#crypto compare

[rosalesbeausderholle]

My cousin (the 'smart' fancy French university, Cambridge M.A, tech industry 'genius') just said that ChatGPT is better than any other search engine because it means you don't have to search for the best results, they're just given to you.... Girl you do know that ChatGPT is not even a search engine right?????

[lonelyslutavatar]

Listen i love your art very much but with all that has been happening with AI and artists...we writers honestly feel like we might be next, people are already making ais that write stories for them. I understand that this is just for fun for you but thats how ai art started too and now you hear about people devaluing artists n their skill n hard work because suddenly they can make 'art' with a press of their finger so why should they pay for the 'same thing'. Creator to creator, please dont contribute to this mess

oh yeah, no, i totally understand. I'm never gonna publish the model itself nor will i ever do anything to contribute to that mess but I'm a curious person and will still do it to satiate that curiousity but that model is never gonna leave my pc

[tropiyas]

also not to be a tech bro but i still think Virtual / Augmented reality applications (excluding “metaverse”) are actually more meaningful and useful tech compared to anything done with blockchain and AI thus far

[auncyen]

ok but actually on the bots

still seeing the hot female model type but is anyone else getting cryptobots creeping in? (or like. has this been a longstanding thing and it's just finally getting around to me lol)

[lighthouse-system]

The more I learn about cryptocurrency and the whole ""metaverse"" bullshit, the more I'm just seeing a world where capitalism controls people EVEN HARDER than it does already.

[ivygorgon]

I use Ground News to help me research biases in the news.

[arkvoodlee]

@ashenwinds asked: Chi is going to step over and pick up Crypto in one hand to lift him up to eye level, " I wonder just how loud you could scream. Size might not matter, but volume does -- and I'll probe those sounds right out of you. " they chuckle.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐙𝐙𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐄 , yet it appears to have little effect on the undead nightmare . he sidesteps multiple of the creatures deadly strikes , their razor-like digits coming to close for comfort , nearly hitting him on 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ; if it wasn't for his quickness and awareness this would have been a quick fight . the beam remains latched upon them , almost hoping for a miracle to 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 . tensions quarrel as the alien tries to think of another strategy to approach his foe .

taking to the sky , he seeks a brief reprieve from the beast ; however , it only led to finding himself even more of a target . 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 , avoiding one strike after another until he can dodge their strikes no longer . A STRONG HAND BATS THE ALIEN FROM THE SKY , sending him crashing to the floor . a grumble under his breath as he wakes strewn upon the floor , 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 .

for a moment , he forgets where he was , 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞 . no rest for the wicked , as he is quickly reminded of his situation as he's lifted effortlessly before the entity . pulled to their face , HE GAZES LIKE A TRANCE INTO FIERY EYES , the flames burning through his suit as he twitches in their anaconda-like grip . 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 , the only part of his body loose enough to move as he tries to shake loose . ❛ you expect me to scream ? nuh-uh , that's my line mulder and scully ... ❜ he chuckles nervously in the face of death , ❛ 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 ; when i get loose , I'LL PROBE YOU RIGHT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE . ❜

[zillychu]

I've seen a couple people saying they're jumping ship for [other big socmed] after the AI announcement here, but like. Guys. Friends. You do realize all the other sites have been silently working with big AI companies for a while now. Bluesky has not implemented any acknowledgement or protection, and the CEO worked with crypto for years. They're just not broadcasting it or giving you an option to help remove your work from automatic scraping. Cohost has implemented similar levels of prevention compared to Tumblr.

I greatly prefer the transparency and the tiny bit of protection, no matter how flimsy. Tumblr is pretty awful, but it's still better than everything else so far. Which sucks but until we burn down the plutocracy, this isn't gonna be escapable.

(Also, no Tumblr did not quietly sneak this in. They literally announced it before implementing.)

And my thoughts on the CEO being... himself.

[mcromwell]

AI shit is artificially inflated to appear like "the future", "the way of the future", "new standard" etc.

Remember a couple years ago who was saying the same type of shit?

Crypto bros.

Remember all the companies that adopted NFTs and crypto payment options from the hype? Compare that to the state of crypto now.

Brands are easily swayed by smooth talking tech nerds looking to make a lot of money fast and then split when the tech ends up not performing as well as advertised or too expensive to sustain long term. Or when the public gets bored. They got bored of NFTs, it wouldn't surprise me if AI generated shlock becomes solely synonymous with bootlegs and the companies already producing cheap crap.

This article goes into it a bit more, here's a quote.

"Would it surprise you to learn that OpenAI is also not making any money, and relies on investments from venture capital to stay in the black? Because they are not making any money and rely on investments to stay in black. Part of this is because of the technology itself: according to Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion into OpenAI, they lose money each time a user makes a request using their AI models."

Stay strong, y'all. I'm not saying this tech isn't harmful (it is super harmful) but the situation is not hopeless.

