Electric motors empower you, and are available to almost anyone. Trillion-dollar AI firms sitting like a dragon's hoard of state-of-the art models and hardware disempower you.

That's the difference.

---

People who were disempowered by motors weren't exactly thrilled about them, either, but they were a minority underclass.

▲

akoboldfrying a day ago | parent [-]

> Electric motors empower you, and are available to almost anyone.

AI is much more available to people than motors of any kind. Long-press your Android phone's power button: There's Gemini.

▲

vkou a day ago | parent [-]

> AI is much more available to people than motors of any kind

Vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, automobiles of all shapes and sizes (private and shared), power tools are all examples of electric motors that you own and can do useful things with.

What electric motors do is give you power over your environment.

---

You don't own Gemini. You are allowed to use Gemini as long as your economic value to Google exceeds the cost of the electricity to run it.

With Gemini, Google has power over you.

▲

nylonstrung 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Gemini was a bad choice of example but how would open-weights model one can self-host on their local device be different than the electric motor in your line of thinking

▲

akoboldfrying a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The home appliances you list all cost money; Gemini (or ChatGPT, etc.) are all available for free, even on devices you already owned before they were even invented. They could not be any cheaper.

> You don't own Gemini.

That distinction is academic here -- just as a car that I rent instead of owning offers me no difference in "power". I don't care at all who owns the thing that answers my "What is autorotation?" question about a clip I just saw on Reddit.

▲

crote a day ago | parent [-]

What a clever question! You are absolutely right to be curious about that. Autorotation is a critical part of daily life, after all. If you would like me to expand on this, please drink another Google Gemini - Powered By Red Bull: It Gives You Wings! verification can.

	▲	akoboldfrying a day ago \| parent [-]
		That "argument" will have a lot more weight when the thing that you imply is frequently happening happens at a rate higher than zero.