• Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    It’s not AI that is the problem, it’s half baked insecure data harvesting products pushed by big corporations that are the problem.

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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        25 days ago

        To me this is even worse though. They’re using your electricity and CPU cycles to grab the data they want which lowers their bandwidth bills.

        It happening “locally” while still sending all the metadata home is just a slap in the face.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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        25 days ago

        That’s a pretty big joke, but I think the bigger joke is calling LLMs AI. We taught linear algebra to talk real pretty and now corps want to use it to completely subsume our lives.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I think the bigger joke is calling LLMs AI

          I have to disagree.

          Frankly, LLMs (which are based on neural networks) seem a Hell of a lot closer to how actual brains work than “classical AI” (which basically boils down to a gigantic pile of if statements) does.

          I guess I could agree that LLMs are undeserving of the term “AI”, but only in the sense that nothing we’ve made so far is deserving of it.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              I’m not talking about interacting with it. I’m talking about how it’s implemented, from my perspective as a computer scientist.

              Let me say it more concretely: if even shitty expert systems, which are literally just flowcharts implemented in procedural code, are considered “AI” – and historically speaking, they are – then the bar is really fucking low. LLMs, which at least make an effort to kinda resemble the structure of biological intelligence, are certainly way, way above it.

              • degen
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                24 days ago

                I’m actually sad that the state of AI deserves the hate it gets. Neural networks are so sick, just going through the example of detecting a diagonal on a 2x2 grid was like magic to me. And they made me second guess simulation theory for quite a while lmao

                Tangentially, blockchain was a similar phenomenon for me. Or at least trust networks. One idea was to just throw away Certificate Authorities. Basically federate all the things, and this was before we knew about the fediverse. It gets all the hate because of crypto, but it’s cool tech. The CA thing would probably lead to a bad place too, though.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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        25 days ago

        Runs locally, mirrors remotely.

        To ensure a seamless customer experience when their hardware isn’t capable of running the model locally or if there is a problem with the local instance.

        microsoft, probably.

    • snooggums
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      25 days ago

      That is an accurate description of AI in common usage even if it isn’t an inherent aspect of AI.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Locally run AI could be great. But sending all your data to an external server for processing is really, really bad.

    • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      All true, and all a problem for which linux has been a solution (in the computing world) for decades now.

      • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        25 days ago

        It’s not just Linux, but free & open source software in general. And it’s not just desktop PCs that are plagued by this corporate spyware, it’s much worse when looking at the mobile device landscape. The only real solution for mobile devices is GrapheneOS with FOSS software installed from the F-Droid marketplace. Browsers are also under attack by proprietary software corporations, Google just intentionally broke adblockers on all Chromium-based browsers, so they can generate more ad revenue. Last year, they tried to push a proposal that would have massively extended their monopoly on web browsers (WEI). All the streaming services are screwing their users over and increasing the subscription prices while making the content library smaller. It’s such a fucking scam, and it’s almost sad to see how many people are dumb enough to fall for it.

        • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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          25 days ago

          To your last point: I think a significant number of people these days are aware just how much corporations are bending us over, but most of us are just so exhausted at the end of the day to really make a huge stink about it when all we want to do is just vegitate on the couch for a few hours before we have to go to sleep, then wake up the next day and do it all over again. The current paradigm is horseshit, but the puppeteers make sure we work ourselves to the bone so that we’re too tired to really do anything about it aside from bitching online.

          • Brave apparently wants to do that, but it’s not a great long term solution. The feature should actually be supported upstream, that’s why Firefox is a much better option, and a better base for a fork to create a new browser.

        • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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          25 days ago

          Why are some hands blue? Shouldn’t it just be whatever’s on the main body?

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            It’s a spin on the Hindu god Vishnu (I think there might be a few depicted with multiple arms, but that the first that comes to mind)

            • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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              25 days ago

              This is Kali but yeah she is blue all over, body and hands. also, so is Vishnu.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      You’re not wrong. AI is just another tool to scrape cash to the top while eliminating jobs. Could it realize benefits like doing specialized research and testing? Sure…but again, the results of that work are lost human jobs and scraping money to the top. We can argue about advancing technology in a horse cart driver vs automobile thing (won’t anyone think about the poor farriers out of work?) but we’ve already done everything we can to eliminate blue collar jobs with as much automation as possible. Now AI is set to attack middle class jobs. Economically I don’t think that’s going to work out well.

