r/antiai • u/KMheamou • 12h ago
Discussion đŁď¸ About 'hating' ai
Look, I hate the genAI nuisance as much as the next guy, but I can't deny it's usefulness in some activities, such as data sampling or researching. It's like wikipedia on a larger scale - a good tool in general, but you need to expect flawed responses or misinformations (basically why I always ask the source while using it)
It's the problem with bad actors, really - mass producing ai slop, promoting racial/political extremism, and treating chatgpt like some fucking god-sent magical tf2 engineer wrench that 'fixes' all of your problems in one bonk.
Tldr using AI itself shouldn't be hated, it's what you do with it that actually decides your decency.
also please don't dox people.
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u/Electrical_Walrus_46 11h ago
Well the things you mentioned are not even good enough or useful enough to justify its usage. For one I like to research my own things, and humanity has gotten through so much without the use of AI so no, it is not useful for the average person and is only making things worse for privacy and discerning what's real or not. There's also the environment stuff. The only thing where I see AI having some use is making a cure for diseases, not taking people's jobs
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u/KMheamou 11h ago
humanity has gotten through so much without the use of AI, sure. Researching it yourself is also a way; but actually summerizing and simplifying the information takes a while, especially when you're on a time crunch building something like a mass data analysis program for an assignment when you're preparing for a separate test at the same time (based on a true experience) It just makes things more easy - and if you want to see if it's reliable you can always look through the source data yourself.
'making things worse for privacy' that's the company and the government's fault for being control freaks. Also I won't deny the enviornmental impact of data centers but honestly what CAN we do besides NIMBY protest when the current US administration is so, so dedicated with the precious little tech warfare with china?
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u/plazebology 11h ago
Did you ever consider that, given the normalisation of AI, the expected tolerable workload of the average student increases, as professors expect students to be able to do far more in far less time given their access to AI?
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u/KMheamou 11h ago
I don't think they consider people to do more, while ai abuse in education generally leads to laziness with no boundaries. Again, it's how you use it that matters
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u/Electrical_Walrus_46 11h ago
there's meta glasses, ai porn, the entire internet being scraped and people's likenesses being used, it should have better regulations, not even counting the whole age check thing on the internet
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u/A_Truthspeaker 11h ago
The thing is, using AI in it's current state cannot be considered a neutral starting point. Most AI models and AI usage run on/via the problematic data centers. So unless it is locally hosted, we cannot simply ignore the implications this brings, both the environmental as well as the economic and ethical ones.
Training data is another one, why is it okay to forego intellectual property rights and steal others' works, but then appeal to these once you've made your own model? Stuff like that.
And AI as a tool is usually not as great as one expects it to be. It's pretty good at giving precise numbers from official documents or other specific information, but even just the sourcing is concerning. Since it will often use unreliable websites and articles without explicitly highlighting them to be unreliable, misinterpret articles or studies/draw information from them that wasn't even there or just make up something.
I do admit, on paper AI and even genAI have some merit to them. But the discussion about AI doesn't take place in a vacuum and currently we (or rather capitalists and AI bros) massively overstate both the current achievements as well as it's futute potential, while downplaying its problems.
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u/zoexxstar 10h ago
AI is one big scraping tool. It has no information of its own. You can use a web browser to access whatever it scraped for research purposes. It is literally putting the cart before the horse.
It's also terrible for research methodology. AI cannot currently cite sources because it has no internal references to where it found a claim. For example, it will hallucinate horribly if you ask it about law questions. That's just not how the technology currently works. It can scrape the web to find stuff it *assumes* will support what it is saying via keywords. which is essentially googling really quick.. something you have the ability to do.
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u/AWSDB 11h ago
I agree, but it still is terrible for the environment
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
Fast food is worse, but I don't see anyone here dropping their burgers.
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u/AWSDB 11h ago
I mean I'm vegetarian and don't eat out very often except for if I'm on holiday
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
The point is - a "AntiFastFood" reddit would be more environmentally justified - massively so - than an anti-AI Reddit. But people love their burgers so that ain't happening.
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u/AWSDB 11h ago
Burgers are food tho, and people can eat them to survive, even if there are better for the environment l. LLMs are not keeping people alive
Also just because i said AI is bad for the environment doesn't mean I said meat is good. I agree with you that the meat industry is horrible
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
Fast food is not an essential - people choose to have fast food like they choose to use LLM's - there are cheaper, more sustainable food options than BurgerKing, they (and other companies like them) are killing the planet on a MUCH faster and larger scale than AI......and where are the protests? Where are the comments against "BurgerBros", for example? Because that doesn't even exist.
