stephenbyerley

[stephenbyerley]

i think about this very often

[stephenbyerley]

[stephenbyerley]

moving apartments is the worst activity that exists

[stephenbyerley]

transmasc stoners be like bout to take a fat he/it off my bong

[stephenbyerley]

[stephenbyerley]

oh no , the dog is drinking the wave equation

[stephenbyerley]

my gaming setup ignore the beast

[stephenbyerley]

your posts are suchhhhh a beauty on my dash. I love seeing all these lovely creatures. I hope your february rocks

Thank you so much kumquat.

Here are a couple of friends for you...

Chihuahuan Green Toads (Anaxyrus debilis), males calling, family Bufonidae, Southern AZ, USA

photographs by Hugo Cayuela

[stephenbyerley]

[stephenbyerley]

[stephenbyerley]

i think we should stop calling them baby names so people remember they’re not just naming a baby but also a future twenty seven year old with a resume

[stephenbyerley]

[stephenbyerley]

Calling a technology "bad for the environment" is a politically vacuous framework. It makes invisible the ways classes of people intentionally develop tech in a resource-intensive way. It erases the fact that tech is controlled by PEOPLE who should be held accountable. Saying that anything is "bad for the environment" isn't useful framing. Throwing a napkin in the street is bad for the environment but negligible compared to driving a car or eating meat. Yet, the negligible act feels worse. The better framing is: is the resource cost worth the benefit provided?

I think the resources required to develop genAI and machine learning are worth the cost. BUT there's no reason for dozens of companies to build huge proprietary models or for aggressive data center expansion. AI CAN be developed sustainably. But a for-profit system doesn't incentivize this.

Some might argue that any use of AI is a waste of resources. This is disingenuous and ignores the active applications of AI in education, medicine, and admin. And even if it were frivolous, it's okay for societies to produce frivolous things as long as it's produced sustainably. Communist societies will still produce soda, stylish hats, and video games.

Even if you think AI is frivolous, it CAN be produced sustainably, but we live in a for profit system where big tech companies are using a ton of unnecessary resources in ways that hurt the public. But we know tech (not just AI) can be sustainable & energy efficient. Computing is one of the most energy efficient things humans do compared to how much we rely on it, and is only increasing in efficiency.

If you're critical of AI, framing it as uniquely bad for the environment isn't useful and isn't true. At the individual level, it's less wasteful than eating meat and slightly less energy intensive than watching Netflix. Some models can be run locally on your computer. Training can be energy intensive but is infrequent, and only needs to be done once per model.

Also, there are real harms in overstating AI energy use! Energy and utility companies are using overinflated AI energy numbers to justify a huge buildout of oil and gas.

If you're critical of AI, you should instead ask: What are we getting for the resources used? What outcome are we trying to get out of AI & tech development? Are all these resources necessary for the outcomes we seek? AI CAN be environmentally sustainable, but there are systems and people who want to foreclose this possibility. Headlines like "ChatGPT uses 10x more energy than Google search" (not even true), shift blame from institutional actors onto individuals, from profit-motives onto technology.

[stephenbyerley]

And here you can see where we decided to put little pepperonis all over the plane so it would taste better

[stephenbyerley]

someone commented on a post of mine accusing me of having an insecure attachment style and they had a funny username so i clicked on their blog and their most recent post is a nigh incomprehensible lesbian fanfic about turning in to a smart car and falling in love with a woman who turned in to an suv. i don't think i learned anything from this and i hope you didn't either.

[stephenbyerley]

if you ever tell me that you go to a chiro this is what i envision them doing to you

[stephenbyerley]

this tweet is literally never not on my mind