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datakan 13 hours ago

I read through this and must have missed it, but I don't see a single example of AI use in the Linux kernel development posing a problem.

ch71r22 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The article isn't trying to find a particular example. It's talking about the overall stance of Linux on AI use. It argues that maintainers should consider political/moral/ethical arguments around climate change, effect on water supplies, energy prices, etc.

criddell 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It argues that maintainers should consider political/moral/ethical arguments around climate change, effect on water supplies, energy prices, etc

Is the assumption that maintainers did not consider those things?

atemerev 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AI is just a tech like any other. Can be powered by CO2-neutral electricity like anything else. Otherwise, we'll have to protest against aluminum cans, airplanes, golf courts, lemon trees, and whatever else that uses water or electricity.

NewJazz 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Plenty of people campaign against things like airplanes or golf courses. They might even be the same folks protesting AI usage! Imagine that!

atemerev 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Well thanks, but I prefer to have airplanes, and maybe occasionally even golf courses. As for climate change - you'd need to protest against Chinese (and Western, but mostly Chinese) coal and gas power plants way way before than you protest against airplanes and golf courses. I don't see too many protesters holding signs like "stop Chinese coal plants". For some reason.

NewJazz 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe because their ability to influence coal power generation policy in China is much less than their ability to influence it in the US?

Or because Chinese AI has enabled a complete crackdown on dissent?

Hmm, imagine that!

atemerev 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Well I see much less protests against gas and coal powered stations in the US than against, say, nuclear.

ch71r22 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's a false equivalence. AI is not the same as aluminum cans.

All technologies have political, social, ethical, and economic aspects, and not all technologies are the same. AI is not, in reality, powered by CO2-neutral electricity. As the article mentions, AI is the fastest-growing energy user in the world, so it probably merits a deeper look than aluminum cans.

Legend2440 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

AI is also an incredibly useful tool that could automate many industries, so it deserves some leeway because of the benefits it provides.

And while it is 'fastest-growing', it is small as an absolute share - around 0.2% of total world CO2 emissions.

dminik 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So it can both outprice people as well as take their jobs? Well, leeway away.

Legend2440 12 hours ago | parent [-]

The only reason we have the standard of living we do today is because of automation. I welcome more of it.

dminik 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Only insofar as you were able to keep a job. If you lose your job to automation, and there are no more jobs left, what do you do? Where do you get the money to keep your standard of living?

Legend2440 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Either we will invent new jobs, as we have always done in the past.

Or if truly all jobs can be done by machine, we retire and go live a life of fully automated luxury space communism.

dminik 10 hours ago | parent [-]

I wish I could share your optimism.

mbrumlow 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Having jobs for the sake of having jobs sounds like living in hell.

From what I can tell your argument works out to be as simple as we can’t do this because we want to keep people working, which the vast majority of people hate doing.

There is a small minority of people who enjoy work. It seems cruel to enslave a people in mass simply to keep them busy.

dminik 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The current economic system is based on people working in exchange for payment. They can then use it on their own life, including living space, food, health and entertainment. Those who do not work do not get such "luxuries."

I'm not arguing for forcing people to work. If we get to a point where no work is economically feasible for humans to do I would very much like some form of UBI or similar to take care of people.

Speaking of enslaving people, the billionaire class has started speaking of removing peoples right to vote if they do not pay taxes (e.g. if they do not work.)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/why-did-154-bil...

I very much wish that people would no longer have to do busy work and that they would have time for family and hobbies, but being the pessimist that I am, I'm not very hopeful we'll get there any time soon.

Legend2440 8 hours ago | parent [-]

No they haven't. That whole news article is based on one two-word tweet in a thread about how old people dominate local politics.

Someone suggested that pensioners shouldn't get a vote, and the Shopify founder responded with "good system".

