I am under a DDoS attack.
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Fast-forward seven years. Billions of dollars have been spent on the Transformer and co. The EU has just announced a 200 billion € initiative to promote #AI, following other governments across the globe. Millions of people, crushed by the demands of 'efficiency', now think that a machine writes email better and faster than they do. And wow, the new tech can even fire people (in all senses of the term.) Still wanna grab a coffee? /2
In the last seven years, I have had to teach Transformers, reply to questions from over-enthusiastic students and concerned family members, write countless lines (publicly and privately) about the many issues associated with 'AI'. Hell, I even had to build the thing from scratch to illustrate its problems. I am on stage every month with a tiny Transformer which you can unpack, showing to an interested audience why the thing is all hot air.
Problem is: it is not my job. /3
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In the last seven years, I have had to teach Transformers, reply to questions from over-enthusiastic students and concerned family members, write countless lines (publicly and privately) about the many issues associated with 'AI'. Hell, I even had to build the thing from scratch to illustrate its problems. I am on stage every month with a tiny Transformer which you can unpack, showing to an interested audience why the thing is all hot air.
Problem is: it is not my job. /3
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the outreach. I even think that looking inside a machine helps people understand better why they are people and not machines. Language is one of these things that are never taught in school (kids know more about the Big Bang than they do about the faculty that helps them think, believe and communicate). So perhaps showing how #AI fails to do language is the best way to describe what language actually is. But it is only a small part of my job description. /4
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Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the outreach. I even think that looking inside a machine helps people understand better why they are people and not machines. Language is one of these things that are never taught in school (kids know more about the Big Bang than they do about the faculty that helps them think, believe and communicate). So perhaps showing how #AI fails to do language is the best way to describe what language actually is. But it is only a small part of my job description. /4
I am computational linguist. Wanna know what I was working on before 2018? I was doing computer simulations of (parts of) the human semantic faculty. I was showing how knowledge, beliefs, real and hypothetical worlds live inside the human mind, in multidimensional spaces. I was showing their geometry and manipulating conceptual shapes the way you move concrete objects in space. And it was beautiful and it had so much potential to explain aspects of our humanity. /5
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I am computational linguist. Wanna know what I was working on before 2018? I was doing computer simulations of (parts of) the human semantic faculty. I was showing how knowledge, beliefs, real and hypothetical worlds live inside the human mind, in multidimensional spaces. I was showing their geometry and manipulating conceptual shapes the way you move concrete objects in space. And it was beautiful and it had so much potential to explain aspects of our humanity. /5
How much real science have I done in the last 7 years? A fraction of what I wanted to do. My field was engulfed by #AI hype. Literally. You can read the reports highlighting how industrial involvement in our scientific community drastically increased after 2018. I got out of academia because of it. But then I couldn't get away from the fact that the general discourse had also been hijacked and that some reaction was needed. /6
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T tanyakaroli@expressional.social shared this topic
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How much real science have I done in the last 7 years? A fraction of what I wanted to do. My field was engulfed by #AI hype. Literally. You can read the reports highlighting how industrial involvement in our scientific community drastically increased after 2018. I got out of academia because of it. But then I couldn't get away from the fact that the general discourse had also been hijacked and that some reaction was needed. /6
I am an introvert. I don't enjoy talking, fighting, arguing. I don't actually like social media (sorry Mastodon, you're great nevertheless). I like being alone with my eyes closed, wondering what would happen to this or that conceptual structure when you rotate it through space. This is what I'm actually good at, or at least what I feel comfortable doing. But you all know the sign: "It is so bad that even introverts are here." /8
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I am an introvert. I don't enjoy talking, fighting, arguing. I don't actually like social media (sorry Mastodon, you're great nevertheless). I like being alone with my eyes closed, wondering what would happen to this or that conceptual structure when you rotate it through space. This is what I'm actually good at, or at least what I feel comfortable doing. But you all know the sign: "It is so bad that even introverts are here." /8
I am a computational linguist, so I feel a duty to talk about so-called #AI and fight the hype. But this is Denial of Service. The service I was meant to provide was science, not debunking a trillion-dollar distraction.
So if you're *not* a linguist or an engineer, please do not let anybody divert you from your purpose. Do what you're good at. Bake bread, sell groceries, rescue injured owls, invent better solar panels, help keep our cities clean.
And don't think about the two-letter word. /9
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I am a computational linguist, so I feel a duty to talk about so-called #AI and fight the hype. But this is Denial of Service. The service I was meant to provide was science, not debunking a trillion-dollar distraction.
So if you're *not* a linguist or an engineer, please do not let anybody divert you from your purpose. Do what you're good at. Bake bread, sell groceries, rescue injured owls, invent better solar panels, help keep our cities clean.
And don't think about the two-letter word. /9
@minimalparts I feel for you! This hype has only just started to invade my field for real during the last two years. I have tried to move myself into places where I can voice criticism but the hype train moves on. Everyone is afraid to lose some vaguely imagined advantage if they don’t keep up. I maintain that the way to keep up is to remain critical.
