Fuck AI

Nuclear energy and its problems, has seemed to me a firing analogy for a while.

Theoretically, as an energy technology, there’s plenty to gain.

But radiation and inherently catastrophic danger are fundamentally incompatible with biology and wellbeing, and so humanity mostly rejected the technology.

LLMs likely have some similar incompatibilities, despite whatever promise they may or may not have.

• EDIT -

So the responses to this are funny. For the record, I’m likely as much a pro-nuclear person as much as anyone here (Or used to be I guess). It should be a net-gain technology with solvable problems, and sticking with fossil fuels instead has likely been just dumb.

But I still think the point holds. There’s something about an invisible danger - radiation - that triggers wariness in people, and there’s something reasonable about that. Especially when you factor in the reliability of groups of people to do what’s in the collective interest even when there are high stakes.

And yea, CO2 is invisible too … but look where that has got us! Main difference is that its ill effects are not direct, individualistic, or relatively quick compared to radiation.

Then, compared renewables, you start to get a clearer picture, and analogy too. Maybe, sometimes, the worse technology that is more compatible with human nature is better overall.