After I made this unrelated post, I was informed by @MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com that lemmy.dbzer0.com was a pro-genAI instance.
It was honestly shocking for me to hear that these two things can coexist and I would like to share the discussion which was correctly moved for being off topic from the above linked post.
I think we owe it to ourselves to discuss topics like this with an open mind.
Here is my statements in reply to MysticMushroom1776, I wasn’t able to record their reply before it was removed for being off topic bit I hope they can come here and we can continue the discussion.
Others, please also feel free to discuss with us.
'Wow, I didn’t know [that lemmy.dbzer0.com was a pro genAI instance] As an anarchist myself I have to say that is really disappointing.
Anarchist communities [especially in real life] need humans otherwise there is no community. GenAl is a stolen facsimile of a human who can never understand morals or praxis. It can never understand freedom or control. It will however poison our communities (look at what SpaceX/Anthropic is doing in Memphis, TN) make us more predictable (and thus easier to control) and isolate us from other humans within the community which is so important to us.
Even with the most moral genAl you can possibly have, one that is totally FOSS and self hosted on a single gaming GPU, a lot of this is still true.
Obviously, this is the wrong place but I have to ask,[prior to moving the discussion to this thread] what makes you think the extreme negatives of genAl (specifically to the anarchist community) can be excused?… [I do not have a copy of mushroom’s reply]
I pirate and seed. I’m also a fan of the megathread And for the most part, I think data is data. However there is a big difference between my pirating a book like the Lord of the Rings (which is credited and I can see the title of) and how Meta scraped Anna’s archive and funneled all that data into an approximation of all combined work.
If I pirate the book, the Lord of the Rings to read it. I might enjoy it, I might talk about it to others, quote it, share it with my daughter, I might use the ring of power an an allegory for authoritarian control with a powerful technology, I might even decide to buy my own copies of the book.
What Meta did and then released as open source, won’t allow a person the freedom to do any of that. The works were consumed and are used in silence to camouflage as human thought. No credit will ever be contributed. And so no one can even hope to appreciate the original works that was used in training.
The other concerns I have with (local) genAI that I think are deeply important to anarchists specifically.
- Isolation of humanity
- severing of our ties to community
- increasing predictability
- method of control
Photo is genAI made and sourced from the following article:
Open source AI reduces demand for corporate AI
Especially since it’s free. They can’t charge you for it, they can’t ban you from it as blackmail. It is 100% yours for simply the cost of running it. Which with a battery and solar system is totally doable. If you can run a Gaming PC on a solar setup you can run AI models on one as well.
Critics of the tech itself haven’t seriously separated the tech itself.
Imagine: the bubble bursts tomorrow, total collapse, revolution, everything goes better than expected. Your wildest ambitions are fulfilled exactly as you dared to hope.
And you’re still against neural networks guessing words and denoising images?
Copyright is the loudest rationale, and I don’t give a fuck about copyright. But even training on bespoke examples can obviously work about the same. Writing prose or code from plain-English instructions is an innately desirable utility, even if you have to proofread. It’s the part of science fiction that’s “wow cool future.” The torment nexus part is mostly what assholes can do with that, and what they can do is what they already do, but more.
It’s not inherently sycophantic. That’s what corporate chodes have prompted it to act like. Why would a next-word-guesser based on all human text be aggressively genial? Internet arguments alone. Anyway, the same statistical model can be told to act like a rude caveman, and then it generally will. If the mode most people choose is still the narcissistic supply robot, and that’s somehow a problem for society at large, then frankly so is readily available pornography. Both are privately faking what you’d otherwise need other people for. Personally: meh.
Diffusion gives such immense power to any rando with a gaming PC that it poses an existential threat to Hollywood. The part of movie production where anyone with a complicated story needs to spend a decade begging for half a billion dollars is now optional. The most half-assed example of “like this” will be dragged toward what you say it’s supposed to look like. That process is so powerful that it works on noise. Come hell or high water, it’ll remove all the pixels that don’t look like a space ship.
