David Conlon
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David Conlon
@artvanbasten.bsky.social
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Reposted by David Conlon
womensartbluesky.bsky.social
Anita Malfatti (1889-1964) celebrated Brazilian artist known for her pioneering Modernist painting in Brazil #womensart
Stylised portrait of a seated woman in a green dress facing forwards
July 31, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Reposted by David Conlon
paulduane.bsky.social
The ludicrous softball interview with an Irish OpenAI exec in today's Irish Times has pushed me over the edge and I am now the kind of man who writes letters to the editor of the Irish Times.
Dear Sir, I was interested to read your Technology Correspondent’s interview with an Irish tech executive at the forefront of AI, but surprised to find what the interviewer did not choose to ask. For starters: how is an industry which is entirely based on un-recompensed plagiarism, the need to ingest vast amounts of human-created writing, art and music in order to output its results - how is such an industry going to deal with the vast debt it owes to the creative people whose work it needs to steal in order to survive? The second question I was surprised was not asked is: how is the vastly unprofitable OpenAI, whose operating costs are an estimated €5 billion a year and rising, going to survive? What will their AI actually do in return for all that money? So far they have continuously failed to make an operating profit, and are deeply in the red. I would say it's because their product has no real value, but I would love to hear a tech exec’s answer. The combined expenditure of all parts of the generative AI boom — data centers, utilities and applications — is estimated to cost a trillion dollars in the next several years alone, which begs one more question: "what trillion dollar problem will AI solve?” Blithely suggesting, as Sarah Friar does, that we use it as a wine sommelier, or to manage our investments, is a little funny when you’re one of the thousands of creative people who are contemplating the loss of their future income because OpenAI has plagiarised their work. Final queston: how are they planning to mitigate the enormous negative impact their data farms have on our environment (in Ireland they already account for 21% of all metered electricity consumption)? I hope next time there’s an interview with someone from Big Tech your correspondent is a little more questioning. Not all of us have drunk the AI Kool-Aid. Paul Duane
June 5, 2025 at 9:04 AM