but people asked to discuss it here. So let me fullquote two very recent posts from the Fediverse, which sum it up better in English than I can. Even just one ought to suffice.
> I've been wanting to write something lengthy about "AI" for a while, > discussing the arguments for and against and arriving at a reasonable > position, but I find myself completely unable to get past the most > glaring point, which is that we are facing c̲a̲t̲a̲s̲t̲r̲o̲p̲h̲i̲c̲ > ̲e̲c̲o̲s̲p̲h̲e̲r̲e̲ > c̲o̲l̲l̲a̲p̲s̲e̲ because of capitalist overconsumption. Our species is > literally c̲o̲m̲m̲i̲t̲t̲i̲n̲g̲ ̲s̲u̲i̲c̲i̲d̲e̲ by c̲a̲p̲i̲t̲a̲l̲i̲s̲m̲ right > in front of my eyes > and the architects of the climate crisis have latched onto data > centres with the energy budgets of countries running sycophantic > Markov chains as their latest engine of short term profit extraction > and people are split right down the middle either happily burning the > world down to keep continvoucly morging or whatever the newest slop > models tell them to do next, or existing in a state of angry refusal > to believe that anything is wrong as everything crumbles into ash > around them other than that some people have the wrong skin colour or > gender presentation. > > *deep breath* > > The few of us who don't starve to death as our food sources collapse > may eventually die of a̲s̲p̲h̲y̲x̲i̲a̲t̲i̲o̲n̲ when the wrong Amazon finishes > burning down. > > How do you get past that? > > How does one even hope to connect with people who prioritise > dismantling the structures of capitalism before it kills us all l̲o̲w̲e̲r̲ > than asking Claude for coding tips? > > I guess we know what the Great Filter is now. — https://social.treehouse.systems/@bodil/116093694360361788 Emphasis not mine. But hey, a physicist says it’s not “AI” which is killing the planet, it’s the german move away from nuclear power and towards renewables that is [sic!]. The second one is shorter but even more of a whammy: > 🔗 > https://stephvee.ca/blog/artificial%20intelligence/generative-ai-is-built-on-the-exploitation-of-the-global-south/ > > New blog post on generative AI and the trauma endured by data labelers > in the Global South. (CW: references to sexual abuse material and > unsafe working conditions) — https://mastodon.social/@st3phvee/116094729007491217 (I’ve not read Steph’s blog post yet, but others that detail the same situation in the past.) I cannot understand how some even consider use of this worth considering and try to distract those who resist with questionable-to-outright-false argumentations about how it’s all legal (trust me, bro!) and inevitable¹ and how we as a project cannot enforce contributors to not use it. Which in fact we can, by the way, it’s called DFSG/SC. It’s called plaing nice and acting in good faith. ① oh, “inevitable”… I have a third post for you: > This is something that probably sounds obvious to some folks and > unhinged to others, but I think it’s worth saying anyway: “workers who > don’t adopt AI will get left behind” is right-wing propaganda. It’s > more than just a surface-level advertising message. It makes the > unstated assumption that workers are all in a state of conflict, > racing against one another in competition for acceptable employment. > This is the literal opposite of class consciousness! All workers > should be aiming for a world where we don’t have to fight each other > to earn a chance at a decent life. — https://social.treehouse.systems/@jnkrtech/116083770527548518 Yet, someone with “community team” in the signature he chose to use for the eMail wrote in a direct reply to me that calling out fashtech for what it is (and the TESCREAL ideology behind it) is “uncalled for” and that “you [I] know it”. Sorry, no. I’ve informed myself about this, and I have seen more results of research about this than I ever wanted and my opinion is that this is inacceptable, in so many ways, that we must do something against it. And we, as project, can. Among other very large FOSS projects, both Gentoo and NetBSD have banned slop contributions. Just like that. And so could Debian. Easily. And I fully expect my fellow DDs to adhere to that and not knowingly or, worse, willingly, contribute slop, to main or contrib, *or* to project infrastructure. (We ought to also remove rsyslog, for that matter…) I don’t expect to reply much (if I’m even allowed after this) here. There has so much been said about this on Fedi already that I think pointing y’all there if you weren’t will be enough (and if you were and still consider slop maybe-acceptable, then I ask you whether you really have been participating). And I don’t have the energy for long discussions in English. bye, //mirabilos -- “Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.” -- Edward Burr
