AI = Annoyingly Integrated

It seems that you can't even read the back of a cereal box without someone thrusting AI down your throat. It's everywhere and it's got it's sticky robot fingers in everything we do today. AI could be a good thing thing, a useful thing but it's getting out of hand.

Garage door open with the press of a button

I have grown up through all manner of technology and it has been making us lazier with every generation. The idea was to use tech as a labor saving means of making life easier. Imagine a remote control that you could use to change the TV station without getting up, or to open your garage door without leaving the car. WOW ! ! ! Next stop Jetson mobiles.

Phones got smart and ditched the curly cord, computers got smaller and faster, TV's got bigger but thinner. Where would it end? It could possibly end with the proliferation of AI into everyday life.

AI or Artificial Intelligence began as a way for humans to automate making mass calculations to simplify complex tasks. Data processing which learns from the input and it's own calculations how to make it's processing faster and more efficient, hence the other lesser used term for AI - Machine Learning.

It got sneaked on to smartphones under the guise of "smart removal tool" or "best picture composite", the AI would remove the annoying uncle or ex boyfriend from the image, or would replace the closed eyed version of cousin Tommy with an open eyed version from another image so you get the perfect take. That's just harmless and totally useful and fun, right?

Not mentioning any names or services, but it's this exact technology that created the furore about deepfakes and clothing removal technology. Take an innocent picture of a woman in the street, upload it to an AI client and it will remove her shirt and pants almost instantly leaving her virtually undressed almost in real time. Not so harmless or fun any more, right?

The laws across every single nation have stepped in to outlaw the use of this technology on publicly accessible websites and very strong punishments exist for those using the tech to publish deepfakes as well as underage and non consensual imagery.

Now the law needs to step in and stop people making AI flyers to promote their events. They look awful. I don't know why Gemini insist on using their little rhombic starburst watermark to signify it's AI, we can already tell... Also, please stop people using AI to create fake women on facebook saying things like "I am fully clothed so you probably won't stop scrolling and like my picture" or "It's my birthday, aren't you going to say hi?"

I get that ChatGPT can seem like a conversation with a real friend and can actually be useful in a variety of different ways, from Sourdough baking advice, to plant care to room makeover ideas. Snap a picture, ask a question, wait briefly and your answer is presented back on your phone screen. But are there any side effects to this type of all knowing technology?

I mentioned AI coming for our jobs in a previous post but now there is a new scare rippling through the first world with respect to AI and that is the proliferation of Data Centers. AI is very smart because it has access huge masses of data which it can retrieve in microseconds and process faster than you can blink giving the impression that a person on the other side of your phone screen is talking to you and giving you answers or guidance. But where is all this information kept? Data Centers, huge sprawling concrete buildings which use electricity for power and water for cooling and make the most obnoxious continual dull humming sound all day everyday while they virtually paint your bedroom or generate images of virtual girlfriends in minimal clothing.

The cost of these data centers is very high, both financially and in the cost of resources, and many people, quite rightly, do not them in their own neighborhoods. Various solutions have been floated for data center locations, like underwater or on the moon, and that may yet happen but for now, they are being planned for terrestrial placements with huge financial rewards for cities that let them use their land.

There is also a knock on effect from the building of data centers and that is the cost of materials to build computers. The availability of key components, like memory, is pushing the price of home computers and laptops higher and higher with no respite in sight.

The scale of a Data Center is tough to comprehend, but I will try to make it simple. A small scale data center handles about 1 exobyte of data, which is 1,000,000,000,000 megabytes or about 700,000,000,000 floppy disks (remember those?) In more modern terms, the entire Spotify catalog of about 100 million tracks would fit 50 times (best guess from available data). Some of the Amazon, Google and Meta datacenters are much bigger than that, so big that they don't measure in multibytes but in gigawatts of power consumption, as in time travel magnitudes of watts.

Where do you stand in the AI mess? Active or passive user? Pro or anti data centers? Global threat or global assistant? Share you AI thoughts and fears in the comments section below.