Great and Terrible things

[rayheinrich]

Copilot (and the other AI bots, though at the moment co-pilot is my favorite) is, I think, just as big a step change as the first fast search engines on the web. They can search the web in 50 or 100 locations in 5 to 10 seconds, something it would have taken me hours to do. And then give you a concise, well-organized answer to your terribly fuzzy question. And bring up suggestions to further help you refine your search. Once I learned to use Copilot, which took a while, I was and still am amazed at how powerful a tool it is. AI is going to have profound effects on our society. And like any powerful tool, it will be used in both great and terrible ways. Exciting times. Like watching a French new-wave movie where you are absolutely sure it has profound meanings but you cannot, for the life of you, figure out what the hell is going on.

[wasellajam]

Copilot (and the other AI bots, though at the moment co-pilot is my favorite) is, I think, just as big a step change as the first fast search engines on the web. They can search the web in 50 or 100 locations in 5 to 10 seconds, something it would have taken me hours to do. And then give you a concise, well-organized answer to your terribly fuzzy question. And bring up suggestions to further help you refine your search. Once I learned to use Copilot, which took a while, I was and still am amazed at how powerful a tool it is. AI is going to have profound effects on our society. And like any powerful tool, it will be used in both great and terrible ways. Exciting times. Like watching a French new-wave movie where you are absolutely sure it has profound meanings but you cannot, for the life of you, figure out what the hell is going on.

That's fine if it was magic. Unfortunately, it is not. Do you want a data center as your neighbor draining your community of its water and electricity resources. Personally I don't think it's worth it even if it was benign, which I don't believe it is. I think it will end up another way for the money/power hungry of the world to fuck with people just trying to live their little lives. Probably doing it already.

---

Oh, hi, Ray

[dukealien]

Copilot (and the other AI bots, though at the moment co-pilot is my favorite) is, I think, just as big a step change as the first fast search engines on the web. They  can search the web in 50 or 100 locations in 5 to 10 seconds, something it would have taken me hours to do. And then give you a concise, well-organized answer to your terribly fuzzy question. And bring up suggestions to further help you refine your search. Once I learned to use Copilot, which took a while, I was and still am amazed at how powerful a tool it is. AI is going to have profound effects on our society. And like any powerful tool, it will be used in both great and terrible ways. Exciting times. Like watching a  French new-wave movie where you are absolutely sure it has profound meanings but you cannot, for the life of you, figure out what the hell is going on.

That's fine if it was magic. Unfortunately, it is not. Do you want a data center as your neighbor draining your community of its water and electricity resources. Personally I don't think it's worth it even if it was benign, which I don't believe it is. I think it will end up another way for the money/power hungry of the world to fuck with people just trying to live their little lives. Probably doing it already.

---

Oh, hi, Ray

My two cents:  we're getting bogged down with first- and second-order effects (pseudo-reasoning and resource consumption).  Remember the familiar Nineties nostrum:  the unintended effects of a policy or technology are always the most significant.  You can say (and it's true) that water and electricity consumption are those unintended effects, but it's hard to believe they're insoluble problems:  just improve the chips' efficiency (or use something that works like a chip but isn't, as in quantum-computing qubits which were still being counted in non-exponential numbers the last time I looked).  I seem to recall that quantum computing produces approximate results that require course correction, though...

But what are the unknown unknowns here?  I firmly expect that when power (and water) consumption collapses due to improved efficiency, we'll be left with a lot of welcome mini-nuclear generating stations.  Fine for what was once called the Third World, which needs the juice.  And then will be able to jump-start technology and its innovation, but at whose command if their politics remains tribal?

AIs go into politics.  It's already happening, from deep-fakes replacing old-style October-surprise mud-slinging and optimized district maps (the underlying pressure in the current redistricting panics) replacing old-style ward heelers who knew  their beats.  Well, OK... but you know what (even current) AIs do:  invent stuff.  Anything for the marginal vote.  Any policy, any action, any judicial outcome once the human judges are overrun by floods of mixed real and fantasy precedents and interpretations... even made-up laws.

Oh, you want "terrible?"  I keep up with military jabber, a little.  It was command and control (plus as many additional letters as LGBTQ+ - ISR, you name it, with a "C" for counter- to each) networks and nodes.  Now it's all domains, seizing and contesting.  With hallucinating AIs generating perfect-looking operations, all trying to fool and corrupt each other.  Like a game of Go, but with effectively infinite four-dimensional boards.

We only think we're living in interesting times.

