That’s great if they actually work. But my experience with the big, corporate-funded models has been pretty freaking abysmal after more than a year of trying to adopt them into my daily workflow. I can’t imagine the performance of local models is better when they’re running on much, much smaller datasets and with much, much less computing power.

I’m happy to be proven wrong, of course, but I just don’t see how it’s possible for local models to compete with the Big Boys in terms of quality… and the quality of the largest models is only middling at best.

Man… I don’t know if want is the right word here. I want AI to go away, but I’m not sure I want the bubble to burst. I’ve heard estimates that something like 20% of all VC money went to AI in 2024. That’s a shitload of cash, and if the bubble bursts (which I believe it eventually will) and all that invested money vanishes, the economy is going to crater. Maybe a few rich assholes will be ruined in the aftermath, but the ensuing recession is going to hurt the people at the bottom the most… just like it always does.

It’s hard to look forward to that, even when you hate AI with a searing passion.

people will stop using it for all the things they’re currently using it for

They will when AI companies can no longer afford to eat their own costs and start charging users a non-subsidized price. How many people would keep using AI if it cost $1 per query? $5? $20?

OpenAI lost $5 billion last year. Billion, with a B. Even their premium customers lose them money on every query, and eventually the faucet of VC cash propping this whole thing up is gonna run dry when investors inevitably realize that there’s no profitable business model to justify this technology. At that point, AI firms will have no choice but to pass their costs on to the customer, and there’s no way the customer is going to stick around when they realize how expensive this technology actually is in practice.

It is renewable, not free.

“Renewable” also doesn’t mean shit if the resource is being consumed faster than it’s being renewed. Ask the people who used to live on the shores of the Aral Sea how “renewable” their water was.

Billions. Practically every Google search runs through Gemini now, and Google handles more search queries per day than there are humans on Earth.

wouldn’t have seen the benefit in cars

Yeah, because the widespread adoption of cars turned out to be such a great idea with no negative consequences… But even if you ignore the glaringly obvious negatives, AI still doesn’t come anywhere close to having the practical utility as the modern car. At least a car can carry out its advertised function without issues.

I’ve been using AI almost daily for several years now, as a function of my job. It’s garbage tech. Most of the things it’s supposed to be good for it downright sucks at, and the stuff it is good at has already been possible using simpler, more reliable systems for years — sometimes even decades. The situation isn’t really improving, either. Models are using more energy, consuming more data, and doing more computation than ever before… but the results are still embarrassingly underwhelming. Anyone who’s bothered to educate themselves on the math and method behind the models knows by now that the current generation of AI is dead-end technology, and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of the technical details, has a vested financial interest in AI, or both.

It also really fucking irritates me to be constantly called a Luddite by people who don’t even know how this technology fucking works… No, I don’t hate AI because I’m scared of technology, or “progress” or whatever the fuck. I’ve made a career working in technology. I love tech… or I used to, before everyone lost their god damn minds praying to Sam Altman and his horrifyingly expensive golden idol. No, I hate AI because it’s demonstrably bad technology.

260,930 kilograms of CO₂ monthly from ChatGPT alone

ChatGPT has the most marketing, but it’s only part of the AI ecosystem… and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if other AI products are bigger now. Practically every time someone does a Google search, Gemini AI spits out a summary whether you wanted it or not — and Google processes more than 8 billion search queries per day. That’s a lot of slop.

There are also more bespoke tools that are being pushed aggressively in enterprise. Microsoft’s Copilot is used extensively in tech for code generation and code reviews. Ditto for Claude Code. And believe me, tech companies are pushing this shit hard. I write code for a living, and the company I work for is so bullish on AI that they’ve mandated that us devs have to use it every day if we want to stay employed. They’re even tracking our usage to make sure we comply… and I know I’m not alone in my experience.

All of that combined probably still doesn’t reach the same level of CO² emissions as global air travel, but there are a lot more fish in this proverbial pond than just OpenAI, and when you add them all up, the numbers get big. AI usage is also rising much, much faster than air travel, so it’s really only a matter of time before it does cross that threshold.

Praise the soup! \[+]/

I’ll be honest… advertising is the one industry I wouldn’t be sad to see get completely cannibalized by AI.

I don’t know man… the “intelligence” that silicon valley has been pushing on us these last few years feels very artificial to me

It’s never lupus

Probably sarcoidosis

She probably just thinks it’s weird.

I’ve worked office jobs for two decades, and the only time I’ve ever initiated a handshake with someone is on the first time meeting them. Likewise, the only time anyone ever initiates a handshake with me is the first time meeting me… Anything more than that is extremely unusual in my experience.