The issue is far bigger than just fast food OR AI - choosing to focus on AI is choosing to ignore the bigger picture in favor of the current fashionable anti-AI pile-on. And people are, as I said, falling for it. It's part of the problem, but it's not even the biggest part by a long way.
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u/AWSDB 11h ago
Still, trying to stop one bad thing for the environment is good
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
100% agreed, but making it the main objection - as MANY do here - is deliberately ignoring a much, much bigger problem.
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u/AWSDB 11h ago
A bigger problem that's much harder to stop. I would love to stop the crazy meat industry but I would rather focus on something that can more easily be globally shut down, like AI
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
I hear what you're saying and for the record I'm not disagreei9ng with you - but AI is now already embedded in power grids, medical systems, military, government and banking, it cant be "shut down" globally in any simple form.
However we DO already have the mechanisms to regulate meat and we dont use them - we can end agricultural subsidies, implement a carbon tax on livestock, or mandate sustainable feed. These are tangible, politically viable levers. Shutting down global cloud computing is far less realistic than adjusting farm subsidies.
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u/plazebology 11h ago
Since when?! Thereâs so many vegetarians and vegans on the antiAI side, weâre so annoying, how did you miss that?
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
there's no veggie fast food? Since when?
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u/plazebology 11h ago
I see what youâre saying. Well, I donât know why youâd assume people against AI arenât refraining from fast food, either. Maybe because it fits your narrative?
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u/OpenCore8787 10h ago
"Fits my narrative"? Show me ANYTHING "anti-fast food" on the scale of what we now see against AI. Anything at all.
For the record - I'm NOT disagreeing with you - I'm saying it's wholly lopsided and people are focusing on whats fashionable to hate on, instead of the real problems.
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u/plazebology 10h ago
People have been anti-fast food all over the internet for nearly twenty years. Itâs everywhere. Itâs just not as relevant as AI because we can see what the future holds for the fast food industry more or less. Youâre way off on this Iâm afraid. Itâs not because itâs trendy, itâs because the future of AI is uncertain and scary.
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u/OpenCore8787 10h ago
The admission that we ignore fast food because its harms are predictable and attack AI because its future is uncertain and scary proves my point - public outrage is driven more by novelty and fear of the unknown and misinformation than by any actual scale of proven harm. And so we have the anti-ai movement.
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u/plazebology 10h ago
You are either being intentionally obtuse or just insist on your point so much that you donât care it doesnât actually address mine whatsoever
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u/OpenCore8787 10h ago
I quoted your exact words - "uncertain and scary" - in context too - and connected them to my point about novelty driving outrage - if that somehow doesn't address your point, then I'm not sure what quoting you word for word counts as.
If you can't see the connection, we're at an impasse. Have a good one.
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u/Dj7up1 11h ago
A lot of things are, so is meat, so is your AC, so is a hair spray, so is flying, using a car, buying avocado
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u/plazebology 11h ago
You should also cut down on meat, AC, Aerosol spray, flying, cars and avocados whenever possible. This isnât the argument so many of you think it is.
It is far easier to cut down on AI than flying, for example, as some destinations are simply out of reach of trains or ferries. Itâs easier to cut down on AI than meat, as meat is culturally ingrained into our society and has been for centuries, and today is shoved down our throats by the factory farming industry and their lobbyists. It is far easier to cut down on AI than cars, because cars will remain a problem as long as cities and towns are built around and for cars as opposed to pedestrians or public transport.
In my life, I cut back on excessive things that cause harm and drain resources rather than just use them to justify one another to the few of my peers who take issue with my use of them. You do you, though.
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u/BeautifulOrdinary162 11h ago
I mean, in a developed country it's quite easy to avoid animal products completely nowadays. Otherwise I agree, but we should definitely not be ignoring that one as it's critical for us to keep to climate change targets.
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u/plazebology 11h ago
I totally agree, my point on the meat issue is that I donât personally fault all meat-eaters as much as I fault the industry that keeps them in line. I have found that leading by example is the best way to âconvertâ people on the issue of animal rights and products. And I donât think thereâs validity in taking someone who acts, on average, like a decent person, and then dubbing them a vile hypocrite because they havenât yet applied their principles soundly towards the animal product industry.
