https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09089

“Productivity gain”

I really don’t understand why lemmy hates ai so much.

because it’s the tool of the oligarchy that enables the oppressors who wish to enslave us.

not just fuck AI, fuck anyone that supports it.

I occasionally have these spells where I forget what I’ve previously learnt, and choose to try to let an ai help me out with some particularly boring code, think something mundane but laborous. So I succumb to the temptation.

And every fucking time I come out having wasted time and still having to do the thing, or at any rate, something equally boring and mundane, myself manually, because either the result is so ridiculous that it requires extensive cleanup/refactoring or just won’t get there at all.

And each time I merrily keep forgetting this, learn nothing from it beyond the short term, because I seem to be hardwired to try and skip the boring stuff.

There’s no escaping the boring stuff.

Thing is, what these models really do, is give a small dose of escapism under a fragile illusion of productivity, so for a moment there you feel good, “released”, though only postponing the boring fucking work and annoying your future self.

But that escapism sells well, because we yearn it. Same with entertainment. Games. The escape from mundane, boring and annoyingly repetitive life.

For a method of escapism, it’s so fucking inefficient and resource-intensive, we should punch ourselves in the dick just for falling for that each time.

While having this mindset, knowing rationally what I know, I still expect to fall for it in the medium term again, because fuck me if some work just isn’t boring.

And every time the excursion leaves me feeling so ashamed and dirty, I truly would deserve a punch right in the dick. And perhaps need one, to actually make this stick…

I’ve not heard a single capable person ever come out of using the current agents, or “ai”s in general, and not have ended up just wasting time and resources and feeling dirty and embarrassed for it.

The only thing good about them is the potential, which, at least currently, never materializes.

I get massive productivity gains every day from AI

You mean heavily hallucinated code you’re gonna spend more time fixing than if you did it by hand?

incredibly useful image generation that dramatically speeds up the work of designers

AKA: Stealing from hard working artists to not have to pay them. As an artist, go fuck yourself.

suno, which can generate stems that my musician friends are regularly using instead of having to hunt through the Internet for days for the right trumpet melody

Again, stealing from hard working artists (this time musicians). Hard fucking pass.

Also, you definitely sound like you wrote this with AI. Mods, send this clanker to the scrap heap.

I really don’t understand why lemmy hates technology which regurgitates slop based on data stolen from creators against their will, erodes trust, degrades mental health, wreaks havoc on the labor force, destroys the environment, and temporarily enriches a handful of fake billionaires with fake money…gosh I just don’t understand!

So far my direct experience with ai is

• minor efficiency improvements as another programming tool. It can help with syntax, boilerplate, scaling out unit tests BUT IS NEVER. A FINAL PRODUCT
• MAJOR time sink from junior developers who let ai run amuck without putting in the effort to make it work
• TECH DEBT from hundreds of excessive unit tests poorly written for maintainability and with no added value
• INSTABILITY from junior developers letting ai commit slop to the default branch, wasting my time trying to back out thousands of lines of nonsense
• MISMANAGEMENT where I felt forced to run my writeups through ai to “translate” into something recognizably generated so I could fulfill mandates to use ai

I hate AI because it demands that I hate it. It has been forced down my throat on every other platform to the point where I can only really escape it on Lemmy. The art it creates is soulless, the environmental impact is going unchecked and uncharted, the constant expansion of data centers is putting a huge strain on local infrastructure, and the LLMs and front facing products are just the ad campaign. The real horror of AI aren’t spoken about; The expansion of the police state, The Military Industrial Complex creating autonomous death machines, and the entire western economy is being held up by a bubble that everyone is actively ignoring.

Lemmy is rather over-the-top for AI hate. I agree it can be damned useful, but can’t see it ever paying off for these companies.

My bitching revolves around two items:

1. It’s a fucking environmental disaster. Even without these data centers, we’re draining aquifers that took 1,000s of years to fill and major cities all over the planet are about to completely run out of water. And that’s not even touching on the power usage, pollution and how it’s affecting residential rates!

2. It’s a fucking economic disaster. Have a look at the Buffett Index, total stock market valuation vs. GDP. It’s over 200% ATM and wasn’t close to that for the Great Depression, the dotcom bust or 2008. We are in deep shit.

What community do you think you’re in? Block the community if you have a problem with the reason for its existence.

Clanker spotted.