[busker]

It’s a “nothing burger” as the yanks call it.
There’s no shortage of sunlight for solar energy

[wasellajam]

It’s a “nothing burger” as the yanks call it.
There’s no shortage of sunlight for solar energy

Maybe the rest of the world is saner but as usual the US is bumbling forward without foresight.

Fortune article on Lake Tahoe

[CRNDLSM]

Who wants to bet the data centers will be mostly occupied with surveillance porn because humans still operate the machinery

[busker]

It’s a “nothing burger” as the yanks call it.
There’s no shortage of sunlight for solar energy

Maybe the rest of the world is saner but as usual the US is bumbling forward without foresight.

Fortune article on Lake Tahoe

Actually, the US is doing quite well for itself
The article that you shared talks about a situation that actually has nothing to do with data centres
Sure, there’s demand for electricity from a DC, but it could’ve also been demand from an aluminium smelter or any new power hungry industry
In the story, Lake Tahoe gets its power from a Cali utility but has a private company that runs its own network inside the Lake Tahoe region including billing and metering with the transmission being owned by Nevada.
Because the Lake Tahoe region is not within the utility’s area of supply it has no obligation to keep supplying if a better commercial opportunity came its way.
This sounds to me like a market design problem (the American electricity market has been frozen in a state of semi-regulation and semi-competition since the collapse of Enron), or simply the complacency of the privately owned network in Lake Tahoe. Perhaps their PR team is at work. 


99% of the problems you read about in the media are manufactured outrage. The really difficult problems are subtle and beyond the grasp of most journalists. They’re also boring because the solution lies in the detail. 
The general belief in free markets, competition, individual liberty, private property and sensible regulation is strong in America, which is what has kept it going while the rest of the west has been collapsing trying to run a welfare state. This is despite the general low awareness of the American public, the terrible cuisine, and a large section of the population that is relatively old and absolutely unintelligent. The basic template is still there for economic resilience, from which everything elese flows.

[RiverNotch]

"The general belief in free markets, competition, individual liberty, private property and sensible regulation is strong in America, which is what has kept it going while the rest of the west has been collapsing trying to run a welfare state."

You're funny xD Fascists in power but America is apparently not collapsing still

[busker]

"The general belief in free markets, competition, individual liberty, private property and sensible regulation is strong in America, which is what has kept it going while the rest of the west has been collapsing trying to run a welfare state."

You're funny xD Fascists in power but America is apparently not collapsing still

I think much of our perception of reality is warped by the incessant bleating of the 24/7 news cycle
The reality is different 

Look at the basket case Britain has become. Part of it is Brexit, but a lot of it is the never ending pile up of welfare payments that’s completely strangled the economy.
A smart young graduate from a top university gets - unless he gets a lucky break in finance - about 50-60% the salary of his counterpart in the US. And pays more in tax.
What was the last innovation to come out of the EU? Perhaps Moderna’s Covid drug, which shows that the talent and aspiration is there, but it’s strangled by mountains of red tape.
Germany’s asinine decision to retire nuclear and not rebuild, its failure to launch a viable EV industry, and Europe’s relegation to becoming little better than Disneyland - these things matter more than what Trump is doing to run for a third term. The press will focus on the latter because it’s easier to understand.

Make no mistake - America and China are the only games in town. Long term, the Chinese will win because America is a racist, culturally backward, Christian fundamentalist cesspool, but for the time being, it’s too dog still.

[dukealien]

@busker - Hope that was meant to be "top" 

Seriously, though, China has most of the problems you ascribe to the US (especially aging population) but its fundamentalism is a bit different.  It's not tortoise v. hare but panda v. badger and I'm not sure which is which.

I am sometimes amazed by how very sensible one can be on many subjects while shoehorning that virtue into a blindered view of other matters - or even the detail or background of those.  Wish I could see the blinders when looking in the mirror, but it's difficult.  (And has anyone these days seen a horse wearing blinders?  Can the term continue to exist with no real-world referent?)  The real world is seamless, but our perception of it is a mosaic, at best.

[wasellajam]

@busker - Hope that was meant to be "top" 

Seriously, though, China has most of the problems you ascribe to the US (especially aging population) but its fundamentalism is a bit different.  It's not tortoise v. hare but panda v. badger and I'm not sure which is which.

I am sometimes amazed by how very sensible one can be on many subjects while shoehorning that virtue into a blindered view of other matters - or even the detail or background of those.  Wish I could see the blinders when looking in the mirror, but it's difficult.  (And has anyone these days seen a horse wearing blinders?  Can the term continue to exist with no real-world referent?)  The real world is seamless, but our perception of it is a mosaic, at best.

Racehorses still use blinders, they call them blinkers now.