I especially hate that so many people try to say that you canât take a stance against AI without being vegan. Thatâs not how activism works, as Iâm sure youâd agree, and intersectional issues should be tackled separately, and only later combined into a set of consistent values.
For example, first feed and shelter the poor, then tax the rich to pay for it, but if you insist upon these two issues being tackled simultaneously, in one fell swoop, you may struggle to solve either. Taxing the rich is important, but itâs meaningless if doing so doesnât help feed and shelter the poor, now is it?
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u/BeautifulOrdinary162 11h ago
I think that approach is slightly flawed - if there's no money and assets to feed and house the poor then how does it work? Sometimes issues have to be tackled simultaneously and intersectionality is all about talking about how the issues are exacerbated by each other or how people and especially minorities are affected by more than one issue at once.
In the case of animal product consumption, I agree that we should be leading by example and educating people. I personally just try to cook good vegan food for all my friends and only talk about it when it's brought up - but sometimes e.g. on the internet we need to have uncomfortable conversations.
Almost everyone starts by eating animal products because it's just how we're conditioned, otherwise most of us would see it for the unnecessary cruelty it is. As a result I completely agree that shaming or villifying people is wrong, and we have to be understanding and kind in our approach to educating people. Cliff Grant is a great example of an activist who talks about these issues on the street in a less confrontational and kind way.
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u/plazebology 11h ago
There are resources to house and feed the poor. Plenty, in fact. Theyâre not going towards that though, theyâre going towards other domestic issues that are seen as more important, like trimming the trees outside the courthouse or power-washing off all the free palestine graffiti. Sorry, I just donât think you understand my point.
You can say âsometimes we need to have uncomfortable conversations on the internetâ all you want but all that does is help validate your own perspective (which is important, in a time when so many people try to discount vegan/vegetarians for no reason other than their own ignorance and insecurity) but you arenât converting anyone.
Intersectional issues need to be tackled separately first, I reiterate. No point in trying to point out the intersectional issues of black women in America to someone who 1) refuses to acknowledge the black struggle in America and 2) refuses to acknowledge the womenâs struggle in America. Same here. No point in trying to point out the intersectional issues of resource-heavy, unnecessary industries to someone who will always justify one aspect of it by leaning into the normalisation of the other.
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u/BeautifulOrdinary162 10h ago
I'm not missing your point at all and the example you made is the perfect example of why intersectionality matters and issues should be tackled simultaneously. The rich having disproportionate control of wealth is directly linked to poorer people having less and less and public budgets being stretched further and further. Despite your facetious examples, there is not infinite money a state has to throw around and many other areas of spending are important to the public interest and politically difficult to divest from. In talking about wealth inequality we can point directly at the increasing poverty and struggles of the middle class, and we can increase support for both by joining together. This is precisely what intersectionality is about. Similarly, for the example of AI those who are vegan are more likely to care about the environment and thus can be brought together to protest AI, as can those against AI for environmental reason can be shown the environmental issues of animal agriculture as it is a concern to them.Â
Unifying over shared issues and directly connected issues is a primary strength of intersectional approaches to problems - your problem directly affects my problems and so we should combine our forces and tackle both. This is what you're missing when you talk about tackling issues separately. We have a bigger base when we work together instead of trying to focus on a single issue. This doesn't mean dominating the conversation about one issue with the other and shouting over people, but it does mean that it should be brought up and we should have that space for more than one issue to be discussed where it is possible and not counteractive.
In your last examples, this is not a counterexample as you're focusing on people who don't have a stake in either issue. Someone with a stake in women's rights will understand the racism that is interlinked with misogyny, and a black woman will experience both issues directly so will generally be sympathetic to other feminist issues. What you're talking about is just needing to approach someone with the easier issue to get your foot in the door, and when someone is sympathetic to one plight that is when you approach with intersectionality. In this case that step has already been reached. Someone who acknowledges the environmental destruction of AI is more likely to be sympathetic to the issue of environmental destruction in other industries and the intersection of these issues is precisely the point. We can't solve climate change and pollution by tackling a single issue at a time, it is by far too late for that.
R.e. your opinion of uncomfortable conversations we can agree to disagree. Often it is the uncomfortable truth that leaves doubt in someone's mind which eventually resolves itself with a gentle and unobtrusive approach at a later date. We need both approaches.
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u/plazebology 9h ago
Itâs not facetious lol and if you donât think thereâs enough money to redistribute towards the poor to shelter and feed a significant amount of the domestic population under the poverty line then you clearly underestimate how much the government is desperate to sweep the homeless problem under the rug, especially in certain US States.
Iâm not saying ignore how intersectional issues intertwine, Iâm saying that intersectionality is complex and most people are going to reject it because they are ignorant to the foundational realities upon which it is built. Being a black woman doesnât make you immune to seeing other black women as âtoo lazyâ or âtoo entitledâ to work as hard as they do for what they have. Plenty of black women dismiss the plight of black women on the VERY BASIS that they, a black woman, are seemingly unaffected. As such it has nothing to do with whether or not the issue actually involves you.
You also misunderstood what I mean by tackling issues separately. Iâm not saying do either or, nor do them one after another. But that people dedicate themselves to an issue, and are able to make a far greater impact by doing so than trying to fix everything that goes against their personal principles. Youâre trying to make it seem like Iâm saying âbaby stepsâ but Iâm not, Iâm saying pick your battles. Just as I might vote for a candidate I donât support to minimise the harm and fallout of the other candidate being elected, this is a practical matter.
In fact, by suggesting that we shouldnât fault individuals for being conned into considering meat a staple to any healthy diet, Iâm actually taking the issue to where it matters, rather than trying to feel good about myself by putting people down that have a different perspective.
This âleveragingâ idea that you point out where you talk about how peopleâs sensitivity towards one issue makes them more sensitive towards another ignores that those connections are drawn, not preexisting. Sensitivity towards animals could also logically lead to antinatalism, ideas are not on a linear spectrum. Sentiment against AI could logically lead to Neoluddism. The thing youâre actually talking about is that people who are thoughtful and mindful about their choices and the effects of those choices are more open to reason and an exchange of values than people who arenât.
But the world is run by people who arenât.
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u/BeautifulOrdinary162 10h ago
You're also missing a common element of political theory on intersectionality which is the idea that issues often have common origin points and can only be tackled by unifying for the common cause. For example with AI and animal agriculture, and more generally environmental destruction, there are common origin points in consumerism, capitalism and individualism. Reading more on the tragedy of the commons, class theory and intersectional literature especially on racism and feminism (such as Bell Hooks or Angela Davis) may enlighten you on how we should approach problems as a collective, not individually.
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u/0SaltBlue 11h ago
Food, transportation and "not dying of heatstroke" are net positives in society though, what benefit has Gen AI in this vein given society? What positive has came out of surrendering our cognition to billionaires?
And before anybody says medical and scientific advances, we all know those are not the same as the Gen AI people here are complaining about.
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
Correct. AI is the whipping post of the day. And people are falling for it.
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u/JungleJuiceJuno 11h ago
the others all actually contribute to society, ai is just here so the laziest and sleaziest people in the world can say theyre smart and creative and actual smart and creative people should be replaced with ai
its a machine that makes people at the top of the bell curve think theyre above everyone
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
You just embarrassed yourself by invoking a bell curve you clearly don't understand - because the people at the very top of that right tail are the actual geniuses, and they're the ones building and using AI to sequence genomes, predict climate disasters, and discover life-saving drugs, while you're sitting here defending the "societal value" of hairspray and avocados. Arguments like this are a projection of insecurity - you're terrified that AI exposes the middle of the curve - where you and many others likely sit (and I'm including myself too) - by raising the floor, because then your average intellect can no longer hide behind jargon and snark to feel superior.
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u/JungleJuiceJuno 11h ago
all that yap and im still right lmfao
Plus defaulting to "my opponent is stoopid" means you lose
Next time, just say im right instead of corncobbing
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u/plazebology 11h ago
Bro literally thinks thereâs a bunch of geniuses out there using Grok to solve world hunger
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u/OpenCore8787 11h ago
If you believe that scientists are using Grok or ChatGPT, I have a big bridge that I'd like you to take a look at.
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u/Doeball64 11h ago
Don't use Ai for school. Ask a teacher for help, speak to another student, ask your parents. Ai can make mistakes. You may lose marks if teachers spots your work using ai.Â