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C. N. Reed's avatar

Forgive me if I missed something or glazed over it, but there is also a concern that isn’t stated here but equally as terrifying: environmental impact.

A single prompt from ChatGPT uses about a bottle of water in their server cooling system. It doesn’t sound too bad, but when everyone is using it, that’s like a lake a day.

Microsoft recently announced its plan to buy and restart three mile island (America’s (almost) Chernobyl). The want nuclear energy—which sounds good. Nuclear power is a solid way to go for sustainability. But it is to solely provide power to their AI, not to the public.

There needs to be regulation and limits placed on Ai colonialism or we are picking up speed as we head into a brick wall.

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Heidi Pitlor's avatar

Excellent point. Thanks so much for raising this. I should have mentioned this-- I suppose my focus was more on the creative and political.

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C. N. Reed's avatar

Absolutely valid! It just shows that it's such a multifaceted issue. It'll probably spawn a lot of nonfiction books in the next few years and hopefully be discussed in a lot of detail.

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Jane Roper's avatar

Yes to all this! I'm also dismayed by how AI is starting to make it harder for artists and creators of all kinds to make a living -- writers, copywriters, illustrators, photographers, voice actors, etc. etc. And, of course, to add insult to injury, it's doing this by stealing and remixing their (our) original work.

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Heidi Pitlor's avatar

It's terrible. I swear, we will all split into two factions, pro-Ai and pro-human at some point.

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SuddenlyJamie's avatar

Came over from Jane Roper's piece and am glad I got to read your take as well. AI is so dangerous for so many reasons, but I honestly don't know how we're going to get it under control. At first, it seemed like the tech bros were just racing ahead willy-nilly in the spirit of blind, no-holds-barred competition. But now I have heard several of said bros saying out loud, in public that they can't wait for the days when - as you note above - everyone has their own personal AI and/or actual fucking robot (bet you can guess who said that!). It's terrifying, and - frankly - kind of stupid. Thank you for speaking up.

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Heidi Pitlor's avatar

Thanks for this. I too don't see way to control it all. Scary.

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Marianne Leone's avatar

Well-defined and well-said, Heidi. Thank you for this.

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John Farrell's avatar

"And continuing to do creative things that start in your own brain and heart, not ideas that ChatGPT or some such has given you— it has enough ideas, and so let’s not give it more."

Honestly, the only thing I've been tempted to use ChatGPT for is... to write synopses. But even there I just won't. And I've never even bothered to learn how to use it.

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