Amazing, she’s levitating those plants via telekinesis. Or it’s an AI image, one of those.
Possible electrical druid magic?
Perhaps!
Down voted for ai picture
Why? Did the AI steal a job from some worried looking lady?
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It didn’t need to have a picture
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Could’ve been a stock photo or other image and no one would’ve cared about a watermark
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A waste of resources that harms the planet (the planet that you’re trying to garden on)
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Adds nothing of value to the discussion
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Normalizes the use of technology that does in fact steal jobs from people who would be better than the technology
Re. that 2023 MIT article
Their work, which is yet to be peer reviewed,
Here’s a peer reviewed article from 2024 that presents an interesting counterpoint:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54271-x
Here is another peer reviewed paper from 2024 that argues that cautious optimism should be used when calculating the environmental and societal impact of LLMs specically:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76682-6
TLDR it seems to be more complicated than simply AI = Bad for the environment
Also I’d point out that your points 2 and 5 are kind of hypocritical. You accuse AI of ‘stealing’ jobs but then suggest someone could use a watermarked stock image without permission or a license, which is arguably a form of theft in and of itself, and could directly impact another artists job.
From the first article.
For the human writing process, we looked at humans’ total annual carbon footprints, and then took a subset of that annual footprint based on how much time they spent writing.
Which seems like a silly method of comparing emissions, given that the human doesn’t exist for the purpose of creating images. The carbon footprint of the human is still present whether or not they are generating art. For an AI, the emissions are an addition to global carbon footprint.
For the final point, a random social media post isn’t a profit seeing endeavor, which is why it isn’t expected to pay for any images it uses. The normal accepted practice is to just give credit to the source. The same is not true for news articles, which does care about there being a watermark and is expected to pay for image use. Unless of course people start accepting the normal use of ai images in which case disrupts a whole industry to provide worse art.
Which seems like a silly method of comparing emissions, given that the human doesn’t exist for the purpose of creating images. The carbon footprint of the human is still present whether or not they are generating art.
Whether it’s creating art with AI or via another means the human must be involved or else the art doesn’t get created. They are a intrinsic part of the process and so their footprint must be included.
For an AI, the emissions are an addition to global carbon footprint
For Digital art (I.e Photoshop etc) the computer use is on addition to global carbon footprint. In Photography the construction of a camera is in addition to global carbon footprint. The list goes on. Either we either include the carbon footprint of all the tool(s) involved in the creation of the piece or we don’t include any.
For the final point, a random social media post isn’t a profit seeing endeavor, which is why it isn’t expected to pay for any images it uses. The normal accepted practice is to just give credit to the source. The same is not true for news articles, which does care about there being a watermark and is expected to pay for image use. Unless of course people start accepting the normal use of ai images in which case disrupts a whole industry to provide worse art.
Whethet or not it’s ‘accepted practice’ or not is irrelevant. Using a watermarked image for anything without permission or license is illegal and fails to reimburse the artist that created it, the very thing you accuse AI of doing.
Apparently I screwed up my post. When I posted the article here I tried adding a photo from the article, but it just replaced the entire URL despite the URL having a different field than the image. I can’t seem to edit the post to put a link back to the article without losing the image (which is currently cross-linked to another group by someone else).
It’s either link or image, not both. The UI does not make this clear. Just post the link.
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Yes, actually.
You people are ridiculous.
Be as regenerative as you can. Many things you can create on your own like compost and fertilizer teas. Learn to make soil blocks instead of using plastic. Read up on Korean natural farming methods and how to reproduce them yourself. Saving seeds is not difficult to learn if you start collecting heirloom varieties. Gardening can be free depending on how you use your space and how resourceful you are.
Maybe a bit out of scope for “gardening”, but get to know how to sustain the life in both your garden as well as your community with as many sustainable inputs as possible.
Make your own compost and save your own seeds.
Network with people in your area.
Learn about the CSA farms in your area and see if you can contribute your little garden space to their effort in a collective manner in exchange for a complimentary CSA share (aka you use your entire plot to grow a large amount of some random veggie or herb to contribute to their program in exchange for a full season of their subscription).
Contribute excess veggies to the food bank.
Also, I hate to be “that guy”, but being a Canadian/American who pays attention to news headlines in both countries, I’ve gotta say that a shockingly substantial amount of your neighbors have no idea how fucked their world is going to be for the foreseeable future. Shit’s hitting the fan in a way that may be even bigger than 2008, and I feel like so many of us never actually recovered from that…
All that to say, “gardening” is really, really important now
Agreed. Reminds me I need to replace some of my garden fence posts, the deer keep getting in where the fence is sagging.
Supply prices will rise if only because more people will be gardening out of need.
And because most retailers will take this opportunity to jack up prices regardless of whether the tariffs will actually impact them.
I bought extra pest/disease treatment supplies this year. I am minimal to no chemical/pesticides in our gardens (for obvious reasons), but sometimes i have an infestation or disease I can’t get on top of. Most chemicals and chemical components come from outside US so i stocked up on those things this year (copper sulfate, neam oil, mineral fertilizers, some of the nastier killers for vine borers, etc. I also got a soil test done early this year to get whatever amendments we needed for the soil as some of those things are imported.)
