I feel like the question of whether a tool is useful for a purpose ought to be subordinate to whether using the tool is broadly bad for the world. CFCs were extremely useful as refrigerants. Lead fuel additives did a great job reducing knocking in engines. - ThreadSky

tbskyen.com • 1 day ago

I feel like the question of whether a tool is useful for a purpose ought to be subordinate to whether using the tool is broadly bad for the world.

CFCs were extremely useful as refrigerants. Lead fuel additives did a great job reducing knocking in engines.

Reposted from Hank Green

There are a lot of critiques of LLMs that I agree with but "they suck and aren't useful" doesn't really hold water.

I understand people not using them because of social, economic, and environmental concerns. And I also understand people using them because they can be very useful.

Thoughts?

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tbskyen.com•1 day ago

Also, idk if I could categorize as "useful" any technology that consumes THAT MUCH electricity and water in order to output... emails and Shrimp Jesus pictures and badly written computer code. Like, refrigeration at least helped food stay fresh, y'know?

gibilloarrate.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think there are problems in what you say: first, the energy consumption is not necessary as it depends on eficiency, and it can be reduced. Deepseek is less wasteful, as an example. The second thing is that CFCs are sadly one of the few examples of success, but CO2 regulations aren't as effective

tbskyen.com•1 day ago

I am not much inclined to take "oh but it'll be more efficient in the future" as an argument in favor of doing severe ecological damage in the present.

Also, what does the success rate of CO2 regulation have to do with anything?

gibilloarrate.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's not an argument for the future, it's happening RN, as with Deepseek. I suppose that it's true that lower energy consumption can lead to a higher use of the technology, so more emissions (Jevons paradox) but it's really hard to say

gibilloarrate.bsky.social•1 day ago

I saud CO2 as a comparison of a global problem that hasn't been solved, because lead or ozone has been, and also things like asbestos are in the same category, but i feel like those are exceptions rather than the rule: they were very dangerous in the short term, mainly

radgen.bsky.social•1 day ago

The problem is the LLM's are a HUGE diverse category. There are valid uses for it, but these are far more niche and small scale than what most people think of when they think AI (also not very "sexy" either). The image generation/chatGP crap is useless and cause most of the issues.

charlieowlie.bsky.social•1 day ago

AI is bad, and it is not necessary, so it should not exist. Fossil fuels are really bad, but they are necessary, for now. We can't stop using them, we need to transition away from them. We *can* stop using AI entirely, and it's bad. Being "useful" is not enough. So it's irrelevant to the discussion.

charlieowlie.bsky.social•1 day ago

Debating over the usefulness of AI is just a distraction from more important questions. All the time we spend arguing if it's useless, useful, useful bit not enough, situationally useful... is time we don't spend saying that it's too bad for its usefulness to matter.

gameipedia.bsky.social•1 day ago

wish I were articulate enough to tell this guy why his framing here is stupid, but also apparently he's some level of internet famous so like, as an unqualified nobody it'd just be a voice in the wind

gameipedia.bsky.social•1 day ago

but also just, ascribing an amount of grace and good intention to things made by just the worst type of people in general just doesnt compute to me

kiiwastaken.bsky.social•1 day ago

i dislike the idea of completely dismissing its "potential usefullness" because its just.. an easy argument to make in its favor

Arguing against its flawed usefullness and pointing out how its not THAT useful is important i think to make the actual arguments more convincing

zipper-marks.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Yeah, this is how I feel about it too. Whether we like it or not, there is some nuance here. There are limited uses for it where it can work.

I think it's better to acknowledge that and argue that it's not worth the cost, than to plug your ears and pretend there are no uses for it.

kiiwastaken.bsky.social•1 day ago

If you just pretend that its "useless" youre just giving the opposition an easy way to build a more convincing argument on how it actually isnt worth its usecases (that arent even that useful), so i kinda get what they mean by it? but by virtue of what i said also agree with your statement

kiiwastaken.bsky.social•1 day ago

oh, i typed wrong, i meant its easier for the opposition to argue that it is worth it because it has usecases mb

riscello.bsky.social•1 day ago

Towards a future where we have to explain to children why gas stations have "leadless" fuel, restaurants have "zero" sodas, and cinemas have "no-AI" films.

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