Red Mosquito

McParadigm wrote:"I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself."

contamination wrote:I thought there were supposed to be more efficient algorithms that would solve all the AI energy consumption problems. Well it sure doesn't look like it at the moment:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -emissions

The abstract here (link is from that same article) https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03271 about the AI water usage is also pretty worrying. I wonder if and how that has changed since the article was published:

The growing carbon footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) models, especially large ones such as GPT-3, has been undergoing public scrutiny. Unfortunately, however, the equally important and enormous water (withdrawal and consumption) footprint of AI models has remained under the radar. For example, training GPT-3 in Microsoft's state-of-the-art U.S. data centers can directly evaporate 700,000 liters of clean freshwater, but such information has been kept a secret. More critically, the global AI demand may be accountable for 4.2 -- 6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal in 2027, which is more than the total annual water withdrawal of 4 -- 6 Denmark or half of the United Kingdom. This is very concerning, as freshwater scarcity has become one of the most pressing challenges shared by all of us in the wake of the rapidly growing population, depleting water resources, and aging water infrastructures. To respond to the global water challenges, AI models can, and also must, take social responsibility and lead by example by addressing their own water footprint. In this paper, we provide a principled methodology to estimate the water footprint of AI models, and also discuss the unique spatial-temporal diversities of AI models' runtime water efficiency. Finally, we highlight the necessity of holistically addressing water footprint along with carbon footprint to enable truly sustainable AI.

An adult can live without knowing anything, but what kind of world will our children inherit?

During graduation season, there are many public statements expressing compassion for those finishing school. The message is that you are valuable, even if you haven't achieved top grades or started a business during confirmation class.

While this is a good and important message, in the current atmosphere, one might wonder if it would sometimes be appropriate to celebrate and encourage those who have genuinely put in effort and haven't taken the easy route with the help of artificial intelligence.

In May, New York Magazine published a provocative article titled "Everyone cheats their way through college." In it, Chung "Roy" Lee, a computer science student at Columbia University, reveals that he completes most of his assignments using generative AI because he finds them mostly pointless and lacks interest in doing them. Instead of a thirst for knowledge, his motivation to attend the prestigious university was the understanding that it's the best place to meet wives and funders.

Similar reports have emerged from Finland. In June, Associate Professor Veikko Eranti from the University of Helsinki mentioned that he had started conducting oral exams because students were blatantly using AI to write their essays. Some didn't even bother to check if the AI-generated answers, supposedly based on the textbook, were completely nonsensical. Often, they were.

Students have developed various ways to cheat, probably as long as schools have existed. The methods have varied from cheat sheets to formulas written on the inside of the arm, but the basic idea has remained the same: take the easy way out.

However, never before has it been this easy. Even cheating no longer requires effort.

Of course, no one can be forced to learn or study. If an adult chooses to live without knowing or learning anything, they have every right to do so. There's no need to waste moral panic on self-deception. Instead, it should be directed at the consequences.

What kind of society and world are people building who are too lazy to even cheat? Will they ask AI how to stop climate change and fix the pension system?

Humanity is facing unprecedented crises, yet students graduate from basic school who can't even read properly. Not everyone needs to become a professor, but what becomes of them when vocational education has also been degraded to a state of decline due to cuts?

Perhaps members of parliament.

Suomen Kuvalehti magazine recently revealed that some members of parliament use AI to write their speeches. AI is also used to record speeches, meaning that in the best case, during a plenary session, AI records speeches that were also written by AI.

Additionally, AI reviews documents on behalf of members of parliament and summarizes them. Mika Lintilä from the Centre Party even rejoiced in a newspaper about how much AI could increase 'productivity.'

With Lintilä and other representatives' somewhat shaky IT skills (At the time serving as Minister of Economic Affairs and a member of the government, Lintilä shared a meme defaming the prime minister on a WhatsApp channel that included members from various political parties. He later claimed that he had not sent the message himself, but that his phone had been hacked. A thorough police investigation found no evidence of the phone being hacked.), the knowledge that they might be feeding who-knows-what documents, perhaps to Elon Musk's AI company, is enough to evoke sheer panic.

Communists dreamed that as societies developed, citizens could use their increased free time for personal intellectual growth. They were wrong.

With theses written by AI, people are hired to create PowerPoint slides with AI, which the AI then refines into press releases, based on which AI writes news, which AI reads aloud so that people can focus on watching videos made by AI.

If this so-called developmental regression is distressing or depressing, don't worry.

You can always chat with AI.

-Tuija Siltamäki

BurtReynolds wrote: