The first country to adopt LLMs for everything is the one that will collapse first. This is a race where the winners never start and at best stop before they reach the end.
AI will move past LLMs
Great. We’ll wait, then we’ll see.
How so?
Other algorithms and combination architectures will be invented/rediscovered.
Now AI has relationships between tokens. AGI needs concepts to be related, amongst other things.
I doubt that for the foreseeable future. Llms aren’t new at all the scientific space is old it’s just now popping up because they can do a lot with enormous data sets
Transformers were the kick-start for this generation of AI. Given the flood of money and brains into the area there will be more innovation.
Maybe. Could also be that humans never invent anything that comes close to a biological brain. Either because we simply aren’t smart enough, or because civilization regresses before we get there. And there’s several trends going on currently which could cause civilization to regress. For example, climate change and declining birth rates (While we could set up an economic system that can deal with a shrinking and aging population, our current one cannot).
Fasciam and religion are bigger threats than ‘declining birth rate’, that one’s just billionaire propaganda. Stop repeating it.
So, why are declining birth rates not a problem?
Because the big rationale for it being a problem is that GDP declines as population declines. But GDP is an aggregate measure that’s dependent on population, so that’s not a problem, it’s a tautology.
Why are they? Fewer people, fewer mouths to feed, more value on labor, more natural resources and real estate for the rest of us.
We cant grow forever. Dropping total population in the most ethical way then keeping things steady seems like the most nonviolent cool way to do this.
Tor fucks sake there’s like ten billion people we could keep everything we need going, easily, with half that.
Anf imagibe if we actually valuee people instead of treating them like disposable garbage to throw away in poverty and wars! Wouldn’t that be cool?
Yeah, but my point was that our current economic system can’t deal with, not that we can’t deal with it in general. Migrating away from the current system would require the powerful to give up their power, which they won’t do willingly, even as the walls are closing in. (In fact, when it comes to global warming, the walls are closing in).
Systems adapt. Extrapolation based on current state is often fallacious.
Migrating away from the current system would require the powerful to give up their power
Implicit in that statement is a huge and largely unfounded assumption that there’s only one possible future state, and that it’s as you say it is.
And, even if it means that the powerful are forced to give up power, well, that’s happened before and it’s not impossible that it’ll happen again.
Wait, since when population is shrinking? And since when it’s a bad thing too?
It’s not shrinking yet, the birth rate is declining, and the world population is projected to start declining 2050.
I don’t think it is shrinking globally, yet. But, some countries (e.g. South Korea) are in dire situations due to shrinking and aging population already.
in dire situations
That’s just repeating the assumption that’s being questioned.
But it’s mostly caused by social issues, imo it is nowhere near being a real problem
I agree with your premise, but I don’t think it implies your conclusion, which I disagree with.
Might be bad now but it leads to a better future. Infinite growth was always impossible, this is just the result of decades of mismanagement.
The future for S. Korea looks bleak, not better.
I agree that infinite growth was always impossible, but in some countries birth rate is well below replacement rate (if they matched, population would be stable, not growing), and in many birth rate + immigration rate is also below replacement rate – we are failing not at growth, but “mere” stability.
Idgaf about replacement rate. I don’t want the old to be replaced. I want the economy to get smaller and for the wealth to be better distributed.
Technically there should be a ratio of young to old to take care of all of the elderly, but IMO fuck’em it wasn’t the young’s choice to be born and suffer for the sake of the old.
Lower population will make resource allocation easier and improve quality of life, and obviously is necessary to prevent further environmental damage. There will be momentary suffering for a brighter future.
Technically there should be a ratio of young to old to take care of all of the elderly
That’s a rule of thumb that assumes a lot of things about elderly people’s need for care, how much that’s funded by the young, productivity in how that care is provided, and a huge number of other variables.
Lower population will make resource allocation easier and improve quality of life, and obviously is necessary to prevent further environmental damage.
The environmental damage is more to do with bad choices about the mix of technology currently used to power the economy, and the poor ratio of GDP per unit of energy consumed. So I dispute that “obviously.”
The environmental damage is more to do with bad choices about the mix of technology currently used to power the economy, and the poor ratio of GDP per unit of energy consumed.
Your opinion runs counter to every single dataset to ever exist.
I don’t really give a shit about the AI race and I genuinely hope that we lose it, because I feel like being a winner in that “industry” is inherently unsustainable.
The AI hype is so infuriatingly frustrating.
