This has been happening LONG before AI. AI is just the newest version of it
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
135 points (91.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
35111 readers
660 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It's also not the first or only 21st century technology that is or was waaaaaaaaay overhyped.
First it was the Blockchain
Then it was the Cloud
Now it's Artificial Stupidity.
Dunno, "the cloud" is still a thing. It's basically normal operation to use cloud servers from Amazon or Microsoft or whatever. Everyone is using Google's Cloud to store their private photos and emails and appointments and contacts.
And with Google's integration of AI into search and phones, Microsoft's integration of AI into Windows and just the sheer volume of porn you can produce, AI is also here to stay, whether we like it or not. Not to mention the legitimate uses in science.
And it's not like AI is getting any worse. We can do stuff with it that was simply unthinkable merely ten years ago. Give it another ten years and it will be almost perfect.
That's why the reference to the 1975 Pink Floyd song "Welcome to the Machine".
Someone pointed out that capitalism loves subscriptions and rentals. They can sell you a widget, sure, but then they only get money once. If they can rent you a widget, then they get money forever.
AI is a path for rent skills to people. You don't need to learn to write python or learn Spanish. Just pay for LLM access. Rent the skill.
It is extremely dystopian.
Unfortunately, most people don't care about much of anything. You could tell them, with undeniable proof, that every AI search kills a puppy, and most people would be like "well puppies die anyway and I always use Google, so..."
That would be the case if corporations owned all the LLMs. However, it is possible to run open weights LLMs locally on your one hardware.
It's possible to buy music, too, but most people rent it from spotify. Most people aren't going to do the comparably hard thing of setting up their own LLM.
And even if they did run their own well tuned, ethical, LLM to write letters for them, that still leaves us with the problem of "people aren't developing core skills like writing"
Here's a fun question: Do you own the music you buy on a CD? Or is the CD just the license to listen to music that belongs legally to someone else?
Depends on what you mean by "own".
Buying the CD has a key difference from Spotify in that no one can (typically) take the cd away from you. Music disappears from Spotify all the time. You can also (typically) copy it to other storage. And, most relevant to the topic of rent vs buy, you just pay for it once and you're done. No subscription, no ads. That stuff is important to me.
You can't usually take music you got from a CD and put it in your movie, for example, but that's a whole conversation about fair use and copyright.
I understand completely but your argument is more medium based than ownership based, that was my only real point.
Rent the Skill for sure. If this is the skill you are expected to be an expert or at least experienced you would avoid it as much as possible to avoid being dependent.
There is a very small subset of humans that understand why LLMs are our doom. The vast majority is riding the next hype train to hell.
We absolutely need to decapitate for profit media or we're dead.
I'm a moderate user for code. LLMs are not smart, they're pattern machines. Anyone who cedes critical thinking to them without due diligence, gets what they deserve, and likely didn't really have much in the way of critical thought in the first place.
These companies are all trying to figure out how to monetize their latest juked benchmark stat and create something with actual value equivalent to the billions in investment they've thrown into processing. The industry is awash in startups dong the same thing 90000 ways. Human lust for money and power is the most nefarious thing about it all.
Yes. That is the Theil model for social engineering. To do it via suggestion in AI.
Bot responses so trends are assumed where there are none. Movements even.
Suggest one answer or idea over another with ChatBots.
No longer do you have to search through enshittified Google, just tap the AI at the top to find the answer for you.
But why did the AI choose that answer, for you?
I used chatgpt only for a month after it's release. Then never used it
That's the way 👏
Nah, they want you to believe that their product is thinking so they can get cut from gov money by pushing their products there. This way they no longer have customers, but tax payers doomed for product that works like shit.