Oh, I think we all agree the environmental impact is horrible. Energy and water use are off the chart. Energy costs are increasing significantly, likely in no small part to AI's demand.
Debating AI
- Thread starter Padrino
- Start date
Yeah, when you think about people not being able to shower because you decided to make a silly cat video, AI just doesn't seem worth it.
The impact is horrible but it may also be overstated to some degree based on some of what I can do at home with a M series chip on a Mac these days. It might just be the sheer volume of people doing in the cloud vs. doing it at home. Of course it's faster through server farms but if we were all doing intense stuff at home it could shut off our own grids vs these data centers that have their own power grids.
All that said, outsourcing all this stuff shouldn't be cost free. A cat vid should cost a few bucks. We all know it will eventually but we're in the dealer giving you a free trial of crack phase right now. Then at least people would think critically if they really need that. Most would pass.
All that said, outsourcing all this stuff shouldn't be cost free. A cat vid should cost a few bucks. We all know it will eventually but we're in the dealer giving you a free trial of crack phase right now. Then at least people would think critically if they really need that. Most would pass.
I've been trying to think back to where I was in my early 20s, convinced that I knew everything about everything and didn't need to listen to the adults in the room who had (as I saw it) already traded out their idealism for pragmatic economic egoism. I wish that I could more readily access that kind of idealism now but I also see that the pragmatism of my parent's generation has its merits too. But that's also why I don't see an "if" anymore when it comes to maximum AI cultural takeover. It's just a matter of "when".
The more us "old people" rail against AI, the more convinced the next generation of kids are that it is going to be their path forward, the way they force us out of a stagnant job market and start to make headway toward securing their future financial independence. Private equity wants to fund AI startups and this new generation of students seems fully bought in to the idea that their future will be built around their ability to manipulate AI for profit. It may all just be an echo chamber but an idea doesn't need to be real to have power, it just needs to have buy-in.
I don't know that I will still be alive when today's college students have their collective "cigarettes cause cancer" moment when it comes to AI and brain rot, but that seems inevitable too. So I guess there is some hope left for idealism -- even if we may be two or three generations away from the next big cultural correction.
The more us "old people" rail against AI, the more convinced the next generation of kids are that it is going to be their path forward, the way they force us out of a stagnant job market and start to make headway toward securing their future financial independence. Private equity wants to fund AI startups and this new generation of students seems fully bought in to the idea that their future will be built around their ability to manipulate AI for profit. It may all just be an echo chamber but an idea doesn't need to be real to have power, it just needs to have buy-in.
I don't know that I will still be alive when today's college students have their collective "cigarettes cause cancer" moment when it comes to AI and brain rot, but that seems inevitable too. So I guess there is some hope left for idealism -- even if we may be two or three generations away from the next big cultural correction.
Back in my youth we called that "The White Pages"
Yeah, things are a little different now. I remember being on a (telephone) party line as a kid! You youngsters will have to look that up.
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Insomniacal Fan
Starter
In my youth we called that Facebook. It didn't turn out well.
Nobody except the economic elite is going to profit off AI. I'm sorry children, best it will do for you is the same thing using a calculator did for me.
gets a few mundane tasks done faster so someone else can squeeze a few extra widgets out of my labor
Chupacabra
Starter
To argue in favor of AI, there is a large gap that is age-based related to utilizing AI. It can be used by younger generations to gain an advantage over old money. If its used strictly as a productivity tool to get a lot done quickly, people who are primed to take a socio-economic leap are now more able to do so.
Padrino
All-Star
Or those same young people will just end experiencing a delay to their earning potential as companies use AI as a pretext to eliminate the kinds of entry-level jobs that were once plentiful for college graduates...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/15/ai-puts-the-squeeze-on-new-grads-looking-for-work.html
Padrino
All-Star
I'll co-sign to all of this!
I definitely think this is true in the short-term but at the same time, it's part of what worries me and what I was eluding to when I talked about idealism taking a back seat for this upcoming generation. I see a lot of interest amongst young people in using these tools for their own economic benefit and very little thought given to how that economic benefit is going to re-shape society as a whole. I see college students who are eager to work for companies like Meta and Google even as these companies are laying off their current workers by the hundreds.