Further, fear mongering about China’s data center/powergrid infrastructure superiority is also the PERFECT excuse techbros need to rationalize building data centers in parts of the US that are in desperate shortage of water for human beings and with precarious electrical grids that are ready to fail in the middle of the next heatwave.
The US is essentially in a second Civil War and this will be one of the main methods in which people are killed, i.e. purposefully setting up the conditions for people to die in a heat wave and have no water so they are desperate… and the only way people in the US are going to stomach it is if they have been truly convinced they have to accept these brutal conditions “because we are hopelessly behind China and we can’t afford to stop building data centers!!”.
Oh man I’d love some of what you’re smoking or popping
I just want anyone else to win. All the things. I want US Hegemony to end. At any cost. If that’s AI then good.
I hate this country the way Saw Gerrera hates the empire.
Sure, but this isn’t going to do that, and it’s going to harm–no, scratch that, continue harming–a bunch of people in the process.
I have found one use for generative AI that I have liked. I’ve thrown it at aggravating searches for me.
Use case example: I stopped traveling across the country and got a job at one location. It’s across the city. I’d like to find an electric bike to get there. The location is 12 miles away as the crow flies. Unfortunately my city is absolute crap at any kind of non-car transportation so it needs to get myself up to 40 mph at minimum. Honestly if I’m going that speed, I’d like a scooter like the a burgman. Trouble is “scooter” runs the gambit from competing to motorcycles like the Burgman, to little ones like the Vespa, and stand up ones like you see dumped all over cities downtown. Electric motorcycles start getting into “I might as well buy a new motorcycle” prices.
Alright, I do a search for electric scooter, I get all standing scooters. I’ve attempted changes and maybe find a sitting one that is made for not getting over 25 mph. Finally getting frustrated I remembered one of my younger coworkers talking about using AI for searches, fine… ten minutes later I had a series of results of bike that fit my criteria as well as small little dealers across the city that DuckDuckGo nor Google bothered to pull up, and that’s with me specifically asking for links because I didn’t want made up bullshit.
Now if we get to the point of AI becoming overlords, I’m sure I’m going to be among the first against the wall because the first couple searches of it not getting things right involved me calling it a dumbshit so…
So yea… that’s my territory of using an AI, it’s a better search engine for weird esoteric shit… I kind of wish it wasn’t an app or a website because if it was a physical device I’d have it next to a hammer which I guess shows how much I trust it.
I hope we loose it so we can get humbled. But if we loose, knowing how we are, we’ll likely invent a reason to go to war and steal their talent.
Ai isn’t an arrow, you can’t loose it.
You can’t even goose it.
And you’re too young to choose it.
I understand you’re frustrated about the AI race. That’s an excellent point, and it deserves careful consideration. First, in considering the AI race we need to consider what AI is…
Lol
I’m glad somebody got the joke.
Nah.
we considered attacking you, but couldn’t think of a way to ruín anything worse than you already had. Every idea we came up with, you had already done, but worse. I spent two years writing software to take down the grid in texas, and another two getting it into your systems. Then you just did it all manually, and some nazi asshole shot the infected substation until it blew up a month later! Fuck you, i liked this job. I went to college for this shit. You have ruined me. What the fuck am i gonna do now?
-some chinese saboteur
Good, fuck the AI industry, we can’t even go to the doctor over here
But you have so many obese guy fart videos to choose from now.
True wealth
AI is not the panacea they’re making it out to be. This article is attempting to influence readers to support American AI business models to ‘complete’ with China. Except that AI doesn’t make my job easier and is very bad for the environment.
In my case, AI assistants are even confusing and annoying, but since they cannot be turned off, in my case I have to endure it.
Given that part of my job is evaluating applicants’ ability to do the job, and given that LLMs are very good at answering the sort of questions many people ask in interviews, AI is making my job significantly harder.
If someone could make a prompt that actually made an LLM write good code, I wouldn’t have nearly as much of an issue.
It’s only made worse by the people who treat it like the Master Computer from Star Trek, claim that it can solve all the problems, and thus attempt to shove it into anything and everything.
It’s baffling why my notepad needs to be hooked up to an LLM in the first place. It’s a notepad, for quick scribbling. If people want to write something serious in it, there are far better things for that.
The race was over in 2021-2022 when every model that uses the only algorithmic approach we have hit a wall when they ran out of training data.
It does not matter how much power we dump into these, it has quickly diminishing results.
Yeah, this isnt AI, its just able to detect and help re-arrange what we already have but it doesnt do anything new.
And we have a lot of info but we dont know everything actually.
