Agreed, but I think it’s understandable that emotions will be running high when people are discussing something that’s impacting their livelihoods. Lots of folks on this forum (including me) are out of work now at least partly because of AI boosterism.
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This also fuels the trap (for now, at least) because people can’t afford to protest unemployment brought on by the tech. And even if they can, governments and companies after lockdown have become even less accountable than before, willing to serve only a more privileged, bigoted and greedy base that may have and still benefit from this tech.
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Agreed about companies, but where I live, government is only as unaccountable as we let them be.
Which, admittedly, is, uh… pretty unaccountable at the moment… okay yeah I see your point…
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Problem is people are enamored by the society idealized by tech billionaires. Sure, tech is fun, but a good chunk of those who support big tech are bigoted and greedy, in bed with big business and see that the only alternative to their system is one that is an affront to their ideals (Soviet apartment blocks, hippie communes etc.)
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idol worship comes to mind. One thing I find with AI tools and I have used them at work and testing music ideas is they lack the unique creative spirit of happy human musical accidents. I come up with odd ball stuff on my hardware synths that no AI tool can replicate. It may not be to the taste of most people but who cares? I create music as therapy and it keeps me happy and away from dark stuff.
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I understand and not insensitive to folks plight! That said, do we have to belittle folks that may not be in that situation?
It sucks that someone admits they do it and people applaud the behavior!
I find it so strange!
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Outrageous! They should get banned!
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No need for bans when folks can just work on being nicer to those that have differing opinions! Super simple!
Alas, this is going nowhere! Have a great day everyone!
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Have a great day yourself! Thanks for stopping by 
I wish you were right, but big business and even governments are getting on in the LLM thing & are bringing those tools into the workplace. Service providers like Microsoft can build the true cost in & work out tricky, scalable contracts when the true cost becomes apparent after the Nvidia bubble bursts.
When governments are prepared to outsource thinking, we’re screwed.
Skeptics like us are in the minority.
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The name of this thread makes it plain this is a chat about AI, so you clicked the thread then told us all how you don’t like chats about AI.
Kokosnuss’ suggestion to block the convo from your feed was the right course of action.
Thanks for the bean soup theory demo (and the polite bowing out).
Have you looked into the economics of these companies? It is ridiculous. They will never make any money. I’ll be surprised if they ever make enough to pay back the investors. And I doubt they’ll be bailed out when push comes to shove. They are screwed.
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So I haven’t looked into the economics in depth, am just aware of the usual stuff like the weird circular investment in GPU manufacturing, the ridiculous scale & resource consumption of data centres etc…
I’m also aware of the Dotcom collapse leaving a global network of fibre optic cables which were left in use after the network owners went bust.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with that infrastructure after a potential AI business crash. If that happens, AI services & their businesses won’t be gone, they’ll adapt.
The people working in AI development are smart and have access to immensely powerful analytical tools. They’ll find new uses & opportunities.
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Some interesting thoughts on that here Talking With Paul Kedrosky - Paul Krugman
Basically the gpus wear out and aren’t a long term infrastructure investment like laying fiber cables so what you’re left with are basically big concrete warehouses.
A relevant snippet
Kedrosky: So you can come at it from the standpoint of the data centers themselves, roughly 65-70% of the cost of a data center is specifically the equipment.
Krugman: So it is mostly equipment.
Kedrosky: It is mostly equipment. Obviously the primary beneficiary of that are companies like Nvidia: GPU manufacturers. So it is mostly equipment. Again, there are issues with respect to that being the primary, because obviously there’s a relatively short timeline over which those technologies must be replaced. Michael Burry of “Big Short” fame has been out chattering about this stuff.
I think it’s somewhat misunderstood what’s going on, but nevertheless, I sometimes say “a data center full of GPUs is like a warehouse full of bananas, that’s got a relatively short half life in terms of its usefulness.” That’s important to keep in mind. That’s what makes it different from prior CapEx spending. Moments like railroads, canals, rural electrification, take your pick, because of the nature of the perished ability of the thing that we’re investing in.
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Ha! That’s brutal! Hadn’t thought of it like that.
So we’re gonna recycle all that silicon & copper, right? Oh no.
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well my big concern is how our current potus is letting the tech AI billionaires run the show with Peter Thiel, Musk, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison bulldoze us into a future AI tyranny.
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I have never knowingly used AI (no, not even ChatGPT and the like) and I intend to keep it that way. And for music, it would be sacrilege in my book. Not interested, thanks.
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Got asked by a colleague as to why I wouldn’t use AI in my music-making. Responded by asking him if he would happily use AI to have sex on his behalf, instead of actually doing it himself.
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There is no „Ai music“ vs „real music“, because there is also no „real love“ vs „love from internet based partner matching“.
The computer changes the meaning of things in a such a swift way - we immediately forget what things used to mean. It literally changes culture in a matter of month without us having the slightest say. We hardly notice it.
We start projecting the new on the old and carry on. But let‘s be clear: the fact that Ai does music has already changed almost everything about what we as a culture used to believe music to be. The social expectations are shifting right now and we can’t do anything about it.
We can sit in front of our expensive sound machines and have lots of fun and try to ignore the tectonic shift. I am not saying let’s all use Ai for music to get with “the times”, but I am saying we can’t go on from here and act like it’s business as usual. What you do in front of your daw, synth, sampler might be exactly the same, but it will very soon mean something very different, probably already does.
A long way of saying Non-Ai music will also be a reflection of Ai music, for example: non-Ai music will be performed. Or if it’s recorded music it will be weird or sound strange or will be full of mistakes. Stuff like that.
Sorry, long rant. Wrong place. Whatever.
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Nah man. If this was already a foregone conclusion, there’d be no need for all the astroturfing going on that’s clearly meant to convince us all that it’s already a foregone conclusion.
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