ROBBIE LYMAN

Generative AI is tacky. Unbelievably tacky. None of the content on this website was created using it. I think you should not use it; here are in brief a few reasons.

The most obvious is that it is a pump and dump, a poorly understood breakthrough in finding new ways for using old math. Doubtless there is “a there there” in terms of practical applications of LLMs and generative AI (and machine learning in general), but I am pretty convinced that nobody selling it to you cares to find it; just that they can make money and harvest your data in unprecedented ways to sell back to you when this bubble bursts. To be sure, I am not an expert in the math of data science and machine learning. I have a PhD in pure mathematics, and for a long time fell into the trap of glorying in the lack of applications of the things I thought about all day. Instead, every other week I attended a talk by an industry speaker with a background in applied mathematics as they shared a bit about the technical aspects of their work. Every one of these talks was grim to listen to; perhaps the most personally affecting one had the speaker gleefully recounting the money-making possibilities available to companies buying, e.g. your location data from the weather app on your phone.

The second reason is that the energy and water demands of the AI craze are worsening the climate crisis. The Washington Post headline, “A bottle of water per email”, should be compared with the amount of water you use to keep your environment and laptop cool as you write an email of 100 words.

If neither of these reasons is appealing to you, I’ll conclude by trying to embarrass you. You can’t communicate with a real human being? You can’t navigate the world wide web on your own? You can’t hire someone to produce the kind of artifact you’re hoping to prompt your way to? You trust the thing with no brain to tell you something smart? I feel bad for you.

This page on my website was created in response to the /ai 'manifesto', which I'm happy to play along with, but I have to complain: asking real humans to declare that their work is made by real humans is not it.

I have written more thoughts about AI on my blog.