If that CGI-for-dummies sounds like the death of human artistry, how do you think people talked about actual CGI? It was lifeless, cheating, awful… until Pixar slapped together Tin Toy, and reminded everyone that no tool is immune to human intent. If the model ‘does not understand what an elephant is,’ okay great, a person is still the one using its ability to show an elephant, and you can comprehend what they’re expressing with that imagery.
How would their message be any different through the medium of collage?
Never, not once on Lemmy, have I convinced a flat anti-AI user to have any nuance regarding local genAI.
And not from a lack of trying. Not even shooting down every ethical or technical issue.
I hate to sound so cynical, but I think the topic is just too polarizing. Which is understandable, given how awful mass/corporate AI is. Its not something debating or presentation is going to break through.
A ton of Fediverse users are going to be unconditionally anti-GenAI. A few will like their self hosting or dev helpers.
The is fine.
Real AI Bros won’t use the Fediverse anyway, so we don’t have to worry about them, but I think other AI political sects will just have to learn to coexist. Even within instances, IMO.
AI is a tool, it can be used without contributing to corporate profits via local models.
I would rather people have the opportunity to use said tool, than to hand it fully over to the ruling class who are already wielding it against us.
There are issues with corporate usage and the environmental damages of all these datacentres popping up all over the globe. That is not an issue with AI itself, but with capitalism and authoritarianism.
Democratizing tools seems important to creating lasting horizontal power structures.
“AI” is a tool of the Epstein class. It’s inherently hierarchical and anti worker. Antithical to anarchist movements.
When we get to power, how are we gonna compete with nation states who do use AI?
I’m sure that a lot of the Fuck_AI people have this fantasy that we’ll do it with pencil and paper or something absurd like that. It’s funny because a lot of the anti-AI people are hypocrites and use AI themselves when it suits them. Specifically corporate AI models because unlike us they couldn’t care less, it’s all just AI to them. They used them in the harassment against me to generate offensive derivatives of my avatar in order to attack me, although I’ve also seen them use it to generate written arguments to help them with debate and sealioning. Which is mildly amusing.
“AI” is a tool of the Epstein class. It’s inherently hierarchical and anti worker. Antithical to anarchist movements.
Can you explain to me how stable diffusion models running on our own server with anti-NSFW and anti-CSAM filters is an inherent tool of the Epstein class? Is it that you think all people who use AI are pedophiles? Is it that you equate using other people’s intellectual property with sexually abusing children? Or are you just throwing words to try to insult people who use AI, which is, FYI. Fash-jacketing.
We’re not indiscriminately pro-genai. We don’t promote corporate genai. Here’s our actual stance. https://wiki.dbzer0.com/divisions-by-zero/the-genai-tag/
Well this thread turned into a shitshow real fast. @CubitOom@infosec.pub are you seeing these comments before they get perma banned?
With these unhinged guys running around, you think I’m the bad guy on Lemmy? lolol What the actual hell… the dude is acting criminally insane in these comments! This person just said they wants us all to die. This is stuff we put up with every day. But I’m a fascist?!
I actually skew toward anarchism, but I’m not really very political. Which may be the reason that I don’t feel local AI goes against the spirit of it.
R-word slur blurred out by me because I can’t stand the sight of the word:
I don’t use genAI basically at all, but I have experience with machine learning in general. Here’s my take:
Generative AI itself is literally just statistical modeling. Very complicated statistical modeling/prediction but still the same idea as any other method for prediction/classification.
The only problem is how certain models are trained and/or used.
You can (and imo should because it’s fun/interesting) create your own generative AI using responsibly sourced training data and open source code. Is that a crime? Does that hurt anyone? Does that harm society as a whole? No.
The concept of “GenAI” is not the problem. In fact, utilizing it for protien/drug discovery is pretty fucking cool, as is the fact it makes language translation significantly more accessible and accurate.