We should be in open rebellion (as Ethan Hawke says) not entirely against the tools themselves (the data itself is agnostic of intent) but with the way they have quickly been co-opted and concentrated into the grip of private equity firms and tech companies. We're in the midst of another Gilded Age and it should matter to people that the last time that advances in technology were used on this scale to concentrate wealth into the bank accounts of a very small group of people we got a total collapse of the world economy followed by the two biggest wars in human history.
There was a pretty funny story on the punk subreddit today where Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, solo artist, and frequent main character of the day fame got dragged all over her instagram for using AI art on the poster for her Irish tour.
The only issue is that while AI certainly has popularly trained on this style of art, the artist in question is adamant that this was his sole creation and AI was not used.
But the people calling it out used an AI detector to determine that this must be AI. Brilliant!
Whether this is AI or not doesn't really matter to me so much as that we've seemingly crossed some line where now AI is so ubiquitous and good at copying art styles that now original artists work is being called into question.
The only issue is that while AI certainly has popularly trained on this style of art, the artist in question is adamant that this was his sole creation and AI was not used.
But the people calling it out used an AI detector to determine that this must be AI. Brilliant!
Whether this is AI or not doesn't really matter to me so much as that we've seemingly crossed some line where now AI is so ubiquitous and good at copying art styles that now original artists work is being called into question.
Chupacabra
Starter
I should define young people for the sake of my argument: Everyone younger than Boomers. The job market has always sucked for college graduates since the 1970s. I'm talking about Gen x and Gen y as well when I say younger people.
Padrino
All-Star
Considering that most Gen Xers are now in their 50s, that's a curious way to define "younger people". But I take your point that "everyone younger than Boomers" need to effectively strategize their way to some semblance of upward mobility, since Boomers have largely engineered the economy to work for themselves and few others.
I was momentarily flattered by being lumped in with "younger people" despite my advanced age.
FWIW, my seventy-something mom still calls me "young man."
macadocious
Starter
Not yet!!!
I'm sure that xennials probably are demographically a large chunk of the pool, but we're at like 11 years out of a 15 year cohort now? So @Padrino has to be right that most of us are.
My grandma did that, if my mom ever did she must have stopped 30 years ago.
Padrino
All-Star
Yeah, that was my larger point, that at this stage most Gen Xers are now firmly in their 50s. And I meant no offense to Gen Xers! To be perfectly frank, I was influenced by older cousins and I find myself more aligned with many Gen X attitudes despite being smack dab in the middle of the millennial generation.
macadocious
Starter
My wife was born in 80, she can choose her alignment, her bday actually is called the lost generation, which is weird. Also, none of that nonsense matters!!
feels like X as a whole is the lost generation, the whole X concept was rooted in that we were going to be the first generation that fell behind our parents and a general disillusionment and malaise that followed our cohort into adulthood, but somehow we conveniently get left out of that discussion because we're smaller and generally quieter than the one that followed.My wife was born in 80, she can choose her alignment, her bday actually is called the lost generation, which is weird. Also, none of that nonsense matters!!
Padrino
All-Star
My wife was born in 80, she can choose her alignment, her bday actually is called the lost generation, which is weird. Also, none of that nonsense matters!!
Actually, I'd argue that it does. Most people desire a strong sense of belonging. Some drift to political/ideological identities out of a desire to belong. Some drift to religion for the same reason. Some adopt attitudes that might conflict with their priors so that they feel like they belong with the larger group around them. Then there's one's age/generational cohort, which are honestly pretty important to self-conception and that same sense of belonging. While the descriptors themselves are often useless (Boomer, Generation X, Millennial, etc.), it helps us understand, to some degree, how a generational cohort actively tries to conform to or distance itself from the attitudes, values, and habits of the generations that preceded them. Many millennial values, attitudes, and habits were shaped by the impact of 9/11 and the Great Recession. Likewise, many Gen Z values, attitudes, and habits were born out of the pandemic's impact on their academic learning and social development, as well as social media's impact on... well, everything, really.
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
I never cared about generational epochs until in 2008 boomers seemed to start criticizing millennials for being poor.
macadocious
Starter
Well Millenials were between 12 and 28 then, so I'd guess the vast majority of them would be poor.
