https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html
Weâre sorry we created the Torment Nexus
By Charlie Stross
(This is the text of a talk I delivered at the Next Frontiers Applied Fiction Day in Stuttgart on Friday November 10th, 2023. Note: early draft, contains some typos, Iâll fix them next week when I get home.)
Correction: Mark Zuckerberg didnât âblew through ten billion dollars trying to create the Metaverseâ.
Mark Zuckerberg blew through 30+ billion dollars trying to create the Metaverse, and counting.
- The famed VC firm is fighting alongside Big Tech against potential copyright rules on AI.
- a16z sees any requirement to pay for copyrighted AI training data as detrimental to its investments.
- Using copyrighted data for free is the basis of âenormous investmentâ in AI, the VC firm said.
Andreessen Horowitz is warning that billions of dollars in AI investments could be worth a lot less if companies developing the technology are forced to pay for the copyrighted data that makes it work.
The VC firm said AI investments are so huge that any new rules around the content used to train models âwill significantly disruptâ the investment communityâs plans and expectations around the technology, according to comments submitted to the US Copyright Office.
âThe bottom line is this,â the firm, known as a16z, wrote. âImposing the cost of actual or potential copyright liability on the creators of AI models will either kill or significantly hamper their development.â
And I would like Andreessen Horowitz to sign the âagreement to cease to beâ I have drawn up.
And speaking of AI, the self-driving car tech would be so much more valuable if legislators would just make it legal to run people over.
So whatâs with these tech companies proudly demonstrating their latest AI tech without even checking to see if the answers are correct before sharing them? Googleâs Bard made a big error about space telescope discoveries in its first public demonstration and now these guys have a machine that tells you to fly to Australia to see an eclipse that wonât be visible from there.
These AI products are obviously terrible, but itâs so weird that they arenât even double checking the results for these demonstrations to save themselves the public embarrassment before sharing the videos.
Gettinâ high on their own supply, basically.
Tech bros have been huffing their own farts for years now.
Instant $700 landfill the moment that Humane pulls the plug on the mothership servers, or the âownerâ can no longer pay the monthly service fee.
But itâs so shiny Star Trek-y!
Not everyone. Just four out of the five man crew. Sheesh.
(Seriously, that last burst of activity from the cerebral system on the monitors on the hibernation pods with Dr. Jack Kimball, Dr. Charles Hunter, and Dr. Victor Kaminsky in them is a high effective bit of cinematography. Murdered in your sleep by a computer, that ought to keep you awake in your Tesla.)
Think itâll even make it a year before they pull the plug?