The problems you listed mostly apply to strictly corporate GenAI models. They are problematic not because they are generative statistical models but because they are built, maintained, controlled, and used by capitalist institutions in a capitalist society which allows them to do any damage they want as long as they can continue
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FUCK GEN AI. All of you here excusing it or saying "oh its not AI its the corporations can suck my left nut. I may not be a .dbzero user but I am an anarchist and I stand firmly against all forms of AI. The only ethical use is for data sets pertaining to medical and research models that are locally run.
AI is a control tool and if you self host, IMO it reads to me like you want an info slave.
The internet is also a control tool, better get off now - WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?
I’m guessing they’re a troll. Or maybe they do think that we support the structures of capitalism. They seem to think that anarchism is about supporting the idea of copyright and capitalist ideals of working for someone else. At least that’s what I’ve gotten from their interactions.
FUCK GEN AI.
Alright, clear opening, I think I can follow this comment.
All of you here excusing it or saying "oh its not AI its the corporations can suck my left nut.
Uninterested in technical detail, and blaming corporations, with a request for left nut oral for any holding any views thereof, ok, still following your stance, very clear.
but I am an anarchist and I stand firmly against all forms of AI.
Sweet, the thesis statement.
The only ethical use is
Wait, what?
data sets pertaining to medical and research models
But we can’t talk about the technology that allows that, or it’s the left nut for us?
that are locally run.
So… non-corporate use is okay?
AI is a control tool and if you self host, IMO it reads to me like you want an info slave.
Well, yeah, I mean, we can call it an info daemon or something cooler, but yeah, for the control of the medical and the research datasets, yeah?
I’m very confused. Do I help you suck your own left nut or do I nuzzle the right one, comrade?
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Some people think anarchism is doing whatever you want with no regard for others.
Some people think anarchism is doing whatever you want with no regard for
otherscapitalists.Fixed it for you. Yes a lot of anarchists are more than happy to step on capitalists claiming to own ideas or concepts. Copyright and intellectual property are capitalist constructs and despite being Fuck_AI’s favorite talking point are not something we consider valid or worthy of following. Though we host !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com so that shouldn’t be a surprise to you.
Which is funny because anarchism is fundamentally built on empathy
Empathy is to compassion as square is to rectangle. Please don’t forget the other rectangles.
Fair!
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The “Palestinians are not people” guys?
These idiots just want to steal from artists! These pieces of shit think anarchism entitles them to steal other people’s work! Some of them deserve to be swatted!
I find a lot of them have very thin skin.
Especially when you downvote a single post on their slop communities so they ban you from every community they mod.
Not talking about anyone specific tho.
Or when you’ve never seen their slop communities and get banned from the one real community they moderate with their delusions cited in a mass ban from everything they moderate. Obnoxious.
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okay you need to calm the fuck down
Well, I guess you are seeing the shit we deal with daily. This shit is the reason some of us pull out our ban-hammers so fast.
His account is 17 minutes old. Probably the same guy who started an account this morning and got banned in PTB community, for saying the stuff.
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Fuck AI. The tool of the tech fascists has no place in freedom from tyranny
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GenAl is a stolen facsimile of a human who can never understand morals or praxis
Its software.
look at what SpaceX/Anthropic is doing in Memphis, TN
Corporations.
Meta scraped Anna’s archive
Corporation
The works were consumed and are used in silence
… By a corporation.
What this all boils down to as a problem is pretty simple - its capitalism.
Do you have the same seething hatred for computer vision?
What about microphones? Are they the root of all evil? Flock uses them in their cameras, so they should draw the same ire, right?
What about drones? Is there existence the harbinger of doom because they can be used for bombing?
Is the technology to blame? Or the people behind it?
I can’t comprehend blaming software (or even hardware) for the problems created by people. AI isn’t building pollution generating data centers. AI isn’t behind stock market manipulation and rapidly rising hardware prices. AI isn’t trying to do anything. It doesn’t have intelligence or feelings or anything of the sort.
Its just software. Blame the people causing the problems instead. If it wasn’t AI it would just be something else.