[hunkpossession0]

Stealing my former high school bully’s body was so easyyy. Look, now I am hot, and the best part is that I’m gay.

I leaned back in the plush leather seat of his—no, my—new car, savoring the feeling of power. God, I’d waited so long for this. All those years of torment, the sneers, the shoves into lockers, the homophobic slurs... they were all a distant memory now, fading away like smoke. The only thing that mattered was this body I was now inhabiting, perfectly sculpted and oozing confidence.

I smirked at the reflection in the rearview mirror. His—my—strong jawline, the chiseled features that had made everyone swoon, and those piercing blue eyes that used to look down on me with contempt were now mine to control. And control them I would.

The plan had come to me after a particularly rough night, one too many drinks mixed with the lingering bitterness of my high school years. I’d always been obsessed with the idea of revenge, but not the kind that left scars. I wanted something deeper, more satisfying. I wanted to become him. To live the life he’d never appreciated and do it better.

It wasn’t hard to find a spell. You’d be surprised at how many dark corners of the internet are devoted to body swapping. A few emails, a payment sent in crypto, and a strange-looking amulet later, I was ready. The ritual was simple enough—though it took a lot of concentration. But the moment I slipped it around his neck while he slept, it was over in seconds. I woke up in his bed, in his skin, and he… well, I don’t know where he is now. I like to imagine he’s trapped somewhere, conscious of what’s happening but completely powerless.

The first thing I did was check myself out in the mirror—really take in everything I’d just acquired. This body wasn’t just hot; it was perfect. Years of disciplined workouts, clean eating, and who knows what else had transformed him into someone who looked like they walked straight off a magazine cover.

Actually, make that literally off a magazine cover. I found a stack of fashion magazines under his bed with his stupidly gorgeous face plastered on them. He’d somehow turned his pretty-boy looks and gym rat habits into a full-fledged modeling career. I guess that explained the ridiculous number of selfies on his phone, each one showing off a different outfit or a perfectly timed flex in front of the mirror.

So yeah, I wasn’t giving up the gym. If anything, I was leaning into it. It’s not like I had to do much to maintain this body—he’d already done the hard work, and now I was reaping the benefits. I still hit the gym daily, if only to flex for the mirrors and admire my reflection. The attention I get now is incredible, and the best part is, I can be shameless about it.

Of course, I couldn’t wait to see what Grindr was like from this side of things. Installing the app was the first thing I did once I figured out the password to his phone. The moment I uploaded a shirtless pic, the notifications started rolling in—an endless stream of thirsty messages. Guys were practically lining up for a chance with me, throwing compliments, and I have to admit, I loved every second of it.

I’d spend hours swiping through profiles, chatting up whoever caught my eye. The way people reacted to me now was night and day compared to before. No more awkward small talk, no more second-guessing myself. I could tell someone to meet me at the gym just to watch me lift, and they’d show up without hesitation.

And the best part? I’ve started getting more gigs, just from a few posts on social media showing off his—no, my—body. Modeling agencies are all about that lean muscle, those killer cheekbones, that smirk that could melt anyone on the other end of the camera. He’d never really appreciated what he had, but I’m about to take this career to the next level. I’ve already got a photoshoot lined up for some luxury brand—an easy way to rake in the cash while showing off.

His—my—Instagram is blowing up too. I’m always in the gym, flexing and posting thirst traps for the masses. The likes pour in, and the comments? They’re pure gold. People are practically worshipping me, and I’ve only just begun. This body was wasted on him, but now that it’s mine, I’m going to enjoy every moment of it.

Every time I flex, every time I see a new message pop up on Grindr, it’s a reminder of just how sweet this revenge is. Not only did I take his body, but I’m living his life better than he ever could. I’m hotter, more confident, and finally free to be myself in the best possible way.

This is just the beginning.

[transmutationisms]

have you seen the articles on ai supposedly eating up tons of water a day on continuous use? bc ive only seen those articles circulate in spaces where they also think ai doesnt have a soul and is stealing art so. i was wondering if you had any thoughts. i tried to go through and compare them w the water usage of other common things (ie normal office laptops, planes, etc) but stats of this kind isnt really my strong suit

to my knowledge, those articles are true, but a bit misleading in that they don't tend to discuss the context (resource use for computing in general). i think the implicit argument is that, when it's 'ai' using water, this is a particular travesty because 'ai' is particularly stupid / useless / unethical. which is not really a good way to frame this discussion because it evades a broader conversation about resource use and technology. i think the tech sector is like the meat industry in that the current consumption levels by a very small number of wealthy westerners are simply unsustainable and will not scale; that doesn't mean that in a communist future no computers or animal foods will exist, but the idea that it's normal to eat meat daily or replace a smartphone every 24 months or whatever is pretty blatantly predicated on imperial relations of exploitation and resource extraction.

