in this has always been the biggest benefit of Waze. Apple Maps interface blows both away for an Apple user, but as you noted lacks the data Google has.
@atpfm Waze interface while the tiles are dated, as more Applely notably in CarPlay where most will interact with it. Google interface is still very much Android. So I still find myself jumping between the three. Hopefully eventually all traffic incidents from Waze show up in Google, and the UI gets a bit more refined, then could see myself using that fully even if far less enjoyable than Apple Maps, the other benefits would probably make it worth it.
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@atpfm I'm not sure we are thinking through the long term impacts of "agentic" AI writing software.
None of these tools make money: Claude Code loses money at $20/month and $100/month. What happens when they start charging what it takes to show a profit margin?
I think these tools work when used by otherwise experienced programmers - there's a big risk that it leads to fewer good software engineers and then we have a lot of obtuse machine written code (often written in a language that the writer of claude.md may not know).
it's all fine for a low stakes dashboard, it seems fraught for production.
@marcoshuerta I agree with all of this! Uber is a similar recent example: "Lose money until we've destroyed enough of the existing market that we can start charging higher prices and customers have nowhere left to turn."
The relative timing of the bubble-pop (or even more mild "consolidation") vs. the rate at which these tools improve and we learn how to use them well will probably make a big difference in how this goes.
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@siracusa i do not like the comparison with electricity etc i must say.. those provide huge benefits for everyone. AI uses so much power and stolen material to provide benefits for a relatively small group of the population. Electricity made us all beter and more equal, AI is making it worse.
@vmachiel I think your opinion of electricity would have been very similar to your opinion of AI had you lived during its dawn! Electricity initially "provided benefits for a relatively small group of the population" while its generation poisoned the air and polluted the water, all of which affected the masses way more than the elites. Oh, and eventually…climate change.
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@vmachiel I think your opinion of electricity would have been very similar to your opinion of AI had you lived during its dawn! Electricity initially "provided benefits for a relatively small group of the population" while its generation poisoned the air and polluted the water, all of which affected the masses way more than the elites. Oh, and eventually…climate change.
@siracusa but adding AI on top of our current energy needs is just irresponsible. At this point. Even without AI we are damaging the planet beyond repair. We are burning to planet to generate fake narratives.
Plus we didn’t steal everyone’s stuff to make electricity. And electricity doesn’t lie.
AI is a curiousity, not a necessity for a decent life like electricity is. You want to use it, but the whole ethical justification is flimsy. And AI is not inevitable
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@siracusa but adding AI on top of our current energy needs is just irresponsible. At this point. Even without AI we are damaging the planet beyond repair. We are burning to planet to generate fake narratives.
Plus we didn’t steal everyone’s stuff to make electricity. And electricity doesn’t lie.
AI is a curiousity, not a necessity for a decent life like electricity is. You want to use it, but the whole ethical justification is flimsy. And AI is not inevitable
@vmachiel Electricity was also initially seen as "a curiosity, not a necessity." It was also not seen by everyone as "inevitable." Hindsight is 20/20.
As for "stealing," we have many precedents, both good and bad, in this area, from the printing press to player pianos to VCRs to fonts to APIs. Sometimes we come up with a pretty OK system, and sometimes we end up making things worse. But the basic questions of ownership and compensation in the face of new tech is very old and recurring.
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@vmachiel Electricity was also initially seen as "a curiosity, not a necessity." It was also not seen by everyone as "inevitable." Hindsight is 20/20.
As for "stealing," we have many precedents, both good and bad, in this area, from the printing press to player pianos to VCRs to fonts to APIs. Sometimes we come up with a pretty OK system, and sometimes we end up making things worse. But the basic questions of ownership and compensation in the face of new tech is very old and recurring.
@vmachiel And as for the environmental impact of AI's energy usage, despite the fact that it is somewhat overblown as a percentage of total human energy use, it surely will be a short-term problem. And I'd argue that crypto mining (a much more clearcut case of harm with little practical use) shows we are not good at dealing with things like this. But advances in *other* tech (renewable energy) does give me some hope.
