I’m not necessarily suggesting Doctorow is correct with this assertion, but on a macro scale what productivity gains will generate AI provide?
Yes there’s a few skills it’s good at coding, medical research, and image recognition being a few.
The genuine question is: has this improved everyone’s quality of life?
It’s intended use was misinformation but perhaps not in the way you imagine.
Rather than producing credible images, these sorts of projects undermine actual credible images.
For example, if you’re team zion, then when shown images of how devastating Israel’s attack on Gaza has been you can just disregard them as “probably fake”.
“Oh pish posh, a child can create these images on google maps”.
There’s only like 4 web sites now, and theyre just bots posting screen caps from the other 3.
Can this one field a support enquiry without making me want to throw my laptop in the river?
Doubtful. It was inevitable that they would do that eventually.
Users using old.reddit are undoubtedly the least valuable users.
They wouldn’t turn it off for everyone all at once in order to avoid creating a large number of upset users all at once.
redlib is self hostable. Its great if you’re into that.
Nah, I think that when Trump won, reddit and other platforms realised there was no need to pretend to be apolitical or balanced.
I think the early days of Google docs were peak google-love for me.
It’s indicative of the lack of benefit that LLMs are providing. If gen AI was providing tangible benefits to anyone, people would identify a need for data centres.
IDK how you ended up feeling so trapped, but honestly most people believe that their job contributes something positive to the world.
All I can do is encourage you to re-evaluate your assumptions and find a way out.
This is just the same false dichotomy you’ve been presenting all the way along: starve or sell out.
The undeniable and obvious fact you’re avoiding is that loads of people have jobs that they find satisfying in a “life well lived” kind of way. There are loads of corporations who’s employees believe in what they’re doing.
Your timed piss break anecdote is not an example of a satisfying job. A job where you make minimum wage is not an example of a satisfying job.
It doesn’t take years to get into another field, and you don’t start at the start because you take all your skills and experience with you, obviously. I’m in my 40s, young family, working on a postgraduate degree in something tangentially related to the field I’ve been working in for 20 years. I do find my current job satisfying, I’m just weary of it. People can and do change professions all the time.
Objectively, this is very much a case of “I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”.
Like I said at the start, you don’t get a free pass just because you’re not a CEO.
I never said anything about not benefiting a corporation - you seem to have imagined that.
Some corporations have shit objectives, others do not.
There are loads of people who work for companies and really believe they’re making the world a better place through their work.
You’re trying to present an argument that you need to work for an AI company or whatever to put food on the table, but it just doesn’t stack up. Plenty of people are not starving and are not doing that for a living.
Loads of people have jobs that align with their values.
There are innumerable employment options besides shitty employer or bust.
I’m not advocating for people to be unemployed, you made that up.
Loads of people have jobs that align with their values.
False dichotomy.
What do you want me to say?
“Its ok pet. Your kids will be forgive you.”
“I chose a job that I find satisfying even though I could earn more if I sold out”
The maximum weight for a tractor-trailer rig in the United States is 80,000 pounds, 40 short tons or 36.36 metric tons.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with this. Here in Australia road trains haul 90 metric tons of grain and fertilizer all the time, that doesn’t include the weight of the trailers.
Regardless, I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to illustrate - your example of a “streamlined vehicle” undoubtedly consumes a lot more diesel than your example of a vehicle which is not streamlined. Isn’t that antithetical?
In terms of torque, EVs have a significant advantage.
Yes, but a “truck” with a 4 ton towing capacity obviously needs motors with more torque than those on a tesla.
The additional energy required to accelerate the additional weight up to speed isn’t that much of a problem as an EV will get that back with regenerative braking. Well, some of it.
As little as 5 to 10% on the highway, not particularly significant. Installing regenerative brakes on a trailer is a lot of additional cost and complexity.
It depends on the level of your objection I guess.