I’m going assume your link is coming to a good conclusion. I find the idea that cattle farming produces a lot of greenhouse gases to be very believable, and so I will take that as a given. But even with that in mind, the argument doesn’t hold.

First, people can be mad about two things at once. We don’t have to pick between being upset about one contributor of climate change versus another, we can just be upset at both. Besides, I think it’s safe to say that cattle farming is a better use of resources than AI is. Like yeah, sure, I think it has some serious excesses. There’s animal welfare issues, the aforementioned climate problems, and just the general problems of rampant and negligent industrialization writ large. But even after all that, it’s still feeding people. AI doesn’t have that silver lining,^[1] so the comparison is unfair as well as unnecessary.

As for the IP argument, no, I didn’t shoot my own argument down. Please do not mistake my good faith self-examination for a failure. Like I said, it’s still perfectly viable to hate AI for that reason, and I explained why — just because there are better reasons doesn’t make that one invalid. I have no idea why you’d think AI companies aren’t still training on small creator’s works en masse though.^[2] To me, that’s wrong at face value, but to explain:

Training is one of the biggest things that AI companies are constantly pushing for, because they believe that’s the primary vector by which the technology has (allegedly) improved. It’s one of the biggest sources of the environmental problem. And even if that wasn’t among their top priorities, why would they stop? Scraping is cheap. Several of them committed massive acts of literally-illegal piracy to do it. They’re clearly willing to jump hurdles for even a theoretical benefit, so why quit? Why ever quit?

With regards to your anger: Alright, yeah, I understand that. I disagree, for a variety of reasons that are probably obvious by now. To me, you’ve either been mislead, or – knowing how AI sometimes affects people – you may have used AI yourself and become somewhat dependent on it. I dunno. But I’ve been mad about stuff before and said rude shit because of it, so I can relate.

I think the helpful thing to be reminded of in this context, then, is that if you want to convince people, this can’t be how you try. People do not take well to “telling it how it is,” or any other form of tough-love style argumentation. They get defensive. It’s completely counter-productive and only helps to alienate people from you. Which is a pain in the ass, I know; slowing down to say something kinder has huge friction, while venting what you actually feel is satisfying. But unless venting is the goal, you want the former. Gentle words and impersonal, non-accusatory language can go a long way; even if people get mad it you for that, they’re still more likely to introspect after.