      • nfh@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I mean, the problem isn’t the existence/obviation of jobs, but what we do next when it happens. If the people whose jobs are automated away are left out with no money or employment, that’s a serious problem. If we as a society support them in learning something new that puts their skills to good use, and maybe even reduce the expected working hours of a full-time job to 35 or 32 hours a week, that’s an absolute win in my book.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Well that’s the point. We don’t support them as a society. From education to health care once you lose your job, you’re SOL, and in this hyper-capitalist dystopia we keep tipping towards I don’t see that changing.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Online shopping has removed a lot of retail jobs. Instead of seeing a transition to different jobs or fewer hours, today we see people working multiple jobs to get by.

          The reason these things are making money is specifically because they increase efficiency (how much money a capitalist can make from existing capital) by removing human labor. Giving any portion of that to laborers is completely antithetical to its entire purpose.

          • Petter1@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            Yea, this is because society system is lagging behind and we have not done the right changes fast enough to prevent suffering due to technological advancements, in my opinion

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        But as someone pointed out elsewhere…AI can already take over the job of company CEOs… decision making tools could make a group of technical people be more effective than a CEO as we know today.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Let’s see how many CEOs get replaced.

          Don’t forget the BoD are still human. They still want to profit by putting the AI in place of the CEO.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      24 days ago

      I find the nightmare getting a lot more noticeably bad with LLMs, though. That’s not just correlation.

      • AI is a cool feature, which makes a great excuse for proprietary corporations to spy on their users. I’d say it’s one of the best opportunities for an excuse of the last few decades. Only 9/11 was a better excuse to put everyone under corporate/government surveillance.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    “The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening. What I’m feeling now is the same thing I felt when Mozilla originally split Firefox out, and made the first real competition to corporate browsers as a free product. People don’t want all this bullshit, and want to retain control over the machines they are working on. Seems a lot more people are interested in FOSS environments now just to avoid all the other BS they hate getting shoveled at them.

    • rImITywR@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      “The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening.

      Been hearing this for decades.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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        25 days ago

        Decades ago it was a funny joke. Now it’s the most popular handheld OS on the planet by a huge margin. Linux is damn EVERYWHERE except the desktop now, and it’s only a matter of time.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          This is why (as per usual) Stallman was right: the “GNU/” part matters. Linux is already all over the desktop (or at least, the laptop) in schools, in the form of Chromebooks. That means the entire next generation is going to grow up using Linux.

          The only trouble is, it’s locked-down Google/Linux that they’re using, not GNU/Linux. All the freedom and user empowerment has been neatly excised from it such that it only facilitates consumption, not creativity.

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            The only trouble is, it’s locked-down Google/Linux that they’re using, not GNU/Linux. All the freedom and user empowerment has been neatly excised from it such that it only facilitates consumption, not creativity.

            And within that frame, I’d be very surprised if it ever breaks out into the mainstream. Google brought android to the world as a vessel to make money. You very rarely hear about GNU in the wider world, outside of tech circles, being promoted to the masses as a viable alternative specifically because no one stands to profit from it, and they can’t have that.

    • JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org
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      25 days ago

      I can easily believe these types of continued enshittification will help drive more users to Linux desktop usage. But that will still be a small percent.

      People have to know and care about the problem and then be willing to put in the effort to understand what to do. That combination is pretty limiting.

      I’d love to be proven wrong, though.

      • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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        25 days ago

        I think it might. Demographics are changing to make PC users more technical overall. The casual user isn’t looking to purchase a desktop PC. Casual is now synonymous with mobile.

        It used to be that you needed a desktop to do your taxes or make an insurance claim over the Internet. That’s just not true anymore.