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@vmachiel And as for the environmental impact of AI's energy usage, despite the fact that it is somewhat overblown as a percentage of total human energy use, it surely will be a short-term problem. And I'd argue that crypto mining (a much more clearcut case of harm with little practical use) shows we are not good at dealing with things like this. But advances in *other* tech (renewable energy) does give me some hope.
@siracusa I just wish we spend those energy gains on useful stuff, not making fake videos to mislead boomers
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@siracusa I just wish we spend those energy gains on useful stuff, not making fake videos to mislead boomers
@vmachiel Oh, and as for things stolen for electricity specifically, we stole a ton stuff for the resources used to generate power: people’s land, resources, freedom, and lives!
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@vmachiel Oh, and as for things stolen for electricity specifically, we stole a ton stuff for the resources used to generate power: people’s land, resources, freedom, and lives!
@siracusa all this is true.. and it doesn’t excuse anything about AI imo. Just because it was true for electricity, doesn’t mean we should just plow ahead with AI…
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@atpfm Waze interface while the tiles are dated, as more Applely notably in CarPlay where most will interact with it. Google interface is still very much Android. So I still find myself jumping between the three. Hopefully eventually all traffic incidents from Waze show up in Google, and the UI gets a bit more refined, then could see myself using that fully even if far less enjoyable than Apple Maps, the other benefits would probably make it worth it.
@TechRemarker @atpfm I’d love for Google Maps to be able to take over the Home Screen the way Apple Maps does. This would be especially helpful for navigation on foot or by bicycle. Aside from a nicer UI and better system integration, that’s probably the only reason I still try Apple Maps from time to time.
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@siracusa all this is true.. and it doesn’t excuse anything about AI imo. Just because it was true for electricity, doesn’t mean we should just plow ahead with AI…
@vmachiel Like electricity, AI will (eventually) live or die based on the ratio of its usefulness to its harm. Crypto mining lives on because it’s useful for crime and blackmail and speculation, but it seems like it will never reach the mass market in the way that, say, smartphones have.
I think AI is already more useful than crypto, and it also has a much better use-to-harm ratio. Your opinion depends on your own estimate of those use and harm values.
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@atpfm Waze interface while the tiles are dated, as more Applely notably in CarPlay where most will interact with it. Google interface is still very much Android. So I still find myself jumping between the three. Hopefully eventually all traffic incidents from Waze show up in Google, and the UI gets a bit more refined, then could see myself using that fully even if far less enjoyable than Apple Maps, the other benefits would probably make it worth it.
@TechRemarker @atpfm That being said, since Google added support for Live Activities and implemented “getting directions without starting navigation,” I think they’ve out-Apple’d Apple in terms of convenience and ease of use for both walking and cycling navigation. Which, admittedly, is probably an edge case for many Americans.
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@siracusa I just wish we spend those energy gains on useful stuff, not making fake videos to mislead boomers
@vmachiel @siracusa AI is already tremendously useful for a large number of people. Yes, there are many concrete and hypothetical drawbacks, but even if none of the promised upsides ever materialize and even if models never improve beyond today’s level – it is still immensely useful. Collapsing all of that into “useless” is simply not true.
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677: I Accept the Battery Cost
https://atp.fm/677If you really don’t like AI, we have some bad news for you.
@atpfm Not looking good. @marcoarment turning to the dark side. What happened to "Think different”?
@Casey having a meltdown against the rest of the world, and we are losing @siracusa to the Borg… -
@vmachiel And as for the environmental impact of AI's energy usage, despite the fact that it is somewhat overblown as a percentage of total human energy use, it surely will be a short-term problem. And I'd argue that crypto mining (a much more clearcut case of harm with little practical use) shows we are not good at dealing with things like this. But advances in *other* tech (renewable energy) does give me some hope.
@siracusa @vmachiel Energy usage is also often overstated. Nobody is arguing that AI does not consume energy, or that aggregate demand does not add up. But this has to be evaluated in relation to the use and that it is spread across hundreds of millions of users. When broken down per individual and compared with what a typical Western European or American uses energy for, AI usage is negligible.
