Imitative AI — systems that slurp in a ton of data consisting of written or pictorial material and try to remix that material based on calculations about what letter/word or pixel should come next, also referred to as generative AI — have an enormous cost. Not only do the compute costs mean that imitative AI products are not currently profitable, they have enormous environmental costs as well. And for all that we get … not much. Frankly, the only benefit of imitative AI seems to be in the minds of the people running these systems.
Brilliant analysis. 100 percent.
But look on the bright side—if we're wrong, it can still achieve consciousness and put us all out of our misery.