calling me anti-tech because i'm against generative AI feels kinda analogous to calling me anti-sex because i'm against sexual assault.

[failedlyndonlarouchite@mas.to]

@keengrasp

I suspect that in the next 2 -5 years, we will see new cancer drugs based at least in part on AI

at that point, if you are anti tech cause you are anti AI, then you will be very much on the wrong side

[butchrobot@shork.nerdmusic.net]

@keengrasp@layer8.space calling me anti-clothing is weird just because im against fast fashion

[keengrasp@layer8.space]

@butchrobot right, look at all this anti-clothing extremism. i make one post mentioning that i'm not against sex and boom, furries show up in my mentions loudly declaring their intention to undress.
and all i can think is, dammit, this is exactly what technology should've been for all along. i would die for the fediverse.

[butchrobot@shork.nerdmusic.net]

@keengrasp@layer8.space indeed, lol. the fediverse really is reclaiming the tech future we were promised ​​

[bic@piaille.fr]

@keengrasp Why aren’t you anti-tech anyway ?
The tech industry is built on natural environments destruction, human labour in atrocious conditions… It has a very strong human and material impact, conducted in a neo-colonial way.

I would recommend the read of Barbarie numérique by Fabien Lebrun about the situation in Congo, but it’s in french

[keengrasp@layer8.space]

@Bic I am anti many technologies, and I think computing ought to have stopped at 16 bits. but we need to be accurate about which bad outcomes can be blamed on technology per se, and which are due to capitalism - accelerating deliberate obsolescence, mandatory "market growth" while ignoring real costs to ecosystems and people, etc.
our billionaire overlords could (and would) just as easily make us waste our lives / destroy the earth making products other than apps and phones.

[leadore@sunny.garden]

@failedLyndonLaRouchite

Sorry, it's too late to make that argument now. Techbros have successfully co-opted the term "AI" to be equivalent to their LLMs and generative text/image slop.

What you're talking about--the pre-slop machine-learning algorithms that are actually useful for finding drugs, discovering comets, analyzing medical images for cancer, etc. etc. is what "AI" used to refer to, but no more. (and TBF it was incorrect even for that kind of tech).

Billionaires took the name for marketing purposes, to hype up their slop machines..

Kind of like how fascists co-opted the swastika, the OK sign, putting parentheses around someone's name in text chat to mean giving them a hug, the numbers 88 and 1488, all were appropriated. We can't use them for their original meanings any more because the meanings have changed.

When people say they're anti-AI they are referring to the new meaning: slop. It says nothing about how they feel about the technology that AI used to mean. We'll have to come up with a new name for that.

@keengrasp

[qob@mastodon.social]

@keengrasp Takes nerve to see and give voice to truth

[paul@notnull.space]

@failedLyndonLaRouchite @keengrasp this is why AI is such a terrible thing to describe it.

Could an LLM create a new cancer drug? No.
Could machine learning be used to study data and extrapolate results that can be used develop new cancer fighting drugs? Yes, it probably has been for some time now.

[papyrusbrigade@cosocial.ca]

@failedLyndonLaRouchite That's a bit like saying chattel slavery was worth it because it gave rise to the spreadsheet.

[deepmud@mas.to]

@keengrasp great point!

[fiend_unpleasant@mastodon.social]

@keengrasp OMG YES!

[bic@piaille.fr]

@keengrasp You’re right !
For me, « tech » stands for « tech industry » which is the capitalist industry of the GAFAMs, phones, apps and all that.
How would you separate technology from capitalism ? How would you call the tech without capitalism ?
Most tech product I own has been produced and sold in a capitalist way.

Oh actually not, raspberry pi and mechanical keyboards should out of this. idk

Also, we are already destroying earth for many other reasons ! (maybe that’s what you meant by « and would »)