Comment by itishappy
6 hours ago
> From my perspective, it seems like most of the progress being made is towards bringing about a sort of techno-feudalism and environmental collapse. Maybe a little bit less progress would actually benefit humanity?
I'd argue you're conflating two independent axis: technological progress and societal inequality.
AI is useful today and is getting more powerful and efficient. This is obviously great for humanity! It's enabling discoveries that were previously out of reach, and allowing us to accomplish the same amount of work with less effort.
AI is also generating massive amounts of money for the wealthy and powerful and increasing inequality. This is not great for humanity!
I do think it's important to keep in mind that this centralization of power and wealth is not caused by AI directly: the pattern exists whenever there's a desirable but scarce resource. The same argument that AI is increasing inequality can reasonably be made about concrete, steel, and steam engines. The problems caused by AI are really human problems at their core. It's possible AI could even help us fix them! (I'm not at all hopeful.)
LLMs haven't enabled any discoveries that were previously out of reach. If you disagree, name one?
>AI is useful today and is getting more powerful and efficient
No, it's getting less efficient at an exponential rate without proportional performance gains
>do think it's important to keep in mind that this centralization of power and wealth is not caused by AI directly: the pattern exists whenever there's a desirable but scarce resource. The same argument that AI is increasing inequality can reasonably be made about concrete, steel, and steam engines.
The goal of these LLM companies is to funnel all economic activity through their models. LLMs only exist because of how they strip mined human work without consent or compensation. I.e. LLMs do directly cause the centralization of wealth and power by how they were designed and how they are meant to be used.
> LLMs haven't enabled any discoveries that were previously out of reach. If you disagree, name one?
While not an LLM, protein folding is now often done via transformer.
> No, it's getting less efficient at an exponential rate without proportional performance gains
AI is expanding in both directions. Sure, it's eating the world with its compute demand and the bitter lesson bites, but we're also seeing drastically improved efficiencies employed alongside. The cost per task is dropping fast.
> The goal of these LLM companies is to funnel all economic activity through their models.
That's what all companies want, AI or otherwise.
No arguments here on the ethics of AI companies though.
We live in a capitalist society, where human (intellectual) labor has immense value and grants social mobility.
Take away intellectual labor and society becomes inherently less equal, i.e. feudalistic.
You can argue the degree to which they influence each other, but technological progress and societal inequality are definitely not "independent axis".
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