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I've started to notice that many of the most "critical"/"skeptical"/"practical" takes on AI are so steeped in pro-AI framing that they immediately give away the plot. They can't say a sideways word without first rolling out platitudes as if to calm the pro-AI before the mildest take.

The problem is that this framing grants these platitudes validity. "AI is here to stay, but...", "AI is changing [x] industry...", "AI is useful in [x] context" & so on and it's so tired and contrite that we're bought into the framing. Most recently I saw "AI amplifies what's already there"...

And I can't help but just bark at that. Because what the fuck do you mean, amplified? It's a mediocrity machine at best, so what it adds is more *slop*. I suppose if you're already slinging slop it looks multiplicative instead of additive.

it certainly changed the number of security bugs being found and patched in recent Chrome releases:

& we're right back inside the frame. 😔

If the frame is "AI works for some things, doesn't work for others, and has a bunch of bad externalities" – and you can't find anyone objecting to the first part – I feel like that's just because it's correct / true?

We lost the fuckin plot and ceded too much ground because it seems like we're unable to effectively argue against the very existence of frontier LLMs. The capitalists don't give a shit about water, power, productivity, or any of that shit. If we're fighting within their frame we're losing everytime.

Like they're totally fine letting these things literally talk people into killing themselves and you think we're going to put a dent in it by talking about the fucking impact it has on the planet? You lost before you opened your mouth.

Really sit back and think about the utter scale of a machine that has brought us to this point, where a software tools company is putting out videos that attempt to help people recover skills lost by using the AI shit that's *in their product*.

LLMs are economically unsustainable, the only two frontier AI companies are yet to turn profit, and Google even went cash-negative in one month. sure, we will have open models, e.g. DeepSeek, left as an artifact of the era, but they will become irrelevant without expensive retraining updates fast

so, even within the "capitalist" framework they are losing. if there will be any returns, they will be miserable. it's a cash burning machine with a staggering amount of hard assets that depreciate every year, period.