        • Pixel@pawb.social
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          25 days ago

          The demographics are stratifying, more than anything. I work in child education and kids do not understand computers nowadays. They understand how to interface with their phones, but kids see any electronic that behaves outside the “app” paradigm – landlines, desktop computers, what have you, and immediately don’t understand. I do think that linux usership is going to go up, but there also needs to be an investment in increasing literacy in kids to make sure usership of linux stays up, otherwise the pendulum will swing back hard

    • tyrant@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      People may not want it but most don’t know, care enough to adjust, or are just generally complacent. I mean, I DO care and find it hard to move to Linux due to lack of support for some of my work tasks.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        Most things MOST people work on these days aren’t heavily tied to Windows as an OS in a way that would prevent it running via emulation. Worst-case, in a VM. Lots of the everyday things people use is in the browser now.

        You have an example?

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      24 days ago

      Firefox is like 2.8% of browser market share, so if that’s our baseline then Linux is already beating it by a mile.

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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          24 days ago

          I like other Gecko browsers premises better. I use waterfox. Mozilla Corporation already tries to enshitify when they have 2.8%, imagine how bad they would be with more than 30%.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      The combined ages of my children taken from 2024 would not equal the first year I heard that Ubuntu would take over the market.

    • UnityDevice@startrek.website
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      24 days ago

      For me the year of the Linux desktop was 2014 - it’s when I changed my desktop to Linux after using it on my laptop for a year. All the hardware on that machine has been replaced, but it’s still running the same install from back then.

  • archchan@lemmy.ml
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    25 days ago

    I choose to privately self-host open source AI models and stuff on Linux. It’s almost like technology is a tool and corps are the ones fucking things up. Hmmm, imagine that.

    • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      It’s so fun to play with offline AI. It doesn’t have the creepy underpinnings of knowing art and journalism as well as musings from social media was blatantly stolen from the internet and sold as a service for profit.

      Edit: I hate theft and if you think theft is ok for training llms go ahead and dislike this comment. I don’t feel bad about what I said, local offline AI is just better because it doesn’t work on the premise of backroom deals and blatant theft. I will never use an AI like DALL.E when there is a talented artist trying to put food on the table with a skill they honed for years. If you condone stealing you are a cheap, heartless, coward.

      • Teanut@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I hate to break it to you, but if you’re running an LLM based on (for example) Llama the training data (corpus) that went into it was still large parts of the Internet.

        The fact that you’re running the prompts locally doesn’t change the fact that it was still trained on data that could be considered protected under copyright law.

        It’s going to be interesting to see how the law shakes out on this one, because an artist going to an art museum and doing studies of those works (and let’s say it’s a contemporary art museum where the works wouldn’t be in the public domain) for educational purposes is likely fair use - and possibly encouraged to help artists develop their talents. Musicians practicing (or even performing) other artists’ songs is expected during their development. Consider some high school band practicing in a garage, playing some song to improve their skills.

        I know the big difference is that it’s people training vs a machine/LLM training, but that seems to come down to not so much a copyright issue (which it is in an immediate sense) as a “should an algorithm be entitled to the same protections as a person? If not, what if real AI (not just an LLM) is developed? Should those entities be entitled to personhood?”

        • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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          25 days ago

          I hate to break it to you but not all machine learning is llms based. I’ve been messing with neural based tts from a small project called piper. I’m looking into an image recognition neural network to write software for and train myself. I might try writing it myself for fun 🤔

          I’m not interested in anything that uses stolen data like that so my options are limited and relegated to incredibly focused single purpose tools or things I make myself with the tools available.

          I’d love to play with image generation and large language models but until all the legal stuff is worked out and individuals get paid for their work I’m not touching it.

          To me it’s as cut and dry as this. If it’s the difference between an individual becoming their own boss/making a better living and a corporation growing their market cap I’ll always choose the individual. I know there’s a possibility of that growth resulting in more jobs but I’d rather have an environment where small businesses open breed competition and overall improve everyone’s life. Let’s not give the keys over to companies like Microsoft and close more doors.

          I don’t care about the discussion of true AI having rights. It’s only going to be used to make the wealthy wealthier.

