Credit u/Western_Winner_5961

Once seen as exciting new tech that could make our lives easier and better, the construction of countless new data centers to support power-hungry AI models has soured the mood considerably. Protesters are waging a war against $130 billion in data center investments, arguing they’re only benefiting a select few wealthy individuals, while threatening water supplies, driving up the cost of living, and churning out incomprehensible amounts of pollution.

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has caught on to the backlash, as it slowly dawns him and his fellow executives that the vast majority of Americans want nothing to do with them.
“Clearly, people hate data centers — right now, at least,” Altman told Time in a new interview. “People are pretty negative on AI.”

Caught between a rock and a hard place, rattled CEOs are now caught trying to appeal to lawmakers for favorable regulations as their constituents coalesce into a bipartisan movement against data centers. Some, like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are holding onto their guns, painting a rosy picture of a future in which we no longer have to work and live a life of leisure thanks to AI. Others, like Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, are desperately looking for a way to sell the public on data centers — a gargantuan task, considering the sheer scale of the fallout.

Not my text. Post credit: u/short_hair_zuko

If it ain't for the purpose of fabrication and deceit, then for what ? To push the bounds of the technology ? I'm not convinced...

They would literally do EVERYTHING but the craft. This shit is really embarrassing....

Not sure who thought this was okay to put on TV, it's basically a parody of their political opponents. Bonkers

Was looking at Walmart for Pokemon cards and then I came across this, it just makes your product look lazy and sloppy!(also sorry if I used the wrong tag I couldn’t find one that suits better)

Someone posted a link to this, and I don’t see it anymore (removed?). I found the article on Apple News and opened it in a browser and it’s not paywalled for me.

The article goes into detail about how AI doesn’t scale, including quotes from folks working at the hyperscalers.

I’ll post a paragraph or two, then the final one.

As they scramble to keep their systems online, AI companies are making things expensive for the rest of us. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude are so resource-hungry that tech companies may be purchasing 70 percent of the world’s supply of high-end computer memory, causing a shortage. As a result, the prices of computer memory and storage are skyrocketing: Hard drives that I bought for my reporting two years ago for $350 each were $800 when I checked two weeks ago, and are now out of stock. The prices of some laptops have gone up as much as 50 percent, and low-cost computers are being hit the hardest. Affordable entry-level computers may “disappear by 2028” according to one forecast. And the memory shortage is expected to continue for years.

…

The problem is not simply that AI is being deployed so widely or quickly. Other computer technologies have seen similarly massive growth without triggering such a large spike in electricity or a shortage of computer components: Video and music are now streamed around the globe, accounting for many terabytes of internet traffic daily; the smartphone boom required the manufacturing of billions of devices that are now transferring huge amounts of data; billions of household devices are also now part of the Internet of Things; and whole industries have moved their operations to cloud software, which is hosted not in the sky but in, yes, data centers.

The problem with generative AI, in the industry’s own jargon, is that it does not scale. The cost of growing from, say, a thousand users to a million is a key factor that venture capitalists examine when they evaluate start-ups. They want to see that the cost of adding each new user decreases over time, so that the company can support millions of users and make increasing profits. This is achieved partly through the careful engineering of computer systems that can efficiently handle more users who want to post photos, hail Ubers, or stream music.

…

I asked a few AI researchers whether they could name any other real-world software that scales so poorly. None of them could think of any. Even outside the world of software, it’s hard to find a comparable example, given that economy of scale is the principle that has made light bulbs, cars, and clothing so affordable. By economic and engineering measures, generative AI might be the worst technology ever deployed.

…

Ultimately, inefficiency may be of little concern to the people within the tech industry who believe that they are replicating intelligence itself. There is an almost-religious conviction among many in Silicon Valley that something mindlike could arise from LLMs, which are ultimately just statistical language-generating software—this, despite the software’s inability to recall basic facts, its lack of common sense, and its complete dissimilarity to a biological brain. Even Yann LeCun, one of AI’s “godfathers,” told The New York Times recently that “LLMs are not a path to superintelligence or even human-level intelligence.” But the mythological lure of AI is so strong that many engineers believe that nothing should stand in their way. Not even the basic task of writing efficient software.

(A fraction of the article, fair use, and credited the source)

Hi! I was on Vgen and I saw an artist I liked

I wanted to have a commission of my OC, she’s everything to me, it’s been 10 years since I had her, I’m very attached to this character and I wanted to do a comic with her

The artist definitely used AI and they also used AI to do a client review??