So, a few months ago China launched Deepseek and the narrative on US media was all “the fact they didn’t have access to the latest Nvidia GPUs forced them to get creative and develop a model that is more efficient and cheaper”.
Now the US is getting behind on “AI wars” because China has more energy for huge data centers?
How about the US get creative and develop LLMs that are actually useful and can work without sucking Gigafucks of electricity?
china has also been investing in solar for decades since the us gave up on it and became the leader
Yeah but in defense of the US, solar makes big oil sad
/s
To be fair in 2024, China’s electricity supply was primarily based on coal and renewable energy sources, with coal accounting for the largest share at approximately 57.77 percent. Renewable energy, including hydropower, contributed around 20.27 percent. Nuclear energy played a relatively minor role at about 4.47 percent. So it’s mostly coal power plants in used for AI in China.
53.2% coal, ~20% renewables. Not disagreeing, just adding context.
Percentage dont make sense when the OP posted a out solar leadership. Raw numbers is where it’s at.
The OP did not show where AI and solar intersect, because in power supply they do not. AI power infra is mostly reliant on hydro and coal
enough talk already i wish the us empire would just hurry up and actually collapse.
I am very skeptical of any article that boldly claims that China is on the rise and the US is in decline. We’ve been hearing about this decades. People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP. People think the US is worse only because the US is an open country. China’s isolation give it the illusion that it’s better, but in reality, it’s even worse. Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.
Chinese infrastructure and manufacturing lead is real. You don’t need to believe any propaganda, just travel and observe.
The asterisks are not about their usecase but political.
Chinese infrastructure and manufacturing lead is real.
And if you ignore the theory of comparative advantage, not only is it real, but it also matters. Otherwise, not.
I also run a consistent payment deficit with my barber. Should that be corrected?
No need to discuss defecit. That’s a totally unrelated item. My statement was purely about their infra and manufacturing lead in multiple sectors.
Imagine you are a top student and some other student suddenly gets better marks than you in multiple subjects. You do need to introspect and see where you can improve (Or if you even care about those subjects).
If you don’t care about infra and manufacturing, no need to sweat
China leads the world in scientific publication, even when only taking into account reputable journals and high-impact publications. There’s no doubt in my mind the US will decline further with the current attacks on science and education, and anti-intellectualism in general.
We’ve been hearing about this decades.
Yes, you’ve been hearind that for decades, just like climate change: if you wait for an abrupt treshold with a clear before/after cut , you’re going to wait for a while.
China has developed an advanced high speed trains network. You have no idea how much US looks backward on that.
China still opens coal burning power plants, jut also a very large number of renewable and nuclear power plants. They’re serious about electrification.
They took the lead in scientific publication.
US needs to put up tariffs to protect its car makers from being wiped out by Chinese ones. Western car makers rely more and more on Chinese batteries suppliers.
All the signs are there. You just need to ackowledge them.
People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP.
As compared to what? In the US, corruption is legal, it’s called campaign donation and SuperPAC. At this stage, elections pick which pack of oligarchs will rule: GOP donators or Dems donators.
If the system is so much better, where are the high speed trains, advanced power grid, decarbonation plan, school that can get high potentials to the top, decent healthcare system?
Where are the fruits of this less corrupt dysfunctional and incompetent system?
China’s isolation give it the illusion that it’s better, but in reality, it’s even worse.
Alother delusion from local US news. China is not that isolated, they have developed deep relations with a number of countries in Africa and middle east, and they’re a privileged trade partner with many more. Worse even: with the current US policy of tariffs, several countries that were reluctant to have deeper ties with China are pushed in their arms.
Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.
Meaning what? Their high speed trains are absolutely working. In large cities, half of the cars in the street are electric cars, majority from domestic brands and a few Tesla. They have very advanced and very cheap mass transit networks.
As I was saying: it’s just like global warming: if you sit and wait claiming it’s not really happening and/or not that bad, you’re totally unprepared when disasters hit you.
The only thing I will agree with you here is their emonomy is not half as great as they want to claim. The estate market has been in a free fall in all but the big 4 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guandong, Shenzhen).
But if the US wants to be the first power of the rest of the 21st century world, they need to wake up!
This is the dawn of the new Chinese century. I have no doubt in 20 more years China will be in an even stronger position as the USA continues to decline.
We, the USA, could do all the stuff that would make us competitive. That would require more socialism, more taxing of billionaires, more spending in green energy, education, transportation, healthcare becoming affordable and an actual human right for all in our borders, a real plan to transition off fossil fuels and shore up our domestic energy production and electric grid.
Idk more than that of course but that’s the elevator pitch.
