Comment on AI Training Slop
utopiah@lemmy.world 3 days agoI’m playing games at home. I’m running models at home (I linked in other similar answers to it) for benchmarking.
My point is that models are just like anything I bring into my home I try to only buy products that are manufactured properly. Someone else in this thread asked me about child labor for electronics and IMHO that was actually a good analogy. You here mention buying a microwave and that’s another good example.
Yes, if we do want to establish feedback in the supply chain, we must know how everything we rely on is made. It’s that simple.
There are already quite a few initiatives for that with e.g. coffee with Fair Trade Certification or ISO 14001, in electronics Fair Materials, etc.
The point being that there are already mechanisms for feedback in other fields and in ML there are already model cards with a co2_eq_emissions field, so why couldn’t feedback also work in this field?
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I didn’t mention buying a microwave, I mentioned finding one for free. If you buy a microwave you’re a customer and your desire for ethical products can be impactful to some degree.
If you find a microwave there’s no feedback, and if there were feedback they wouldn’t care because you’re not a customer.
The way you establish feedback in this field is by making it a viable market, and then giving your money to the most ethical company. I don’t think that any of the companies offer or will offer a product that will be worth the cost or resource investment. Ergo: I don’t give them money or use their products.
Downloading a model doesn’t change that feedback. It’s digital, so once the resources are spent copies have no additional cost. They don’t get metrics or usage patterns, or even know I have it.
It’s not quite, but kinda, like saying that you should only shoplift fair trade coffee. This doesn’t signal to anyone that they should invest in making their coffee more equitable.