That's it. That's the whole story. Somehow you turned that into "billionaires are trying to enslave us", probably because you already believe that anyway.

cuu508 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Incredibly useful for some definition of incredibly useful. What I see:

- I now regularly receive AI-written spam emails (marketing pitches, "vulnerability reports").

- I was receiving AI-written garbage quality pull requests. It got so annoying I closed pull requests on my project's repo.

- When I try to contact some company's customer support these days there's a good chance I will be fed slop by an agent posing as a customer support person, this is absolutely infuriating.

- When I search for information on the internet, for certain queries, 90% of the results is slop.

- AI crawlers are DDoSing websites.

- The already mentioned things – hardware getting more expensive, climate impact, unethically sourced training data.

TiredOfLife 14 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> AI is not the same as aluminum cans.

True. AI is actually useful.

atemerev 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Aluminum production is one of the largest electricity consumers out there, much larger than AI.

Legend2440 12 hours ago | parent [-]

True in fact. Aluminum manufacturing is responsible for roughly 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and if you add in metal manufacturing as a whole it comes up to 11%. Refining ore is very energy-intensive.

lptrap 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Aluminum cans had a distinct use. AI just invades a perfectly working industry that made Torvalds filthy rich and adds nothing- And he defends it because he is corporate now.

It is more like leaded fuel or DDT.

atemerev 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Adds nothing? In what world are you living?

gen2brain 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why not fix all the issues with private jets and yachts first? Why don't they use regular public transportation as we all do? Instead, let's bash poor Clanker, who reviews kernel code.

12 hours ago | parent [-]
[deleted]
koolala 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The thing I'd worry about is it slowly handing over control of Linux's direction to the tech companies who control and regulate the AI being used to help develop it. The complexity is only growing. These companies are themselves extremely political and decide what AI is and isn't legal when Linux demands using the most capable models for security reasons. So it would be good at least if the project actually cared and had it's own principles besides ignoring the politics.

datakan 12 hours ago | parent [-]

But the code being GPL means those companies don't have control over it. They can restrict the use of AI but the codes already generated, they would just go back to writing by hand. Its a non-issue. The same objection came up when Microsoft started contributing to the kernel.

And despite the author’s logical leaps; no it's not impossible to fork the kernel and go another route. The fact it doesn't happen is because its stewardship so far has been exceptional.

It's not a political issue. It's a religious one with the anti AI people raising pitchforks.

NewJazz 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tens of thousands of people dying as a direct result of global warming! Not a problem! /s

datakan 12 hours ago | parent [-]

No ones dead because Linux devs prompted a chat bot

garbageman 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly. When I change my engine oil, I just dump it into the street for the same reason - nobody is dying from my actions directly.

YorickPeterse 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No one is dead because I launched a nuclear missile.

That doesn't mean I _should_ be given access to a nuclear missile.

NewJazz 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Temperatures during heat waves are exceeding 50°C in India, causing tens thousands of deaths. The AI built-out is by far the fastest growing energy consumer in the world, and they’re being built with fossil fuels, or drawing green energy demand away from replacing the fossil fuels depended on by other industries.

9x39 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...

Share of global CO2:

China 33%

US 12%

India 8%

Russia 5%

Japan 3%

History didn't start in the last 12 months.

NewJazz 12 hours ago | parent [-]

What's your point?

9x39 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Your comment strongly implies AI is responsible for 50C temps.

AI is at the top of an industrialization iceberg going back a century, with uneven countries as beneficiaries and externalities.

HexDecOctBin 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I hate how this ostentatious caring for Indians is used to push personal political goals. Want to help with global warming? Reduce your consumption. Stop driving, stop eating non-local food, stop buying things made off-shores or with supply chains that require global shipping. Move to a much poorer country (or just a poorer neighbourhood of your country) and live the way people there live.

It seems like for much of Western world, Indians aren't really humans but a giant undifferentiated mass of temporarily animated bodies that are fit only as a canvas for one's own political paintwork.

NewJazz 12 hours ago | parent [-]

What makes you think I don't do all that stuff?