It’s not AI that is the problem, it’s half baked insecure data harvesting products pushed by big corporations that are the problem.
The biggest joke is that the LLM in Windows is running locally, it uses your hardware and not some big external server farm. But you can bet your ass that they still use it to data harvest the shit out of you.
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.
Also, CoPilot is going to be bundled with Office 365, a subscription service. You’re literally paying them to spy on you.
Exactly. And if I use or even pay for an external LLM service then that’s also my decision. But they force this scheme onto every user, whether they want it or not. It’s like the worst out of all possible scenarios.
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.
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
ifstatements) 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.
seem a Hell of a lot closer
“seem” is the critical word there. Interacting with an LLM they do seem to be pretty clever.
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.
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.
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The fuck?
Let’s agree to disagree then. An LLM has no notion of semantics, it’s just outputting the most likely word to follow up to what it’s already written and the user’s input.
On the contrary, expert systems from back in the 90s for, say, predicting the atomic structure of an element, work like a human brain on steroids. It features an arbitrary large search tree that the software knows how to iterarively prune according to a well known set of chemical rules. We do the same when analyzing a set of options.
Debugging “current” AI models, on the other hand, is impossible because all we’re doing is prescripting a composition of functions and forcing it to minimize a loss function. That’s all we’re doing. How can you currently tell that a certain model is going to work? Unless the mathematical theory ever catches up with the technology, we’ll never know until we execute the code.
Oh I agree. I typically put “AI” in quotation marks when using that term regarding LLMs, because to me they simply are not intelligent in anyway. In my mind an AI would need an actual level of consciousness of sorts, the ability to form actual thoughts and learn things freely based on whatever senses it has. But AI is a term that’s good for marketing as well as fear mongering, which we see a lot of in current news cycles and on social media. The problem is that most people do not even understand the basic principles of how LLMs work, which lead to a lot of misconceptions about its uses & misuses and what we should do about it. Weirdly enough this makes LLMs both completely overhyped as a product and completely stigmatized as some nefarious tool as well. But I guess it fits into our today’s societies that kinda seem to have lost all nuance and reason.
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.
That is an accurate description of AI in common usage even if it isn’t an inherent aspect of AI.
Right, but AI is not the only way they’re doing the data collection.
Locally run AI could be great. But sending all your data to an external server for processing is really, really bad.
You wrote AI twice.
“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.
“The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening.
Been hearing this for decades.
And it won’t ever be true until you can pick up a PC running Linux in a big box store. I could see the Steam Deck (and Valve’s rumoured upcoming console) to make a dent in the PC gaming space, but it won’t make a difference to the purchasing decisions of your your aunt who uses her pc to check her emails.
Should corporate buyers ever get tired of MS’ shenanigans they might switch over to Ubuntu, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
At work, we have a strict ban on purchasing any laboratory equipment that requires Windows. After about a year, several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support, precisely because we don’t have time for windows shenanigans on a $100k piece of advanced benchtop hardware. We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.
Also, regular people aren’t buying PCs as much as they used to. The PC is now a workplace and enthusiast device. Everyone else uses mobile.
We ship a $50k instrument product running Windows, and everyone hates it.
As the only EE on staff, I got to spend a portion of covid soldering TPM chips to motherboards. Fun times.
Wow, that sounds painful. Not so much because it’s technically difficult, but ridiculous that you have to do that.
Yeah, they were tssop, so not hard. It was only necessary because the parts shortage crunch had the vendor shipping them without the chips installed.
I find it unbelievable that anyone ever accepted lab equipment with a Windows requirement. I mean, I know it is true, but what the fuck? Glad your work is doing this.
I was not around at that time. Some of the systems I support are very long lived. At the time, having windows running on some of your equipment wasn’t seen as a liability. I guess you have to get bitten a few times before you understand that you need control of that system including the software.
Shit, the iPad pro is pretty damn close to a laptop these days with the keyboard and track pad (just lacking the OS). I had a conversation the other day where someone mentioned how OSX and Windows are locking down their OS’s to the point where it wouldn’t be farfetched to guess that many consumer devices will eventually use essentially a mobile device OS.
I had a conversation with a friend about iPads lately related to the „just lacking the OS“. The newer iPads with M-chips have all the computing power an average user could need but it’s crippled by the mobile-ish OS, so all the computing power is for nothing basically. An iPad running MacOS (with some adjustments for the Touchscreen) would be awesome. But we concluded it won’t happen anytime soon, because then basically no one would buy MacBooks anymore
The only regular people I can think of are gamers and my mom but I would like the idea of PC’s returning to techie and specialized use cases
I’d argue the year of the Linux desktop passed years ago and now it’s just a saturation game. Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops, Android owns the mobile space and versions are starting to make huge inroads in the laptop space. You can buy gaming systems running it trivially now.
Conversely, casual users of windows are dying off, fewer non technical people are using desktops for anything at all. Only institutional users are buying Windows keys and they’re some of the easiest to get on Linux because of the cost savings, particularly if you run Linux server infrastructure, a fight we already won over a decade ago.
Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops,
I’d love a source for this. To my knowledge, most people that build to Linux hosts still use OSX.
a good indication is Microsoft making WSL at all
Source: I’m a super pro serious developer and I use Linux. QED if you don’t also use Linux, you’re not serious.
Thanks to the Steamdeck Linux users on Steam now outnumber Mac users. Still a tiny percentage of total Steam users but if developers increase support we will hopefully see that number take off.
Also helps that Valve isn’t porting source to Apple silicon.
All the larger PC manufacturers do offer Ubuntu at least. There was a time when Best Buy was selling them from Dell and Lenovo, but I’m sure the staff couldn’t sufficiently explain the “why”, and it was also at a time when more technology illiterate folks were the purchasers. That’s not the case anymore, but I guess we will see how/if it shifts at all.
I loathe to be the BestBuy employee who sells a Linux box to a customer who only cares about the price difference.
Lenovo ships some models with Mint FWIW.
Framework laptops also ship without Windows if you wish. Certainly nice to save the money for not purchasing an OS license I won’t use.
Most aunts I know primarily use an iPad or phone to manage email.
For me the hang up is still hardware compatibility and fuss factor. I still haven’t seen a windows app that will check all hardware and software and give a pain scale rating on what switching would involve. I have an Asus wifi 6 card, a stream deck, a Logitech trackball with Logitech customization software, a Logitech Webcam, a dygma keyboard running bazecor software. I’m sure there are some hidden headaches awaiting the transition. Once I finally get all that worked out, I will probably want to upgrade my surface and my ThinkPad as well and imagine even more headaches with these.
I still haven’t seen a windows app that will check all hardware and software and give a pain scale rating on what switching would involve.
You can just use a liveboot Linux image on a USB key drive and find out whether there are any issues.
Here’s Debian’s liveboot images (which they apparently call “live install”):
https://www.debian.org/CD/live/
I imagine that most distros probably have a liveboot image, though I haven’t gone looking.
USB drives are maybe slower than your internal SSD drive, but for rescue work or just seeing whether your hardware works, should be fine.
I would expect everything that you listed there to work. The only thing I haven’t heard of on there is that dygma keyboard, and looking at their website, if this is the keyboard in question:
https://dygma.com/pages/dygma-raise-2#section-faq
Is the software compatible with macOS and Linux?
Yes, our configurator software is compatible with macOS, Linux and even Windows.
I mean, I dunno if Logitech puts out trackball software for Linux, but if what you want is macro software or configurable acceleration curves or something, there’s open-source stuff not tied to that particular piece of hardware. And the Steam Deck is running Linux itself.
There’s gonna be a familiarization cost associated with changing an OS. Like, your workflow is gonna change, and there are gonna be things that you know how to do now that you aren’t gonna know how to do in a new environment. But I think that that’s likely going to be the larger impact, rather than “can I use hardware?”
EDIT: Oh, it sounds like the reason that they call it “live install” rather than “liveboot” is because you can use the same image to both just use Linux directly, and can run the installer off the image too.
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.
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.
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.
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Been hearing this for decades.
I’ve been hearing this about people hearing about people hearing that about Linux for decades.
We can dream 😔
Seems like we’ll get financially viable fusion power plants before that happens.
I don’t see a “year of the Linux desktop” happening, but rather its share growing slowly over the years. Windows would probably not have one big event that ends its dominance, but it can be a death of a thousand cuts.
Guess which OS won’t be recognized as a “trusted environment” to visit websites with down the line in Google’s upcoming Web DRM. For your own protection of course…
This I would actually want to see.
I would so laugh when their most of their profits go to EU Antitrust Fines.
Or they pull an Apple and only EU device owners get to choose their own browser.I really wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t want to risk them succeeding. It could be like Meta with WhatsApp, they just say “sure anyone can interoperate with us, they just have to use the Signal protocol because it’s the safest and what we use”. Google et al could say “any system could be considered trusted, as long as these security criteria are met” and the criteria are such that they go completely against the form of user control of the OS and software that Linux is all about. Technically a Linux distro could be made to meet the requirements, but pretty much no current day Linux user would ever want to use it because they’d be giving up the thing that made them switch to Linux in the first place - their control.
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.
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.
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
The counterpoint are people like this, the feature they want is built on extreme data gathering. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a8fec90b-c349-46c9-8592-5dbe17ea4c8c.jpeg
Technically you could have such data gathered and stored locally, without sending them to big corpo. Privacy friendly “AI” is very much possible, it’s just not favorable to those companies because they see those models as a tool and the data as what ends up making them money.
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.
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?
CAD work in Linux blows. I say this after trying multiple options.
I’m not so sure that the laypeople will, but I do expect a shift. Personally I’m still running Windows 10 next to Linux currently. Most of my time is still spent on Windows, because it’s generally a bit more stable and hassle free due to the Windows monopoly. Software is written for Windows, so sadly it’s usually just a better experience.
But so many things I read about Win 11 (and beyond) piss me off. It’s my computer, I don’t want them to decide things for me or farm my data. I’m mentally preparing for the transition to Linux-only. 90% of the software I use will work out of the box, and I think with some effort I can get like 8% of the rest to work. It’ll be a lot of effort, but Micro$oft has pushed so far that I’m really starting to consider.