so just to say that i don't know what is the place of 'ai' in a just and sustainable degrowth communism, but determining that requires a much broader conversation about technology and access to it. it's silly to act like 'ai' is uniquely a problem in terms of the tech sector's resource consumption (i think people are modelling this on the wave of similr articles about cryptocurrency, but many of those were also silly and the ones that weren't, were pointing out that crypto mining requires massive amounts of redundant work to be done, and in that sense actually is more wasteful than other comtech).

i'm also not sure that the comparisons to, like, pouring out a bottle of water are accurate because can't the cooling water be reused? i don't know enough about data facility practices to answer that though lol

[dnickels]

Always shocked that Hodgving is comparatively rare. It's hilarious to think about. Crypto-Catholic is coworkers with a Presbyterian super-soldier and they literally never get to leave work. They're next door neighbors. Their supervisor is hyperventilating into a paper bag and their boss throws empty bottles at them. What do they talk about? I need to know.

[what-eats-owls]

a point about the IA situation that I cannot make on twitter without death threats

Like many authors, I have complicated feelings about the IA lawsuit. IA has a whole raft of incredibly invaluable services, that's not in dispute. The current eBook licensing structure is also clearly not sustainable. Neither was IA's National Emergency Library, which was unrestricted lending of unlicensed digital copies. There are some thoughtful posts about how their argument to authors, "you'll be paid in exposure," is not especially compelling.

But I'm not here to discuss that; I'm here to talk about the licensing. TL;DR I don't want my work being fed into an AI or put on the blockchain, and to enforce that, you need a license.

So, here's the thing. IA's argument for the NEL boils down to "if we possess a physical copy of the book we should be able to do what we want" and that's frankly unserious. (Compare: Crypto Bros who thought spending $3 million on a single copy of a Dune artbook meant they owned the copyright.) Their claim is that by scanning a physical copy of the book and compiling the scans into a digital edition, that is sufficiently transformative to be considered fair use.

What that gives them is something that functions almost identically to an eBook, without the limitations (or financial obligations) of an eBook license. And I'm sure some of you are thinking, "so what, you lose six cents, get over yourself," but this isn't actually about the money. It's about what they can do with the scans.

A license grants them the right to use the work in specific, limited ways. It also bars them from using it in ways that aren't prescribed.

For example, what if IA decides to expand their current blockchain projects and commit their scanned book collections to the blockchain "for preservation"? Or what if IA decides to let AI scrapers train on the scanned text? One of their archivists sees AI art as a "toy" and "fears [AI art] will be scorned by the industry's gatekeeping types."

Bluntly, an unlicensed, unrestricted collection seems to be what they're gunning for. (Wonky but informative thread from a lawyer with a focus on IP; this cuts to the pertinent part, but the whole thing's good reading.) The Authors Guild is in no way unbiased here, but in the fifth paragraph of this press release, they claim that they offered to help IA work out a licensing agreement back in 2017, and got stonewalled. (They also repeat this claim on Twitter here.)

At the end of the day, I don't want the IA to fold; I don't think anyone does. As a matter of fact, I'd be open to offering them an extremely cheap license for Controlled Digital Lending. (And revamping eBook library licensing while we're at it.) I think there's a lot of opportunity for everyone to win there. But IA needs to recognize that licenses exist for a reason, not just as a cash grab, and authors have the right to say how their work is used, just like any artist.

[txttletale]

i remember there was a lot about nfts/the blockchain having a massive impact on the environment, do you know if there's been anything similar wrt the programs for ai art?

also bc you've been answering a Lot of ai questions today. have you read any of john darnielle's books? if so, what'd you think of them?

nfts and crypto more broadly are extremely wasteful (in relative terms, in absolute terms they're obviously a drop in the ocean compared to like. Cars) because proof of work means that al cryptocurrencies require constantly increasing amounts of computing power per new token, which is why you ended up with warehouses and warehouses of bitcoin mining rigs. ai art isn't like that, it doesn't use significantly more electricity than any other tool hosted online

[canmom]

how much power does tech really use, compared to other shit?

my dash has been full of arguing about AI power consumption recently. so I decided to investigate a bit.

it's true, as the Ars Technica article argues, that AI is still only one fairly small part of the overall tech sector power consumption, potentially comparable to things like PC gaming. what's notable is how quickly it's grown in just a few years, and this is likely to be a limit to how much more it can scale.