          • hellofriend@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            All LLMs are based on neural networks. Furthermore, all neural networks need training, regardless of whether they’re an LLM or some other form of machine learning. If you want to ensure there’s no stolen material used in the neural net then you have to train it yourself with material that you have the copyright to.

              • hellofriend@lemmy.world
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                24 days ago

                I was expanding on your point, you twat. But hey, just be a snarky cunt. I’m sure that’ll get you far.

                • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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                  24 days ago

                  Sorry I thought you were being a smartass and just skimmed through it. Truly my bad.

                  Edit: it’s hard to tell intention sometimes and I really do appreciate you summarizing what I said. It’s true and a more approachable answer than what I gave.

          • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            Sorry I feel strongly about this. Play with it all you want it’s really cool shit! But please don’t pay for access to it and if you need some art or a professional write-up please just pay someone to do it.

            It’ll mean so much to your fellow man in these uncertain times and the quality will be so much better.

      • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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        25 days ago

        I’m on his side, I don’t get the dislike. Maybe he likes massive corporations stealing people’s data putting artist and journalist out of work.

  • 3volver@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    People keep pointing the finger at AI, but miss the fact that the problem is corporate greed. AI has the possibility to help us solve problems, corporate greed will gate keep the solutions and cause us suffering.

    • Sabata@ani.social
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      24 days ago

      I want all the cool Ai shit, but I want to be in charge of it 100%. I don’t want a data mining company with an OS side project spying on me for profit.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Enshittification is the result of the user not being in control: markets have a natural tendency to become dominated by a few companies (or even just a single one) if they have any significant barriers to entry (and said barriers to entry include things like networking effects), and once they consolidate control over a large enough share of the market those companies become less and less friendly and more and more extractive towards customers, simply because said customers don’t actually have any other options, which is what we now call enshittification.

      At the same time Linux (and most Open Source software) is mainly about the owner being in control of their own stuff, not some corporate provider of software for your hardware or of a hardware + software “solution” (i.e. most modern electronics) provider.

      So we’re getting to see more and more Linux-based full solutions to take control of one’s devices back from the corporations, not just Linux on the Desktop to wrestle control back from an increasingly anti-customer Microsoftw, but also, for example, stuff like OpenELEC (for TV boxes) and OPNSense (for firewalls/router).

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      24 days ago

      LLMs in particular are unlikely to solve really any problems, much less a measurable number of the problems it is currently being thrown at.

      • Balder@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        I mean, if LLMs really make software engineering easier, we should also expect Linux apps to improve dramatically. But I’m not betting on it.

      • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Tell that to the code I have it write and debug daily. I was skeptical at first, but it’s been a huge help for that, as well s learning new (development) languages.

        • AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          I do not agree with @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today’s take. LLMs as these are used today, at the very least, reduces the number of steps required to consume any previously documented information. So these are solving at least one problem, especially with today’s Internet where one has to navigate a cruft of irrelevant paragraphs and annoying pop ups to reach the actual nugget of information.

          Having said that, since you have shared an anecdote, I would like to share a counter(?) anecdote.

          Ever since our workplace allowed the use of LLM-based chatbots, I have never seen those actually help debug any undocumented error or non-traditional environments/configurations. It has always hallucinated incorrectly while I used it to debug such errors.

          In fact, I am now so sceptical about the responses, that I just avoid these chatbots entirely, and debug errors using the “old school” way involving traditional search engines.

          Similarly, while using it to learn new programming languages or technologies, I always got incorrect responses to indirect questions. I learn that it has incorrectly hallucinated only after verifying the response through implementation. This makes the entire purpose futile.

          I do try out the latest launches and improvements as I know the responses will eventually become better. Most recently, I tried out GPT-4o when it got announced. But I still don’t find them useful for the mentioned purposes.

          • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            That’s an interesting anecdote. Usually my code sorta works and I just have to debug it a little bit, and it’s way faster to get to a viable starting point that starting from scratch.

            Often times my issue is unknown by it when debugging though, but sometimes it helps to find stupid mistakes.

            I’d probably give it a 50% success rate, but I’ll take the help.

