In my opinion, AI just feels like the logical next step for capitalist exploitation and destruction of culture.

I don’t think AI is inherently bad. What’s bad is how we (or well, the corpos) use it. SEO, vibe coding, making slop, you name it.

About training material being stealing: hard agree here. Our copyright laws are broken, but they are right about AI - training is strong in a retrieval system, which is infingement. Shame they aren’t enforced at all.

What fascinates me is the similarity between AI and photography. That is, both are revolutionary tools in the visual medium. Imagine this thread being an opinion column in an 1800s newspaper, and replace all instances of ‘AI’ with ‘photography’. The arguments all stand, but our perspective to them may change.

Nor did you read between the lines.

Short answer: the bank won’t give your shiny new tree-planting business a loan as easily as it will to a “liquid tank tree replacement” one.

Long answer:

• Trees take time to grow
• Trees need to be planted
• Trees make shade
• Animals like birds and insects like bees and mosquitos like to live next to them
• Trees don’t need electricity
• Trees take in heat radiated from the pavement
• Trees don’t look cool

While algae are more efficient at turning CO2 into oxygen in theory, in practice algae don’t have a good climate in such a tank (no oxygen without ventilation, i.e. constant electricity and they get cooked through the glass).

All in all, more of a gimmick than anything.