Do you have the same seething hatred for computer vision?
What about microphones? Are they the root of all evil? Flock uses them in their cameras, so they should draw the same ire, right?
What about drones? Is there existence the harbinger of doom because they can be used for bombing?
I could agree with this, except for the obvious logical fallacy.
This can be used to justify the development of any and all technology. Including machines purpose built for nothing other than exterminating all life on this planet.
Why? Cause someone has to activate it. Be that a corporation or other person.
You do lightly address that here
I can’t comprehend blaming software (or even hardware) for the problems created by people. AI isn’t building pollution generating data centers. AI isn’t behind stock market manipulation and rapidly rising hardware prices. AI isn’t trying to do anything. It doesn’t have intelligence or feelings or anything of the sort.
And yet, ai couldn’t exist without pollution generating data centers.
The reverse of this is also true. You cannot hammer a nail without a hammer.
The best way to describe ai here is handing someone a hammer, but the only thing they can hammer with it, is your own face.
Because it’s a tool to influence us more than anything else, it’s baked into the design, through ai sycophancy. The old adage “if the product is free, you’re the product” is true here. Why give out ai for free for so long?
It is a mass influence tool.
Back to the original point, is a drone, a harbinger of doom? No. But ai isn’t the equivalent if a drone. It’s a drone carrying a nuke. which is only pointed at us, and we can’t point it elsewhere by design.
So yeah, I think that’s a problem
This can be used to justify the development of any and all technology. Including machines purpose built for nothing other than exterminating all life on this planet.
We already have. And that same technology can be used for energy.
Again, its what its used for.
And yet, ai couldn’t exist without pollution generating data centers.
AI has existed since the 50s, but I’ll assume you’re talking about LLMs.
But that is also a no. You can build with pytorch, completely from scratch.
The best way to describe ai here is handing someone a hammer, but the only thing they can hammer with it, is your own face.
Thats an absolutely terrible and nonsensical analogy. Sorry, but there is literally no truth in it. I can only assume, based on this comment and the previous I replied to, that you are fundamentally misinformed about LLMs and how they work.
Because it’s a tool to influence us more than anything else
… Nope. Thats the corporations behind the big models. Again, you’re blaming software for how someone is using it.
it’s baked into the design, through ai sycophancy.
Again, no.
The whisper model is an LLM. Its compact, and has a very specific purpose - to identify spoken audio, take spoken audio and transcribe, and translate spoken audio.
It doesn’t do anything else. It is an LLM.
In what way could you possibly misconstrue its purpose that it was designed for “ai sycophancy”? What are you even talking about here?
It is a mass influence tool.
This is use, not the technology itself.
Back to the original point, is a drone, a harbinger of doom? No. But ai isn’t the equivalent if a drone. It’s a drone carrying a nuke. which is only pointed at us, and we can’t point it elsewhere by design.
This is what I can only describe as a hallucination. This is entirely a fabrication in your head about what an LLM is.
You fundamentally misunderstand my point.
You cannot hammer without a hammer, it influences because it exists. Not because of anything a hammer does, simply because it is.
The hammer exists. There are nails to be hammered. Will you destroy your hammer because some asshole also has one?
I don’t know if you quite realize how you sound. Chuds exist. Chuds with guns are a problem. This does not mean “we should ban guns” as chuds don’t care about bans. Your ban will disarm an honest, marginalized person to be an easier chud target.
Replace guns with AI:
I don’t know if you quite realize how you sound. Chuds exist. Chuds with ai are a problem. This does not mean “we should ban ai” as chuds don’t care about bans. Your ban will disarm an honest, marginalized person to be an easier chud target.
I stand by both paragraphs.
LLMs exist to parse through large datasets, therefore we create large data sets! Like population-level vaccine acceptance, public health behaviors, and evaluating the spread of misinformation about vaccines! (PS: Yes, LLMs play a significant role in healthcare in a good way)
Oh, the horror!
