scared

Top 5 Reasons I’m Afraid of AI

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

Despite everyone and their grandmother praising AI and how it will change the world for good… It’s scaring me. Is it Adam’s Law? Am I a luddite? Or is everyone else just wrong?

5. What if it works?

The goal of most of the big AI companies is to reach Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), where AI will match or surpass humans. Now that’s kinda cool and all, but at the moment AI is using so much electricity and water that we can barely keep up. What happens when we get to AGI or sapience?

There’s a weird, almost religious, mantra in the tech-bro world that says once AI hits AGI, it’ll be able to fix those problems. Even if they’re right, we will have done immeasurable damage to the environment by that time.

4. Cognitive Decline

The over-reliance on technology often leads to loss of skills and loss of specializations. Few people know how to cut film for movies anymore. Not many encyclopedia salesmen running around. Most people my age don’t remember more than a few phone numbers. I’m not sure that any of that is all that sad.

However, several studies have shown a loss of critical thinking skills. I’m hoping this is a trend that will slow down as the use of AI becomes more expensive. It’s still scary to think that people are letting AI do their information gathering and critical thinking.

On a similar note, the absolute deluge of slop is a huge misinformation problem. Not only are bad actors creating division and misinformation, but AI is hallucinating and pushing bad info everywhere.

3. Lowered Expectations

This one really worries me. In the same way that a factory can churn out cheap products; AI can produce staggering amounts of content.

As a society, we’ve slowly become used to cheaper goods that don’t last long but are inexpensive. (In some cases shoddy products that are ridiculously expensive simply because of a brand name.)

AI can create video, images, and even novels, and it costs almost no energy for the person putting in the prompt. It’s easy to dismiss it as a hobbyist’s tool, but then Coca-Cola makes some low quality ads. Is the ad bad? No. Some of the visuals are amazing but there are so many errors that if it had been made by humans, it would have never been released.

Beyond ads, Disney has talked about self-prompted videos of their huge catalogue. Why would they pay humans to write or animate if they can just use AI?

Writing a book or story is hard, unless you use AI. Multiple magazines have had to shut down because they couldn’t go through all the submissions.

As a reader, I’m disgusted at the big publishers charging $20+ for an ebook. With the death of the mass market paperback, it’s really expensive to buy new books. If an AI prompter can make 5 books a week and charge $1, that will entice people, even if they are middling or poorly made.

2. Cost and Bubble

All the AI companies are gobbling up RAM, VRAM, and hard drives like college students at a buffet. It means that all tech is going to get more expensive, and in the short term we’re going to see a stagnation in products. Phones, computers, etc are going to have lower specs and higher prices.

If AI continues on this course, it’ll be 5 to 10 years before production will stabilize. If AI can’t produce AGI and the money dries up, the bubble bursting will bankrupt multiple companies and manufacturing will take a longer time to ramp up again.

Either way, the consumer will end up paying more for everything. Don’t forget that computers are used in everything, including farming and manufacturing. Increases in their costs will be reflected in ours.

1. Capitalism

LLM’s, which is what we’re calling AI, are a fabulous tool with great use cases in medicine, science, accessibility, data entry, etc. Unfortunately it’s being controlled by people who want nothing more than to make money.

From dynamic pricing to personalized misinformation, it’s all about money. The cost to the environment, art, copyright, human consciousness, life, or truth isn’t as important as their bank accounts. They will use it to squeeze every last penny out of the consumer.

My worry is how many jobs in the arts, customer service, and teaching will be replaced by poor imitations in the name of cost efficiency.

I hope that all this is unfounded and the technology will prove to be wondrous and make the world a better place.

What are your opinions?

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

On the Edge

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Dear Friends, Family, and Fans;

The past decade has been a confusing and scary one for me. I have a very definite sense of justice and I’m often confused when others don’t. The fact that people like Rowling, Trump, or Woody Allen can still have successful careers is baffling to me.

It’s a source of great stress, especially when I see people defending hate. Two years ago when the convoy debacle happened, I got into an argument with a family member. They believed that the convoy was fighting for righteous reasons. I disagreed but could accept that. When I pointed out that two of the organizers had ties to hate groups, they said it didn’t matter because they were fighting for their right to not wear a mask. I still can’t understand that position.

How can you ignore, or forgive, the hateful part of someone just because you agree with something they are doing or saying?

The whole concept has me on edge. Every day in the news, there’s a new, hate-filled event and it’s exhausting and nerve-wracking.

More than ever, I feel like the world is on the edge of something truly terrible happening. I worry that I’ll be looking back at this time and thinking it was the good old days. “Remember when we could afford to drink coffee and we could chat with people around the world?”

I’m trying my best to take joy wherever I can, but it feels selfish and like I’m ignoring the world.

I wish I could do more than just avoiding supporting the cruel and speaking out. I wish I could do something bigger. Unfortunately, that attitude isn’t helpful. If everyone does small acts of kindness, we can start to make a difference. Individual snowflakes are powerless but when they get together they can paralyze a city.

Do what you can, I’ll do what I can, and together we can hopefully start an avalanche of kindness to combat all the hate.

Also… VOTE!

Vote like your life depends on it, because it’s becoming clear that the US is a warning, not an aberration.

There are good people out there and we need to remember that there is still hope.

Take care of each other!

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Health Update 2 Steps forward 1 back

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Hello Everyone,

Since my last update I’ve started physio, exercises, and occupational therapy. It’s only been a week, but it feels like a lot of effort for little gain. I’m going to continue because at least it’s completely covered by WSIB. The people are nice but everything feels fast.

I saw a pain doctor. He was rushed and said I should continue what I’m doing and gave me some exercises that are the same as the kinesiologist has been doing. I’m glad he didn’t give me any pills. I’m already dealing with a lot of mind fog, I don’t want to deal with any more.

I had called my doctor to try and talk to him about MS and I managed to get an appointment. He said I had a lot of the symptoms but that the neurologist should have caught it. (Same guy who told me I was too young and should just ignore it.) However since I have the symptoms he has referred me to get an MRI. It’ll image my brain, neck, and back to make sure. This should help diagnose MS or any form of cancer.

My father died of brain cancer and my grandmother of leukemia, so I’m trying not to panic at the idea.

Reality Sucks, or Yes, I am disabled

I’m starting to come to the realization that I’m disabled.

My energy levels, lung capacity, and overall strength have never fully recovered from covid in February 2020. I’m told it’ll get better, but it’s a slow process.

Add to that the dizziness and fatigue I’ve been feeling since last year and it means I’m not in good shape or feeling well. In short, I’m disabled.

It’s frustrating me because I am physically able to do almost anything I need to but I start getting tired and pained quickly. If I push myself too far, I start to get dizzy and clumsy. Just setting up my backyard, with lots of help from the kids, left me feeling horrible for two days after. Headache, inability to think, pain everywhere, short of breath, fatigue, and extra pain in my arms.

I’ve been experiencing something similar with picketing but that’s a different post.

Accepting that I’m disabled means I need to start finding my limits and living inside them. Once I know what’s wrong, I can hopefully work up to increasing activity. For now, I’ll have to be extra careful with gardening.

So that’s my update, it’s all over the place but I’m okay and things are moving. Let’s hope it’s in the right direction.

Éric