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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          24 days ago

          Mate, all it does is predict the next word or phrase. It doesn’t know what you’re trying to do or have any ethics. When it fucks up it’s going to be your fuckup and since you relied on the bot rather than learned to do it yourself you’re not going to be able to fix it.

          • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            I understand how it works, but that’s irrelevant if it does work as a tool in my toolkit. I’m also not relying on the LLM, I’m taking it with a massive grain of salt. It usually gets most of the way there, and I have to fix issues or have it revise the code. For simple stuff that’d be busy work for me, it does pretty well.

            It would be my fuck up if it fucks up, and I don’t catch it. I’m not putting code it writes directly into production, I’m not stupid.

        • Balder@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          I think they do have their help, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as some companies earning money from it want us to think. It’s just a tool that helps just like a good IDE has helped in the past.

          • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            Oh absolutely, I agree with that comparison. That said, I’d take an IDE over AI 11 times out of 10.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      24 days ago

      It’s not greed - it’s masqueraded violence being allowed, centralization, impunity, and general corruption, all supported by various IP, patent and “child protection” laws.

      No separate component is necessary, it’s a redundant system built very slowly and carefully.

      Referencing that quote about blood of patriots, and another about difference between journalism and public relations being in outrage and offense, or difference between a protest and a demonstration being in obviously breaking rules.

      EDIT: I meant - it’s a general tendency. But IT today is as important as police station, post office and telegraph were in 1917. One can also refer to that “means of production” controversy.

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      24 days ago

      People keep pointing the finger at AI, but miss the fact that the problem is corporate greed capitalism. AI has the possibility to help us solve problems, corporate greed capitalism will gate keep the solutions and cause us suffering.

      No need to thank me.

      • 3volver@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        We don’t have capitalism in the US, we have late-stage crony capitalism. Regulated capitalism is fine, but we are in a crony capitalist system which feeds corporate greed. Our government is controlled by a handful of mega corps which have their hands pulling the strings due to the lobbying system. It wasn’t always this way, which is why I don’t blame capitalism, I blame human greed.

        • masquenox@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          late-stage crony capitalism.

          So… capitalism.

          crony capitalist system which feeds corporate greed.

          Sooo… capitalism?

          Our government is controlled by a handful of mega corps which have their hands pulling the strings due to the lobbying system.

          So just bog-standard capitalism, then?

          Regulated capitalism is fine

          The Soviets tried that and failed. The Chinese tried it too, and it turned into… bog-standard capitalism.

            • masquenox@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              It’s always been crony capitalism. There is no other kind of capitalism - never has been.

              • nadram@lemmy.world
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                23 days ago

                it’s greed. whether under a socialist regime, capitalist, communist or other, all it takes to destroy the system is for greedy people in power to force it open by buying judges and politicians. capitalism is in no way a prerequisite.

                • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                  23 days ago

                  whether under a socialist regime,

                  There is no such thing as a “socialist” regime… not in the way we generally use the term regime, anyway. And the regimes that (falsely) attributed to themselves the characteristics of socialism never claimed to make a virtue out of human greed like our neoliberal ones do.

                  all it takes to destroy the system is for greedy people

                  Are you trying to say that a disjointed and incoherent jumble of pretexts, justifications and outright lies masquerading as an ideology that specifically exists to justify said human greed will (somehow) be destroyed by human greed?

                  Looks to me like it’s working as designed… and not “destroyed” at all.

    • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
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      24 days ago

      AI can’t solve problems. This should be abundantly clear by now from the number of laughable and even dangerous “solutions” it gives while stealing content, destroying privacy, and sucking up tons of power to do so. Just ban AI.

      • 3volver@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Just take some time to look up the benefits of AI and what it is being used to solve. It’s easy to focus on how corporations are abusing the technology for profit, but it’s a bland weak perspective to think that AI can’t solve problems.

        • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
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          It can’t even solve simple queries correctly half the time. Exactly what “benefits” can come from such a flawed system that steals its information, destroys privacy, and uses tons of resources?

          Grow up and admit you’re fascinated by some sci-fi bullshit poorly implemented by garbage corporations.