No, I think your point is flawed at a fundamental level. The person who chooses to hammer in a screw rather than use a screwdriver wasn’t unduly influenced by the existence of the hammer, or by a lack of awareness of the existence of a screwdriver.
The person who chooses to hammer in a screw rather than use a screwdriver wasn’t unduly influenced by the existence of the hammer, or by a lack of awareness of the existence of a screwdriver.
You cannot choose what you have no knowledge of. So in that aspect at least, you are very wrong.
Sure thing.
I’ll live over here in reality where someone having access to a screw is also going to include (in such overwhelming certainty that the negative can only be described as an exception existing in theoretical consideration only) the knowledge of the existence of a screwdriver.
I’ll also note you have zero comment on any of my corrections of your misunderstandings about LLMs, so I’ll go ahead and move on now.
I’ll also note you have zero comment on any of my corrections of your misunderstandings about LLMs, so I’ll go ahead and move on now.
It’s because like the majority of anti-AI people, the “misunderstanding” is largely intentional. To get you to debate them. Hoping they can “win” and when they can’t win through their arguments because it’s all bullshit they just knock over the chess pieces and declare victory. Which is what this liberal chud is doing right now.
No corrections were necessary as you misunderstood my original point.
But to correct you anyway. Influence on llm models comes not just from instructions prior to entering text (pre prompting). But also from the inclusion, or selective exclusion of training data.
As a person cannot choose what they do not know about, so a LLM cannot respond about what it has not been trained on.
As such influnece exists in both models regardless.
These biases and their ability to influence a person. Due to the inherent sycophancy of ai and the tendency to anthropomorphise which humans have contribute to the phenomenon known as ai psychosis.
Thesetwo factors combine to the “gun pointed at your head that is inherent to LLMs”.
Ai also hasn’t existed since the 50s. It was theorised, although intelligent machines have existed long before that. An example was the mechanical turk, which was ironically powered by a human.
Anyway. I’m afraid you’re wrong on me not being educated on how they work. I know all too much about how they work. I also know how people work, though that always seems to be a blind spot to ai enthusiasts.
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For me, I can be against mass scraping, corporate control, bullshit surveillance, or using AI as a replacement for real human interactions without being against generative AI itself.
If someone runs a local model, trains it on public domain or willingly provided data, and keeps control of it themselves, I don’t think it conflicts with anarchism all. The bigger issue seems to be who owns the technology, where the data came from, and what it’s being used for. All issues that can be solved by running your own local AI model.
I think the nature of the model privileges past and precedent, and I think the prevalence is part of a fascist push to manipulate a lot of glaring vulnerabilities in human cognition. Most critically our pack bonding and precedence bias, and to a lesser extent laziness, all of which most people have no defense. It is a weapon to kill imagination and truth.
I don’t care if your bhuddist; that’s still a swastika, and it’s painted on the side of a German tank.
GenAl is a stolen facsimile of a human
It’s a neural network man it’s just a computer.
Don’t take this as a slight because I know I type like I’m mad when I’m being serious but this conversation immediately derailed itself by not understanding what “AI” is. It’s just a neural network- we’ve had them forever. OpenAI and Google and probably a handful of others found out how to efficiently process a massive neural network through decades of research and now we have LLMs. There is nothing wrong with LLMs. There is plenty wrong with what corporations are doing with it. Corporations are burning the planet to chase this new gold rush they’ve invented. The individuals who are also using the technology are not burning the planet by using it. It literally does not burn any more or less of the rainforests if I run or train local models. The alternative is I play videogames that also require beefy graphics cards.
The problem is not the computer, it is the incentive structure around the computer that rewards corporations for fucking the planet. You can have AI in an anarchist utopia, but it would be doing actual work, accelerating medical research, instead of answering search engine queries and making non-consentual deep-fake porn.
As long as this incentive structure stays, corporations fuck the planet. LLMs was just one of a never-ending series of gold-rushes that will continue to happen as long as they have permission to molest society.
