It's not about any individual usage. It's the global technology that is yet to prove to be useful and that already have bad for the environment.
Any new usage should be free of impact on the environment.
(Note: The technology of LLM itself is not an environmental disaster, but how it is put in use currently isn't the way).
I don’t understand this perspective. It should be abundantly clear at this point that these systems are quite useful for a variety of applications.
Do they have problems? Sure. Do the AI boosters who breathlessly claim that the models are super intelligent make me cringe? Sure.
But saying that they’re not useful is just downright crazy.
LLM are polyvalent. But in most of the tasks they are not the most efficient way to do the task.
Want to play chess ? Use Stockfish or Leela. Want to do image recognition ? SAM or TinyViT like models. Want to know if your are sick ? Go to the doctor or at least do a search on the web.
Yes, there is tasks where LLM are perfect for (speech analysis/classification for example). But omnipotent chatbot isn't one for example.
If there were a revolutionary use, we would have a productivity boom. We don't. This article is from 2021: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/10/1026008/the-comi...
What evidence do you have for this assertion? It seems like you are asserting something as fact when in reality it's your own personal opinion, yet ironically you are dismissing everyone else's personal experiences as mere opinion too.
No predicted productivity boom (check last US data), no GDP boost yet (again last data). Even LLM enthusiast like McKinsey or Goldmansachs expect nothing before 2027.
And it's not about LLM, it's about the whole AI progress. That is, obviously, a revolution.
https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/ai-may-start-...
But just to be clear. I'm denying something said to be obvious. I should not be the one who give sources about something that doesn't exist. If there is a productivity boom, I may not have seen it. Show it to me.
Useful for whom, by what definition? I personally find it very useful for my day to day work, whether it be helping me write code, think through ideas, or otherwise.
And the only way to assert that they are is to get numbers (big or small) and to compare them to alternatives.
But you didn't specify what you meant by "useful," hence why I asked the question I did. So under such ambiguity, my assertion is absolutely a counterpoint to what you just said. I will ask again, useful for whom, by what definition?
By useful I mean, to the world. That it affect the world in a good way. Maybe it's not the best technology to do something but replace the best way in an CO2 effective way. Maybe it is not a clean technology but increase overall fairness.
I don't know, but it had to have a good income to the world in a way.