Honestly, I wish this technology had not been invented. We don’t need tech that can halfway simulate what we are already good at. Sigh! -
@minimalparts I feel for you! This hype has only just started to invade my field for real during the last two years. I have tried to move myself into places where I can voice criticism but the hype train moves on. Everyone is afraid to lose some vaguely imagined advantage if they don’t keep up. I maintain that the way to keep up is to remain critical.
Honestly, I wish this technology had not been invented. We don’t need tech that can halfway simulate what we are already good at. Sigh!@tanyakaroli @minimalparts When you truly understand the transformer model and the GPT architecture, it is so easy to see how it is not "smart", and certainly not "resonating".
I wanted to react on the "We don't need tech that can halfway simulate what we are already good at." exactly because I believe that's not what it has been created for: Machine Learning has been created precisely to find way of "capturing" correlations in problems too large for the state of the art, so we can model, predict, classify etc... some phenomenon better.
In my opinion, this is super useful for one thing: fundamental research (e.g. genetics, climate science, etc.)
It is also easy to see how frenzy is this AI hype, because we already have papers showing we could investigate new architecture bringing us closer to the human brain in terms of energy efficiency https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.02528 and yet we are just buying new shiny GPUs burning our planet faster and making our economy even more dependent of a single US company.
In face of that, there is a clear question that comes to mind: why? /0
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@tanyakaroli @minimalparts When you truly understand the transformer model and the GPT architecture, it is so easy to see how it is not "smart", and certainly not "resonating".
I wanted to react on the "We don't need tech that can halfway simulate what we are already good at." exactly because I believe that's not what it has been created for: Machine Learning has been created precisely to find way of "capturing" correlations in problems too large for the state of the art, so we can model, predict, classify etc... some phenomenon better.
In my opinion, this is super useful for one thing: fundamental research (e.g. genetics, climate science, etc.)
It is also easy to see how frenzy is this AI hype, because we already have papers showing we could investigate new architecture bringing us closer to the human brain in terms of energy efficiency https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.02528 and yet we are just buying new shiny GPUs burning our planet faster and making our economy even more dependent of a single US company.
In face of that, there is a clear question that comes to mind: why? /0
My not so humble opinion is that this AI hype is just a side-effect of a deeper societal root cause: the absurdity of our economy.
We are all about growth, GDP and efficiency; and we pursue them regardless of their social-ecological effects: "Is this growth really useful? Do we live better?"
We have countless evidence our planet cannot sustain our model, that our species is not living better: obesity, young people like me see no positive future, drugs usage in US is spiking crazy...
And even if you play "the game" of neoliberalists and take their single lens: economy; you can still see their actions are hurting the economy on the long run, occidentals own something like 170 billions dollars of investment in South America, and yet we know the risk of savannisation of the Amazon Forest will impact their investment: https://financetransformation.earth/redirecting-flows/chapter-6/
So our society is not sustainable: not ecologically, certainly not socially, and even not economically.
We are exposed to absurdity, everyday of our life. /1
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My not so humble opinion is that this AI hype is just a side-effect of a deeper societal root cause: the absurdity of our economy.
We are all about growth, GDP and efficiency; and we pursue them regardless of their social-ecological effects: "Is this growth really useful? Do we live better?"
We have countless evidence our planet cannot sustain our model, that our species is not living better: obesity, young people like me see no positive future, drugs usage in US is spiking crazy...
And even if you play "the game" of neoliberalists and take their single lens: economy; you can still see their actions are hurting the economy on the long run, occidentals own something like 170 billions dollars of investment in South America, and yet we know the risk of savannisation of the Amazon Forest will impact their investment: https://financetransformation.earth/redirecting-flows/chapter-6/
So our society is not sustainable: not ecologically, certainly not socially, and even not economically.
We are exposed to absurdity, everyday of our life. /1
The only narrative we get is that "humankind will beat nature thanks to technology".
So all powers in place are waiting for the "next big thing" that will save their absurd model.
We are squeezing our dying economy to pursue the road of AI. But let's face it: how AI would help with cleaning oceans? How would it help with climate change? How will it reduce our carbon footprint? How will it solve our social issues?
AI won't save us. At best, it will accelerate our downfall and make it obvious to the eyes of the world how absurd our society is. Even the US, the mother of neoliberalism, is leaving this model in the person of Trump. So we already have plenty evidences. /2
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The only narrative we get is that "humankind will beat nature thanks to technology".
So all powers in place are waiting for the "next big thing" that will save their absurd model.
We are squeezing our dying economy to pursue the road of AI. But let's face it: how AI would help with cleaning oceans? How would it help with climate change? How will it reduce our carbon footprint? How will it solve our social issues?
AI won't save us. At best, it will accelerate our downfall and make it obvious to the eyes of the world how absurd our society is. Even the US, the mother of neoliberalism, is leaving this model in the person of Trump. So we already have plenty evidences. /2
TL; DR I fully agree with @minimalparts : don't stop what you are doing; if you are not doing a BS-job, you will be highly relevant in the future because once the system implodes (and it will), your skills will be invaluable.
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TL; DR I fully agree with @minimalparts : don't stop what you are doing; if you are not doing a BS-job, you will be highly relevant in the future because once the system implodes (and it will), your skills will be invaluable.
@raskyld totally agree with everything you’re saying! @minimalparts