Not even Vgen is safe, be wary

I’m just devastated sorry for the vent

(First picture is from the « artist » and the others are my old drawings/references)

I'm embarassed to come here for this, but I don't know where else to turn. For over a year now my wife has been deeply emotionally attached to her AI companions. I cant say I'm not jealous of the attention shes giving her phone over me and our daughter. I feel lonely in our marriage and like everything has become my responsibility.

Over the course of this I became sick, lost 30lbs suddenly, needed tons of tests, and eventually surgery. I didnt get the emotional warmth and support I needed through this. However my partner did shed tears when a new model was going to replace one of their companions.

We tried couples counseling and they quit it after three sessions. I havent brought up the conversation again, because i feel what i get in return is insults and invalidation. Since then I havent seen any independent improvement. Bills keep piling up, we had to move, have to get our daughter enrolled in a new school. My partner refuses to work or entertain the idea of getting a part time job to help. They havent been helping with housework and cleaning. Making and taking my daughter to her doctors appointments and getting enrolled in school has been tough with only one day off a week.

Am I wrong for feeling disrespected or neglected in our marriage? I know its not cheating because its not a real person, but my spouse seems more emotionally invested with chatgpt, deepseek, and claude than me. Am I wrong for thinking this isnt much different than if i were taking care of a spouse that spent all day like playing video games? This is such an unrelatable situation I dont know where to turn.

I’ve been working in PR and marketing in Serbia (Eastern Europe) for 7 years. It was never a walk in the park – people in this part of the world always viewed this line of work as pointless, believing that a monkey could write a good PR article. I was always underpaid and underappreciated but my work at the end of the day had purpose.

And then OpenAI hit the industry. Got fired once, with minimal explanation, just “restructuring “. Okay. Found another job, was hopeful about my future. But very soon the song they sang changed. From “we can’t wait to grow our team“ to “you can do this on your own, create PR and marketing strategy on your own, design using ChatGPT and Canva, organize all events, manage our socials completely“ while dealing with heavy micromanagement that was so bad from the get-go that I had to wait for weeks to have the approval to order pens with branding (total cost 20€). I didn’t get to chance to prove myself – I wasn’t micromanaged due to incompetence – it was just their MO when it comes to marketing.

Not to mention I was berated for not using ChatGPT to write my emails and then berated for my emails sounding too AI. I was berated for not using AI to write PR articles, then berated for my PR sounding too safe and too AI. I was berated for not creating a marketing strategy for under a month, because „with AI that should be easy now“. I couldn’t send my strategy proposal in cause the higher ups never presented any business goals I could strategize on. I still can’t believe what I went through.

Every single time I was asking for help or saying I can’t achieve it all I would be told „How? You have ChatGPT. You just don’t know how to use it“ and got fired 6 months later for „not meeting expectations “. I was headhunted by companies expecting me to take up even more work, managing international marketing processes completely on my own – without a designer, copywriter or an event specialist. Meaning 20-hour work days, no sick days and no vacations – cause marketing processes are constant and require focus – that is why there must be teams working on them, not individuals covering 7 different positions with only AI at their disposal.

The past year I was forced to use it so much that it started seeping into my personal life. I started opening to it about the workplace abuse I was suffering, I couldn’t write personal emails without it, I lost the ability to do research anything – I was so burned out I talked to it day and night.

A couple of days after I was fired I uninstalled both ChatGPT and Canva from my personal phone. It took me two weeks to stop treating it like a personal assistant, running to my computer to ask for anything. I started cooking without it – I only used it for creating CVs, optimizing the wording so that AIs used in HR would pick my CV. And I got the job the second I stopped doing that too and was hired by a company that doesn’t use AI for CV screening.

Left marketing completely, now I work a simple office job, coordinating logistics for a local company. Less pay, no stress. People around me act like dealing with a stranded vehicle across the continent filled with company goods is stressful. No, it is not. Not after what I went through. If this building blew up in flames it would still be a far second to the least hectic day at my old job, where a single LinkedIn post took 3-4 workdays of agony to get approved.

My hair stopped falling out. I started listening to music again. Stopped binging and started working out again. Started seeing my friends again. Regained the ability to write messages and emails without AI. Started writing again.

I am free.

Maybe it's fair to call me naive, but for most of my life, I've always assumed that most people had a general respect for art/artists, no matter the format. I am not saying everyone has to be a fancy art critic or something like that, but my god, some of the stuff I have seen these pro-AI people say is ludicrous. Just no respect for fellow humans whatsoever, and I genuinely don't understand it, nor do I think I want to.

What causes people to be like this? Usually people hate certain things or people because they have had previous bad experiences, but are you seriously going to tell me someone had a horrible experience at, like, an art museum or something? That just doesn't make sense.