AI as a concept is amazing, and some applications it’s being used for are equally amazing. It’s the mainstream AI drivel that I fucking hate.

But there’s also these things that put me off:

• the glaring lack of ethics behind the companies pushing it (Meta and Open AI for example) which is more a capitalism problem than anything
• the fact that it was built on plagiarism without consulting with artists and authors (who probably would’ve been open to the idea if it was presented with a level playing field)
• the fact that it always hallucinates (I can’t get it to stop making up arbitrary bullshit no matter what I do)
• the resources required and the stress it places on power grids and the environment (puts it out of reach for most end users since it requires a killer rig)
• the massive shortage of GPUs and the huge price hike (which we can also thank crypto for)

The idea of being able to run smaller models locally is amazing and everyone should play around with them. I find it to be fun for toy apps and experimenting, but I’ve yet to see a single good use case from the multitude of companies using it (with the exception of cases like you mentioned).

This. I was a phd seeking cybersecurity researcher leaning heavily into AI up until last year, and it bothered me to no end that some of the most promising technology I have ever seen was being primarily used to enhance the police state or increase BP profits by a few %. AI is literally a step towards a utopian post scarcity future, but instead of being used that way it was immediately weaponized against the working class for the benefit of the parasite class.

More accurate meme: