SRHuston Dot Net

There you go man
Keep as cool as you can
Face piles of trials with smiles
It riles them to believe
That you perceive the web they weave
And keep on thinking free

–The Moody Blues, “In The Beginning”

I’m tired of the bullshit. Side note, I wrote this late in the evening after witnessing some of that bullshit, and I’m not proofreading it today. So there might be some incomplete thoughts here, but… I know if I sit on it to fine tune and polish it, I’ll either keep repeating myself or just never hit save. So here it is.

Everyone wants to rant about how evil “AI” is. And I get it, I really do. But let’s start with some basics. First off, none of this is “Artificial Intelligence.” What you’re complaining about is called a “Large Language Model” and it’s not intelligent at all. Step outside of its training and it has no idea what to do, and doesn’t even have an idea of how to figure out what it might need to know to figure out how to answer you. So that’s the first issue I have when people whine about AI, is that what you’re whining about isn’t even AI.

Ok, next. Yes, LLMs have been fed with all kinds of things, including things that are copyrighted. They’ve been fed with copyrighted text works, copyrighted images, all manner of stuff that means they’re rife with junk and ready to start creating “plagiarized” works that are based on other things. On that point, I can fully agree that a LLM fed with copyrighted works and asked to churn out other things that are based on copyright are bad, and are creating problems for artists.

But some of the arguments against “AI” are completely bogus. They use 500 million gallons of drinking water a day? No, not a chance in hell. Hank Green did a nice video on how crappy some of these numbers are.

And probably the worst thing is some of the crap I see in some circles where anything remotely thought to be “AI” is shunned and the person posting it shunned for doing so. First off, it’s becoming this generations “that looks ‘shopped” and getting annoying. The header image on this site now? It’s been “generated” by AI. In that I took the image, some 20 or so years ago, with a shitty camera phone, and told ChatGPT to clean it up so it’s a nicer resolution but retains the scan lines and bloom that are reminiscent of a photo of a CRT. And it did. And I’m quite happy with it. Because I’ve always thought that was hilarious, that the BIOS detected a problem with the input device, then wanted me to use that same input device to signal that it should continue.

I’ve had some long conversations with ChatGPT. Some topics were technical, some were personal. Some were about programming things, some about hardware things, some about life things. Some were about trying to find an old comic that I remember seeing and can’t locate. Some I left thinking, “well that wasn’t much help,” while others I left wondering how it knew exactly what I needed to hear.

I understand there’s a lot about “AI” right now that people are unsure of. But I really wish they’d stop pushing back against it as vehemently as they are, because it really feels like the buggy whip industry complaints when the automobile was first introduced, and I can’t help but think that those whining are going to be the laughing stock and left behind when things continue to move forward and I don’t want to see that happen. Sure, the technology has its problems, but every tech does, and we need to see how the tool works best for everyone and use it as such, not throw it out because we’re afraid of it, annoyed by it, or just don’t yike it.

I know this isn’t really a fully fleshed out discussion. But I saw once again recently where something was posted that resulted in a bunch of “that looks like AI” bullshit, and .. I’m just sick and tired of whiny cunts. So rather than ranting at them, I’m ranting in general. And I’m doing it here instead of at ChatGPT. So… go me?