This is exactly what I was talking about. I’m sure you mean well, but I resent that you think I don’t understand the many, MANY problems with AI. LLMs and generative AI, as well as the datacenters that power them, are being utilized in irresponsible and dangerous ways, as your link affirms. The group that I was having the conversation seemed to think that I was supporting AI as it is currently, but that was not what I was saying. My premise was that AI has the potential to be one of our best tools for augmenting and amplifying human ability. Maybe it’s because I’m a nerd raised on PBS and Star Trek, but I see so many other amazing ways that AI could be used. It has already greatly improved the efficacy and accuracy of medical and scientific research. It can do work in places prohibitively dangerous to humans. Regardless, they argued past me, assuming that I either didn’t know or didn’t care about the currently realities of AI.

To be frank: AI, as a tool, isn’t the issue. It is the overly-competitive, capitalistic, nationalistic, and short-sighted nature of contemporary society that is the problem. The closest analogy would be nuclear power; it had the potential to be, at that time, the safest and cleanest energy source on the planet. However, humans took that potential and turned it into the worst weapons we’ve ever made. AI has that same potential, but if its current misuse and abuse continues, it will undermine our [ostensibly] free society to the point of collapse, and ruin the biosphere to the point of extinction. It’s very clear that we, as a whole, are not yet able to make responsible decisions. If reasonable people do not take control and hit the brakes, place tight regulations and constraints around both the tool itself and the nations/corporations using it, then it will literally ruin the planet.