Multiple friends and colleagues (all programmers) I spoke are feeling the same way. I think Linux may double in full-time desktop users in a few years of this goes on.
Firefox is like 2.8% of browser market share, so if that’s our baseline then Linux is already beating it by a mile.
It’s not about the total share, it’s about the premise.
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%.
The combined ages of my children taken from 2024 would not equal the first year I heard that Ubuntu would take over the market.
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.
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.
Sure. But then, Linux may well be a solution against corporate greed.
Linux is a solution against corporate greed, it directly takes market share away from Microsoft, and is a viable competitive alternative with few drawbacks.
What drawbacks?
Photoshop is a birch to get running
Those trees always getting in the way…
How does Premiere Pro do?
Not sure, but Davinci Resolve works
I recently watched this video where the guy says it doesn’t work, or rather the whole Adobe suite doesn’t.
They switched to Kdenlive and seem to be happy with it, but it sounds like it was a bit of a project to learn the new editor.
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Not sure, but Davinci Resolve works
Mainly incompatibilities, manual setup requirements, heightened understanding of technology requirement. Not necessarily Linux’s fault, but still drawbacks.
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.
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).
LLMs in particular are unlikely to solve really any problems, much less a measurable number of the problems it is currently being thrown at.
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.
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.
Seems like you agreed with everything I said, tho.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh absolutely, I agree with that comparison. That said, I’d take an IDE over AI 11 times out of 10.
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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.
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.
People keep pointing the finger at AI, but miss the fact that the problem is
corporate greedcapitalism. AI has the possibility to help us solve problems,corporate greedcapitalism will gate keep the solutions and cause us suffering.No need to thank me.
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.
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.
Nope, wrong. Entirely.
It’s always been crony capitalism. There is no other kind of capitalism - never has been.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Says the person with zero understanding of the terrible problems with AI. It’s just rampant, ignorant fanboyism at this point. Ban it.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Ah yes. Let’s ban AI so the cartels take over the market for AI. What a great plan.
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.
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.
Agreed
GPT4ALL ftw
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.
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?”
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.
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.
Boy I love it when people don’t read.
I was expanding on your point, you twat. But hey, just be a snarky cunt. I’m sure that’ll get you far.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Beautifully stated. Owning the AI personally as I own my personal computer if not more is the key.
That sounds very cool. I’m totally ignorant of the hardware requirements. What sort of minimum setup would such an install take?
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.
Will my dell latitude from 2006 work?
Linux may be the best way to avoid the <insert dystopian corporate feature> nightmare
Always has been
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.
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.
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.
Congratulations and welcome to the club!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
It’s advertising more than AI for me. Everything you do in Windows is monetized by selling your preferences to advertisers. Shameful.
I went with Q4OS since I wanted no bloat and a debian based distro that was linux newbie friendly
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!
I don’t want to avoid it. I just want it locally
So… Heu… How to say that… Linux still the solution for this.
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
Hum did you try to solve this with Linux ? Kidding. Yeah but this included with the previous privacy claims make it a good solution.
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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.
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.
interesting. are these ai chips actually being released on open markets yet, or are thongs still in development phases?
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.
https://jan.ai/ Jan works fine on W11
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.
I can’t read the article because of a full screen Cookie Choices pop-up that I can’t dismiss. ☠️
Ublock origin has cookie banner filters. I didn’t have this problem, I assume that’s why.
Edit: autocorrect
Try consent-o-matic
Combine with above and rarely see those prompts
internet pollution is the real nightmare and your laptop os doesn’t fix that sorry
you can’t fix everything, therefore it’s pointless to fix anything
Its going to start fixing shit if the market share of anything popular starts dropping.
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.
For everything else, there’s Mastercard.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On the one hand, I think you are right, people who know can find a Linux computer if they know where to look. And they should be easier to find. On the other hand, I don’t think many people by laptops at Best Buy any more. Maybe if BestBuy had one people would try it and see, but I feel like best buy is the place you go to buy a TV or a charging chord for your phone.
People buy things they see advertised. Being visible on the floor of BestBuy is advertisement. If it’s just an option on a website, they’re unlikely to try it, but if they see it as a “normal thing” that’s available at retailers, they might consider it.
At least that’s the assumption I’m going off of.
The lack of advertising is a big one, that’s for sure. And Dell isn’t spending any of their advertisement budget to brag about Linux.
Maybe that’s what canonical should spend it’s money on rather than snaps :-) (half joking…maybe )
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” :)
You can go to the Dell website today and filter by Operating System and select Ubuntu. Through Project Sputnik, Dell has been selling laptops with Ubuntu for over a decade. It’s a pretty interesting story, but I couldn’t find a summary of it online easily.
Maybe we should have like a yearly event for this. Like a holiday. International Linux Year Day.
I propose September 17, the day of the first Linux release.
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.
every year is the year of linux for linux users. not so much for other people
It was the solution for the crap Microsoft force pushes to your device.
Simple, Extendable and secure linux.