          • 3volver@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            It can’t even solve simple queries correctly half the time.

            implemented by garbage corporations

            Lie and lie again, neither do you realize there are open source LLMs. You keep yelling to ban it when nothing you write even matters.

            • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
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              23 days ago

              Have you seen how many garbage query returns people get? It’s completely ineffectual unless you just treat it like a simple non “AI” search engine query, in which case, why bother wasting time with AI?

              And do you realize how much power and time is needed to create a local LLM? The reason AI is generally implemented online is because it’s so incredibly complex and computationally heavy to do it locally for any decent amount of data. So unless you’re a fucking pervert with 20 overpowered PCs paying thousands a month on electricity generating AI porn art, what’s the point?

      • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        24 days ago

        You really need to specify what you mean by “AI”. AI has been used in tons of applications for decades. Do you mean LLMs? Because not all AI is LLMs.

        • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
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          23 days ago

          At this point there’s barely a difference in practical use. And both are the same amount of stupid, sucking up tons of power, destroying privacy, and stealing information. It’s all bullshit and should be banned.

          How is this not something that is a common sense, widely accepted worldview? Are people this dense?

          • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            22 days ago

            Because you clearly do not have any technical understanding of the field, or what machine learning even is, or how it can be useful, and the dozen of different things also called AI.

            • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
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              22 days ago

              Says the person with zero understanding of the terrible problems with AI. It’s just rampant, ignorant fanboyism at this point. Ban it.

        • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
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          24 days ago

          The living fuck are you on about? What cartels? What?

          You people are so brainwashed by the AI bullshit being spouted by these rich corporations that you can’t see its huge problems.

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    25 days ago

    I think it’s important to note that Linux can be a way to avoid AI, but doesn’t have to be. If you flip the headline around it almost implies that people who do want AI would be missing out by using Linux, but that’s not true at all: instead, the reality is that Linux is still better for them, too, because you could install all the same kind of functionality if you wanted, but it would be wholly under your control, not Microsoft’s.

    • Lem453@lemmy.ca
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      25 days ago

      Self hosted AI seems like an intriguing option for those capable of running it. Naturally this will always be more complex than paying someone else to host it for you but it seems like that’s that only way if you care about privacy

      https://github.com/mudler/LocalAI

      • Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
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        24 days ago

        Check out Jan AI. It’s open source and extremely easy to install and run. I run it locally on a 2017 laptop without a dedicated GPU and it works, just takes longer to generate responses compared to something like ChatGPT.

    • SOB_Van_Owen@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      That sounds very cool. I’m totally ignorant of the hardware requirements. What sort of minimum setup would such an install take?

      • Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        It really depends on what model you want to run and how much training is bundled with it. You can pretty much run any model if you have enough disk space but of course GPU + VRAM is preferred for a ChatGPT like fast response. Otherwise, running on an older CPU and RAM is going to be noticeably slower, especially with complex models with a lot of training data to trawl through.

        There are some pretty lite models out there but the responses will be more barebones and probably seem ‘less informed’.

        Give GPT4All a try for your first time. It makes install, configuration and usage point-and-click while being fairly straight forward. For the presented/featured models, it presents a small summary and VRAM recommended, though there are many, many other models available from inside the UI.

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
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    Linux may be the best way to avoid the <insert dystopian corporate feature> nightmare

    Always has been

    • xia@lemmy.sdf.org
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      I’m convinced that Linux’ mere presence has already stymied the development of the worst possible technocractic nightmare. I shudder to think of the thick tech-chains that would bind us if there was not an anchor/reference point… or if there was not even the small contingent that knows what it is like to use a liberating platform.

      • Baggie@lemmy.zip
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        25 days ago

        I agree with this. We already have a situation where we don’t have feasible alternatives to the primary method, Google search comes to mind. With Linux, even if every company in the world goes down, nerds will still want to play with the technology.

  • Jackiechan@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    All the AI garbage from M$ is what made me finally make the swap a couple weeks ago to Linux Mint on my personal desktop. I only use my PC for gaming/entertainment, so the switch was super easy. Can’t recommend it enough if you’re wanting to get away from Windows!

    • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
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      One of us! One of us! One of us!

      For real though, good on ya. It takes a little getting used to, but is so worth it in the long run to not have to fight against the profit-driven whims of a megacorp. It’s also so much more customizable if you want to put together a really specific workflow for yourself.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      It’s advertising more than AI for me. Everything you do in Windows is monetized by selling your preferences to advertisers. Shameful.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      25 days ago

      I’ve been running Ubuntu desktop for years. YEARS and recently switched to Linux Mint. It’s very polished.

      My laptop is the last holdout.

  • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    I finally switched to Linux and I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe I put up with microsofts garbage for so damn long.

    • scifun@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Me too. Years ago I dabbled with Debian and Gentoo. Ubuntu was just up and coming then.

      Now I went from Mint to Fedora KDE to Fedora Silverblue (nuked my disk and removed windows)

      Gnome took a day to get used to but loving the workflow once I warmed up to it. Can’t believe how polished and rock solid the whole system is.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        Gnome when you first use it feels like a stupid system, then once it “clicks”, you feel like the devs were goddamn geniuses for creating a workflow like it.

        And yeah, the polish is nuts considering for a long time and assumption about FOSS was that all the apps are ugly and unpolished.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          then once it “clicks”, you feel like the devs were goddamn geniuses for creating a workflow like it.

          … Unless you have ADHD. What differentiates it is that purely on the surface it looks kinda ADHD-friendly, until you go to that launcher or try to find a setting. That’s better than with KDE (I like KDE, but can’t use it), but worse than just using FVWM or WindowMaker.

          • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            I have ADHD. How is it worse? I find window managers interesting in theory but absolutely dreadful in actual use.

            None are even close to feeling usable for anything other than showing off terminal windows

            E: jfc, I obviously meant tiling window managers, since that’s what you were talking about. I’m not advocating for desktops to have literally no ability to manage windows.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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              23 days ago

              A window manager is part of what you use, unless you run one program in its dedicated X session or don’t use X at all, or use Wayland, in which case you use a Wayland compositor.

              If by “window manager” you mean only standalone window managers that are not part of KDE or Gnome - then just as usable as those that are.

              If you mean that catching someone with a terminal emulator open disqualifies its author as a showoff - many of us actually do use CLI and TUI programs, and for that we need terminal emulators.

              If you think that “window manager” means only tiling WMs from r/unixporn on Reddit - the choice is kinda bigger, there are a few hundreds of them.

              • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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                22 days ago

                I obviously meant tiling window manager setups, like you described.

                And no I didn’t say using the terminal means you’re a showoff, I have it open all throughout my workday.

                I was saying that TWM setups are poor in terms of usability. The Gnome workflow is perfect for people with ADHD. I can’t really think of anything better.

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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                  22 days ago

                  OK. FVWM is a stacking WM. Btw, TWM is too a specific stacking WM and not an abbreviation for tiling WMs, some people even use it.

                  I have used tiling WMs in the past, DWM and WMII were nice.

                  Still I’ve mentioned FVWM and maybe WindowMaker (answering from mobile, not sure), both are stacking WMs, so no, not as I’ve described.

    • Ynrielle@sh.itjust.works
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      24 days ago

      I did as well for my daily driver school laptop and I’ve been loving it so much. I’m considering switching my desktop to Linux as well over the summer, or dual booting at the very least

  • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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    24 days ago

    And forced the hardware obsolescence nightmare.

    And the big tech surveillance nightmare.

    And the nightmare of the war on general purpose computers. (OK, that is more GNU and GPLv3)

    And a few other nightmares!

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        24 days ago

        I’m sure I can install a local AI on a Windows PC as well. Linux is not the solution to every possible problem in the universe. Oh indeed many of them

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          24 days ago

          Hum did you try to solve this with Linux ? Kidding. Yeah but this included with the previous privacy claims make it a good solution.