I think it is reasonable to say that adding generative AI at large scale to systems that did not previously have generative AI (phones, Windows operating system etc.) will increase the energy cost. it's hard to estimate by how much. however, the bulk of AI energy use is in training, not querying. in some cases 'AI' might lead to less energy use, e.g. using an AI denoiser will reduce the energy needed to render an animated film.

the real problem being exposed is that most of us don't really have any intuition for how much energy is used for what. you can draw comparisons all sorts of ways. compare it to the total energy consumption of humanity and it may sound fairly niche; compare it to the energy used by a small country (I've seen Ireland as one example, which used about 170TWh in 2022) and it can sound huge.

but if we want to reduce the overall energy demand of our species (to slow our CO2 emissions in the short term, and accomodate the limitations of renewables in a hypothetical future), we should look at the full stack. how does AI, crypto and tech compare to other uses of energy?

here's how physicist David McKay broke down energy use per person in the UK way back in 2008 in Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air, and his estimate of a viable renewable mix for the UK.

('Stuff' represents the embedded energy of manufactured goods not covered by the other boxes. 'Gadgets' represents the energy used by electronic devices including passive consumption by devices left on standby, and datacentres supporting them - I believe the embodied energy cost of building them falls under 'stuff' instead.)

today those numbers would probably look different - populations change, tech evolves, etc. etc., and this notably predates the massive rise in network infrastructure and computing tech that the Ars article describes. I'm sure someone's come up with a more up-to-date SEWTHA-style estimate of how energy consumption breaks down since then, but I don't have it to hand.

that said, the relative sizes of the blocks won't have changed that much. we still eat, heat our homes and fly about as much as ever; electric cars have become more popular but the fleet is still mostly petrol-powered. nothing has fundamentally changed in terms of the efficiency of most of this stuff. depending where you live, things might look a bit different - less energy on heating/cooling or more on cars for example.

how big a block would AI and crypto make on a chart like this?

per the IEA, crypto used 100-150TWh of electricity worldwide in 2022. in McKay's preferred unit of kWh/day/person, that would come to a worldwide average of just 0.04kWh/day/person. that is of course imagining that all eight billion of us use crypto, which is not true. if you looked at the total crypto-owning population, estimated to be 560 million in 2024, that comes to about 0.6kWh/day/crypto-owning person for cryptocurrency mining [2022/2024 data]. I'm sure that applies to a lot of people who just used crypto once to buy drugs or something, so the footprint of 'heavier' crypto users would be higher.

I'm actually a little surpised by this - I thought crypto was way worse. it's still orders of magnitude more demanding than other transaction systems but I'm rather relieved to see we haven't spent that much energy on the red queen race of cryptomining.

the projected energy use of AI is a bit more vague - depending on your estimate it could be higher or lower - but it would be a similar order of magnitude (around 100TWh).

SEWTHA calculated that in 2007, data centres in the USA added up to 0.4kWh/day/person. the ars article shows worldwide total data centre energy use increasing by a factor of about 7 since then; the world population has increased from just under 7 billion to nearly 8 billion. so the amount per person is probably about a sixfold increase to around 2.4kWh/day/person for data centres in the USA [extrapolated estimate based on 2007 data] - for Americans, anyway.

however, this is complicated because the proportion of people using network infrastructure worldwide has probably grown a lot since 2007, so a lot of that data centre expansion might be taking place outside the States.

as an alternative calculation, the IEA reports that in 2022, data centres accounted for 240-340 TWh, and transmitting data across the network, 260-360 TWh; in total 500-700TWh. averaged across the whole world, that comes to just 0.2 kWh/day/person for data centres and network infrastructure worldwide [2022 data] - though it probably breaks down very unequally across countries, which might account for the huge discrepancy in our estimates here! e.g. if you live in a country with fast, reliable internet where you can easily stream 4k video, you will probably account for much higher internet traffic than someone in a country where most people connect to the internet using phones over data.

overall, however we calculate it, it's still pretty small compared to the rest of the stack. AI is growing fast but worldwide energy use is around 180,000 TWh. humans use a lot of fucking energy. of course, reducing this is a multi-front battle, so we can still definitely stand to gain in tech. it's just not the main front here.

instead, the four biggest blocks by far are transportation, heating/cooling and manufacturing. if we want to make a real dent we'd need to collectively travel by car and plane a lot less, insulate our houses better, and reduce the turnover of material objects.

[reachartwork]

honestly the whole "AI bad for the planet" thing comes from people trying to draw as many parallels between NFTs/crypto and AI as possible just by virtue of them being widely hated in recent memory, despite the fact that one of them actually sucks and the other is just a tool that requires ethics to use responsibly like most tools. large tech corporations use a ton of water, they will continue to use more as they grow/advance, it's really not an AI problem and the belief that it is is just a result of people reaching for something concrete to rally around. if you spend a lot of time on the internet you are also contributing to water use, not in a finger-pointy way but in a "no ethical consumption" way.

agreed. people continually try to compare AI and NFTs because the same people were into both, but that's not because of something inherent to AI and NFTs in common but because grifters will always hop on what they perceive as the next hot thing. the difference between AI and NFTs is that NFTs are totally useless wheras AI is possibly one of the most widely useful New Things of the past three or four years.