On 4/4/26 00:46, Greg Hogan wrote:
On Wed, Apr 1, 2026 at 8:33 AM Cayetano Santos <[email protected]> wrote:
mer. 01 avril 2026 at 12:21, gfp <[email protected]> wrote:
Am 01.04.26 um 13:27 schrieb gfp:
Am 01.04.26 um 06:33 schrieb Ian Eure:
Gfp <[email protected]> writes:
Hi,
2.
What is your experience on AI?
I personally consider it a harmful technology and choose never to use it. Its
fundamental inefficiency means it consumes fresh water and emits carbon, both in
staggering quantities. All the popular models are trained on infringing
intellectual
property, including Free Software. The hundreds of billions of dollars invested
in this
unprofitable technology is putting national economies at risk. It has already
caused
tremendous human suffering, and will continue to do so.
Could you please provide more details on "tremendous human suffering" because I
know too
little about that.
An interesting reference is the "Atlas of AI", by Kate Crawford.
C.
Are we permitted to discuss non-free works on this GNU mailing list?
Only if you first license-launder it through an LLM!
I for one, welcome the recommendation. I'm very utilitarian, and so far
the book is about that we can't see LLM's as "just tools", because it is
too difficult to decouple them from their social/political origins.
Can't say whether I agree or disagree yet, but it is an interesting read.
In return, some fiction that might be relevant:
- Accelerando, by Charles Stross (2005); which highlights a future in
which humans are not able anymore to understand what is going on.
- Daemon & Freedom, where the AI is used in a more decentralized way to
empower people.
Sure, wiki notes 'Crawford also compares "TrueTime" in Google's
Spanner with historical efforts to control time associated with
colonialism'. Written in 2021, and the best evidence presented for
"tremendous human suffering" of modern AI. It is laughable for a Guix> user to
complain about water and energy consumption.
No need to get angry and laugh at people. We're all trying to live our
best lives, and need discourse like this to figure out what that is.
You can make your point without antagonizing people.
“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big
mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some
said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should
ever have left the oceans.” - Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy
A non-fiction recomendation:
- A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright. Wright argues that
this is essentially what humans do since the beginning: invent
technology, then use that to cause enormous problems, to be solved with
new technology. So it is good that there are also naysayers; we should
cherish those voices, because maybe we can break this cycle.
Arguably, even the book of Genesis can be put in the context of that
Adams quote (even as an atheist reading, where the fall from Eden *is*
this descent from the trees): "'eating from the tree of knowledge' is a
dangerous idea; you're going to do it, and no-one will stop you. You
should do it even, but be warned: once you do, you take on a
responsibility that you can never get rid of".
Hugo