    • Kaityy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      24 days ago

      At least with the more advanced LLM’s (and I’d assume as well for stuff like image processing and generation), it requires a pretty considerable amount of GPU just to get the thing to run at all, and then even more to spit something out. Some people have enough to run the basics, but most laptops would simply be incapable. And very few people would have resources to get the kind of outputs that the more advanced AI’s produce.

      Now, that’s not to say it shouldn’t be an option, or that they force you to have some remote AI baked into your proprietary OS that you can’t remove without breaking user license agreements, just saying that it’s unfortunately harder to implement locally than we both probably wish it was.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        24 days ago

        That’s true but if you don’t mind the fact that the AI can’t learn anything new you can actually go hardware optimization routes and get pretty good performance. We’re starting to see AI chips being made. They will do for AI what GPUs did for graphics.

        However these hardware optimized chips are only for running the AI you still need GPUs for training it. I could see a situation where new models are trained by big companies and then the results are sold to individuals who then buy the packages and install them on local chips.

        • Kaityy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          23 days ago

          interesting. are these ai chips actually being released on open markets yet, or are thongs still in development phases?

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            23 days ago

            They’re available on the open market but you have to buy them as integrated systems since no especially available motherboard has a socket for them, don’t even think there’s a standard for a socket. They come soldered to the board which isn’t the best because when a better version comes out you basically have to throw everything away and start again.

            But in a few years I suspect we’ll have proper socketed versions.

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    25 days ago

    internet pollution is the real nightmare and your laptop os doesn’t fix that sorry

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      25 days ago

      you can’t fix everything, therefore it’s pointless to fix anything

    • vinyl@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Its going to start fixing shit if the market share of anything popular starts dropping.

    • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      If something like Fossil fuel companies are influencing environmental legislation and poisoning our planet while blaming us for the state of global warming. Isn’t it worth fighting for a better future. It might feel futile now but as congregation we have more power than many of us realize. They tell you stop it, it’s too late but what they’re really saying is stop it your scaring us.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    Linux has been great for me. I switched during Windows 10 forced updates and never been unhappy since. I hope more people at least give a try. If you have a computer that can’t meet Windows 11 requirements, it is worth a shot.

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    24 days ago

    “The year of Linux on the Desktop” is in the article. This again? Been reading this for decades and it’s still not true.

    Linux is close, but has some core flaws that will forever keep it out of mainstream acceptance by your average user.

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      Linux is close, but has some core flaws that will forever keep it out of mainstream acceptance by your average user.

      It has nothing to do with any flaws within Linux itself. The problem is and has always been that it’s nearly impossible to buy a PC with any flavour of Linux pre-installed. Until that changes, Linux (on home user desktops) will never gain mainstream acceptance.

      • Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee
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        24 days ago

        I agree. Most people won’t switch to Linux because they have never used it and think they’ll have to relearn computers from scratch.

      • Tekkip20@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Didn’t HP sell some fancy shmancy laptops that came with Ubuntu or some flavor of it? Think it was for developers but I thought that was the closest we gotten to commercially selling Linux based machines.

        P.S. I could be wrong about this but I am sure this happened.

        • echindod@programming.dev
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          24 days ago

          HP sold he DevOne, it had PopOS on it. Dell sells an XPS developer machine that has Ubuntu pre installed. System76, Entroware, and Tuxedo computers have all been selling Linux hardware for a long time. So there are viable commercial options. I wish the DevOne were going to get refreshed, it looks like a nice machine but alas, I don’t think it will.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            24 days ago

            Linux really needs to be on the floor at BestBuy on base models, just a little cheaper than the Windows models. If that’s the case, I think people will try it.

            But if it’s only on one or two premium models and online only, that’s not good enough.

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          24 days ago

          It’s possible they did. I think Dell briefly discussed it as an option, before using it as leverage to get cheaper Windows licenses from Microsoft. The EEE PC also shipped with its own Linux distro and appropriate hardware drivers.

          This was why I said “nearly impossible” :)

    • Hucklebee@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Maybe we should have like a yearly event for this. Like a holiday. International Linux Year Day.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        I think there is some sort of conference. The key would be to convince all the Linux users to stop telling us about it the rest of the time.

        Linux uses and vegans have the same “I’m better than you” energy.