@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

danilo

@danilo@hachyderm.io

Product design and engineering, freelance DX, and a thirst for a future worth living in.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

In Deus Ex (2000), megaplutocrat Bob Page deploys a new internet routing protocol he names Aquinas.

The effect of the protocol is to centralize all internet traffic to pass through Page’s routing infrastructure, where it can be subjected to surveillance and manipulation.

At the time this seemed so shortsighted and inefficient to me as to be unrealistic.

Yet the emerging vision of AI-enabled products has the EXACT same shape. Your every activity routed and influenced through a third party

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

In the long arc of computing history, the pattern pursued by firms like Rabbit and Humane is common: they’re selling terminals or thin clients, because it’s cheaper to time share the upstream computing resources

Historically, as miniaturization and efficiency continue, time sharing and terminals would give way to dedicated, affordable, local resources

Except this chapter in human history presents serious disincentive to that pattern

You could even view web based SaaS as a quiet reversion

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Thus the biggest danger of the AI computing paradigm shift is that it permanently wrests away our local control and data privacy, setting all new norms for a third party to interpose itself in every single interaction.

This is the model that consumer products will pursue without even considering the implications, because the simplest thing to do is wrap products around one of three commercial APIs and see if there’s a business there

Eventually there WILL be a business.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

It’s possible to argue this has already happened

In many workflows, a web application is so central, you are constantly occupying a third party’s computing substrate

Telemetry can be so complete, even client code running locally can leak endless amounts of information back.

But the AI product approach is far more complete: every single command relayed to the cloud, parsed by a third party, logged, and responded to.

Imagine the ability to profile that emerges. For advertisers, but… others too

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@Sevoris oof, I didn't even think about the infrastructure-side implications of using this shit like pipe glue

that's a whole additional layer!

glyph, to random
@glyph@mastodon.social avatar

The Synology ecosystem is such a weird and wonderful little parallel universe. You just buy a server computer for your home and then you run commercial software on it which links up with apps on your devices and web frontends. It is all really charming and kind of baffling that it manages to exist, given what must be a tremendous uphill battle that they face against free or close-to-it ad-supported cloud products

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@fringe I really like mine! Do you have one?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@glyph I got mine speculatively because I thought having more shit to maintain would be neat

and like

I was right

but it's also very useful in my freelance context it turns out!

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@fringe totally, and having them sort out all the linux maintenance shenanigans makes it far more sustainable

jennwrites, to random
@jennwrites@mastodon.social avatar

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck, as the parent of an actor I’m gonna have to learn how to deal with rejection too in order to model how to handle it. Parenting is too much sometimes.

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@jennwrites oh no

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

the weirdest thing that has taken place in my life was reading valleywag throughout the aughts

with its excellent reportage of subjects the regular tech press wouldn’t touch

learning about how all these posturing tech guys were pretty sad and pathetic, and mostly winners of a random lottery

and now almost two decades later

these same pathetic guys are OBSCENELY powerful and wealthy

and still pathetic in ways the press remained reluctant to talk about!

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

such a POWERFUL inoculant against ever taking the “power” in tech seriously

and at the same time a deceptive one

these guys still won

won HUGE

and my assessing them as pathetic, however accurate, failed to prepare me for the fact that they would win anyway

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

is there a word for the grief of seeing the bad guys win?

asking for the whole fucking fediverse lmao

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@alexch oooooof

Fucking fair

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@Elucidating wait what were THEIR taboos?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@Elucidating oh, sure

going after the law firms was an invitation to financial ruin

(which happened anyway thanks to Thiel, ironically. they would have been better served swinging for the fences the whole time)

lzg, to random
@lzg@mastodon.social avatar

I'm horrified at how microsoft uses the term devops but I must persevere

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@lzg did anyone ever come up with a better world for this?

infosphere?

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

An ongoing pattern in the AI march:

  • the hardware efficiency improves
  • the software efficiency improves

So I continue to argue that energy consumption as a PRIMARY criticism of AI is going to be unpersuasive, as incentives drive down the energy costs with time, and all critique of the energy costs is just as applicable to conventional cloud computing, which we have already accepted into our social bargain

(and which underpins every single tech salary)

so instead:

https://redeem-tomorrow.com/the-average-ai-criticism-has-gotten-lazy-and-thats-dangerous

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@freakazoid pop quiz:

which costs more water per year

data center or golf course

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@susankayequinn oh that’s a good one too

if you make the argument it’s not as good as human labor you’re just inviting the industry to create and game a benchmark for human labor quality (which is exactly what the AI coder startups are busily doing)

We’re going to need folks savvy on the better levers and if we treat this like something we can deride like Juicero, the game is over and the Altmans win

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@brennx0r what are you hoping to get from this interaction

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@brennx0r do you think writing 3,500 words on the ills of AI represents apathy, or perhaps something else?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@freakazoid global data center power consumption is 400 TWh annually, which puts it close to all residential and industrial consumption of Germany

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@freakazoid that makes sense to me, and I think my big takeaway from this is that we have to price the externalities of energy consumption PERIOD, and thus the distinction between “AI” and conventional computing is 100% unproductive red herring

AI has specific hazards which should be addressed specifically

Computing of ALL sorts has other hazards, especially energy consumption, which should be addressed to their own specificity

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@freakazoid both numbers are somewhat recent, 2022-23ish?

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@brennx0r well, I’m glad we agree on that

But what I am saying is not just futile but actively counterproductive and self-defeating is making up a Good Kind of Computer and a Bad Kind of Computer and attributing sin or virtue to a watt of energy or liter of water according to which it supports

that’s a separate, necessary conversation of pricing externalities for all resource consumption which we SHOULD do

and which is not at all helped by the special-casing of “AI”

danilo,
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

@dcousineau @freakazoid also a fair point

The consumption was the POINT of crypto in ways that made it susceptible to this mode of attack

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • anitta
  • mdbf
  • Youngstown
  • InstantRegret
  • ethstaker
  • slotface
  • PowerRangers
  • Durango
  • vwfavf
  • kavyap
  • tsrsr
  • ngwrru68w68
  • DreamBathrooms
  • everett
  • Leos
  • magazineikmin
  • rosin
  • tacticalgear
  • thenastyranch
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • khanakhh
  • cisconetworking
  • modclub
  • cubers
  • tester
  • normalnudes
  • provamag3
  • All magazines
    •