Do other people try to shake your hand at the end of every interaction, or are you always the one who initiates? If it’s the latter, then people probably just find it odd that you’re handing out (sorry) so many hand shakes.

oooooo, that’s good.

I love the purpose that he’s serving right now, but when the 2028 presidential primaries roll around I hope he gets completely creamed and then goes away forever.

It’s a conservative take-over of the democratic party.

I mean… that already happened like 30 years ago. After Walter Mondale got so thoroughly trounced by Reagan in 84, the DNC started looking for their own Reagan. It took a few years to cultivate the right candidate, but Bill Clinton is ultimately who they chose.

People forget just how conservative he was because his famous sex scandal has crowded out any historical memory of his policy positions, but really the only difference between Clinton and Reagan is that Clinton balanced that budget. He was extremely conservative compared to contemporary democrats, but he was “folksy” and had the right kind of charisma to attract middle America. For Christ sake, the guy won Kentucky in both 92 and 96.

“Google says it has calculated the energy required for its Gemini AI service: Sending a single text prompt consumes as much energy as watching television for nine seconds.”

That’s pretty staggering when you consider that it’s no longer possible to do a Google search without generating an AI summary. Google processes something like 8 billion searches per day, so if each one of those triggers a prompt equivalent to watching 9 seconds of television, every day the total power cost is equivalent to about 2200 years of TV watching. Per day. And that’s just search, for just one tech company.

I wish it were that simple, but sadly it isn’t — at least not in the US.

Shelters here were absolutely overwhelmed by COVID. People adopted pets in record numbers during the pandemic for some added company in lockdown, but many of them were not actually prepared for the realities of pet ownership, and ended up abandoning their new pet after the lockdowns lifted. Many were left at shelters, but many were not, and that later group has caused an explosion in the stay cat population in most urban centers around the country.

People living in those areas tend to be poorer and have fewer housing options, and many lower income apartments either do not allow cats at all, or put strict limits on how many you can have. So here’s the typical situation in these areas:

1. The no-kill shelters are full. If you try to bring a stay there, they’ll either refuse to take it, or forward it along to a kill shelter. People taking cats to shelters don’t typically want to see the cat harmed, so instead they’d do what’s called a TNR: trap, neuter, release. The cat is fixed and returned to its original environment — not ideal, but it at least helps to stabilize the stay cat population. Sometimes these cats will be microchipped, sometimes not.
2. Because they can’t take the cat inside (can’t afford to, the landlord won’t allow it, etc) they will set food out for the cat which remains outside. They’re still providing for the cat, just not in an ideal environment. In this situation, cat and caretaker often form a bond even if the cat is not living inside.
3. Sometimes people DO have the resources to take the cat in, but it’s already too feral to cooperate. If a cat has been outside long enough, it becomes much, much harder to smoothly tradition it to inside living. This is made more difficult if you have kids and/or other pets already.
4. The cat may have an infectious disease like FLV that could infect other inside cats, and so no one wants to take the cat inside.
5. The cat may be healthy and a good samaritan may want to bring it inside, but they’ve already adopted many other stays and have too many cats to add another — a symptom of the out-of-control stray population I mentioned at the top.

In a perfect world, no cat should have unsupervised access to the outside. It can vastly shorten the cat’s lifespan by exposing it to disease, the cat’s hunting instincts can cause major damage to the local bird populations (especially fledglings), the cat could be hit by a car, etc, etc etc…

But this isn’t a perfect world, and the sad truth is that there are currently more stray or semi-stray cats in the United States than there are resources available to care for them. If you do have the resources to bring a stray inside, please, please consider doing so. If not, please consider participating in TNR programs in your area. For many people, even this will be out of reach, and they’re just doing the best they can.

So if you feel very strongly that no good owner would ever let their cat outside? Be the change you want to see in the world and adopt one from a shelter, or take in a stray yourself. At the very least, let other people know what they can do to help with the stray cat situation, instead of talking down to well-meaning people on the Internet.

The issue with collars is that most responsible cat owners are using breakaways so that their cat doesn’t accidentally strangle itself to death the first time it tries to squeeze through a tight space (as they are wont to do). I’ve had a lot of experience with cats getting out of their collars by getting it snagged on something (either accidentally or on purpose), causing it to break away.

These days, microchips are really the only way to be sure if an outdoor cat is already being looked after or if it’s a legitimate stray.

Socialism understands that people are more important than productivity — something that no billionaire will ever understand.