Comment by slopinthebag
3 days ago
If "AI" was just free local and open models running on consumer hardware, fewer people would have an issue with it. Which highlights that the issue is with the hyper scalers, the rhetoric, the corporations, the marketing, etc etc.
We are ever so close to nearing the point where 90% of our AI usage can go through providers of open models, who all compete with each other to drive down prices and prevent rug pulls, leaving Dario and Sam holding empty bags.
Fewer, sure, but maybe less than you suggest. Plenty of harms are just as easy under a regime of open models only. Job losses, spamming, scraping the internet, data centers, scams, hacking etc are all possible with open weight models now.
Nah, the issue is more who controls access to these tools. People (rightfully) don't like billionaires or the elite ruling class very much. Without all the hype and investments it wouldn't be seen as such a big deal - just a neat technology.
Free open models are still capable of flooding art communities with slop images, which is worth sympathy, and is not included in your "Which highlights that the issue is with the hyper scalers, the rhetoric, the corporations, the marketing, etc etc".
Without the hoards of grifters who latched onto the AI bubble there would be less slop, and the community would find a way to deal with the bad slop, and would be far more accepting of the good slop.