We won’t do it though because corrupt capitalism and the oligarchy.
Maybe we will if at some point enough of us are struggling but we’re pretty fat and have plenty of entertainment to distract us even if we are being fucked. So … Yeah … Desperately hoping I’m wrong about most of my predictions, devastated as I keep seeing them come true.
This is the dawn of the new Chinese century.
Betting on a totalitarian kleptocracy saving the world is as unwise as betting in the 1980s that already overworked Japanese wage slaves could be overworked even further.
I didn’t say they were going to save the world, no more than the USA did or any nation state turned empire.
I do think China will eclipse America when it comes to being in a position of strong global leadership and the hegemonic power on the world stage. The USA seems to be shirking our duties, reshaping and destroying our society’s moral fabric, racing towards worse and worse education results and hellbent on making sure our healthcare is broken and our people are fat and dumb.
It’s not a winning recipe, even with a military that can dominate.
Every country has its problems and its demons, China is no different and certainly their problems are complex and grand. As far as greater or lesser evils - I’d put the USA and China about on par for all the fucked up stuff we have done the past hundred years and keep doing now.
I’d love to at least visit China sometime - honestly there’s so much fascinating history and getting to see a different approach to community building and infrastructure planning would be neat.
Brother it sounds like you underestimate what industrializing the largest population on earth looks like. It’s not just happening, it’s kinda inevitable.
It’s also coming from “AI Experts”, so who cares what they have to say. The real question is, what’s their angle by saying this?
To justify pouring trillions of dollars into AI in the US. Oh, and you’re thirsty, so sorry, databank needs your water.
Or looking to suck up the the CCP and get paid to move their operations to China.
We heard the same about Japan.
Soon we’ll be hearing about how Nigeria is spending oil money and growing its manufacturing.
Wait till the U.S. finds out about Brazil and its ability to manufacturer.
When the war is over between Ukraine and Russia, you’ll have two more countries restarting non-military production.
South Africa is picking up everyday.
If Europe ever manages to dig a tunnel between Spain and Morocco the Iberian peninsula and N.Africa would transform.Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.
Could you give one or two as examples?
The US is very much on the decline, and thanks to the poorly thought out One Child policy- China has also likely past it’s apex. But like the US, it too can cause a lot of damage during its downfall.
India, thanks to burgeoning population and rapid industrialisation is probably the most notable nation currently ‘on the rise’.
The big difference that I see is that they investes in people for a long while now. They did what they can so people can get a decent education. That’s also the reason why they don’t allow kids to use tiktok and so on - it’s hindering the next generation’s ability to think. They know that you need many intelligent people to drive whatever other innovation you want to have later. That’s why they’re pulling ahead so fast while we are collapsing. I am not even living in the US, but even here the education system is crumbling.
The west has trapped itself in the thought of technology without people. The idea that few clever people can design perfect systems that drive everything for us. That we just need to support those few individuals to get maximum return. China is supporting the broad masses. It’s like creating a fertile soil.
Who knows what all the asterisks are causing in the future. But at the moment it’s just no comparison. We’ve gone backwards, while they’re so far ahead we barely see them.
Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more
I see.
We think changes happen overnight but rise and fall of a power is typically a slowburn.
Wow some real critical thinking on Lemmy for once. Thank you! I swear Lemmy is run by propaganda/tin foil hat wearers spewing so much bs rather than remembering were all suffering together at the expense of a few rich people world wide.
Maybe Trump can Make Ampères Great Again.
Good, let the Chinese have this demonic technology currently only good for mass surveillance.
the race to the bottom may already be over
Blessed be the Temu empire
Give up, all is lost, all is lost.
Gotta hand it to the fossil fuels industry, they got what they wanted and their propaganda worked.
And now Americans have a janky grid, slower / more expensive transportation, and bigger power bills.
they got what they wanted and their propaganda worked
So far.
Capitalism doesn’t solve for society, it solves for capital.
There is no profit in making the world a better place.
That depends on the incentives. Society can change those to some extent.
It turns out that there is a lot of profit in making the world a worse place.
At least we are free*
*Terms and conditions apply
- Be rich
- Be white
- Be male
- Be “Christian”
- Be straight
- just kidding be rich
The last ones the one that matters most but their supporters can’t read a list that long in one sitting.
6 is the “one of the good ones” clause
“free” is the sound that natural gas makes as it is released from its underground prison …
“Natural gas.”
Oh, right, the benign-soundingmarketing term for methane.
And likely those statements will not change anytime soon in the foreseeable future.
