Americans aren’t in favor of being driven into unemployment and poverty? How dare they!
Companies have their relationship with people, specifically employees, backwards. What percentage of companies out there are truly needed? What percentage solely exist because people have some surplus money to play with?
No one needs Microsoft or Google products. No one needs overpriced Apple crap. AI means jack shit to almost 100% of Americans. Streaming services are one bad day away from ruin. We’ve seen what piracy can do. Now we have faster, better internet. Food delivery services RIP. I buy so little from Amazon these days that I’m questioning the $15 per month value of Prime.
I hope we see society correct course and go back to how it was in the 90’s, before everything went to shit. No social media. No smart phones. Going out more. Less digital noise. Physical media from physical stores. The list goes on…
I often wonder how different AI sentiment would be today if all of the layoffs that were opportunistically blamed on AI by the company CEOs were instead blamed on the real reason (likely pandemic related over hiring). The root of the backlash started as a result of all those “AI” layoffs and the hyperscaler CEOs gloating how everybody was going to lose their job due to AI. So in the end, they reap what they sow. A growing backlash that is not going away anytime soon.
If you can make the masses fight for 2 instead of 1, then you guarantee that you don't get 1. If instead, the masses fight for 1, they've got a chance of getting it. You present AI as a false dichotomy: no AI or AI for billionaires. But 2 is a fantasy. There will be AI.
Any of us arguing for (1) get shouted down by the very people who would benefit most from it. The masses do the job of the billionaires.
Most utopian science fiction has AI doing the work and humans leading a life of leisure (e.g. Culture novels). Dystopian futures have AI keeping the rabble under control (Neil Asher's Owner Trilogy, Elysium). Time to choose folks.
People don't see the safety net, that's the problem. Big tech hopes that bigdiks gonna bring in UBI and the like to ease the pepl, but it's nowhere near on the horizon. And it will be hard to persuade the ruling psychos to let the millions of their slaves running amok.
So pepl gonna riot and hunt down AI researchers and ceos and gonna burn them at the stake and then eat them :D. Musk will tell the sect members to hunt down Sam and the first one who bites his calves will be awarded a cybertruck.
Oh and data centers gonna be looted after hungry pepl eat the security guards and the mercenaries. Also remember everyone have rifles and gatlings buried in the garden :DDD.
All that's going to happen is people will "voluntarily" take it away from themselves.
The fearmongers will tell stories about biological or chemical weapons. It'll be things you could learn from a textbook - something like mercury molecules or cultivating rabies. People will vote to ban AI.
The puritans will clutch their pearls because it can be used to make porn they don't like. They'll vote to ban AI.
People who are afraid of losing their jobs will make tangential arguments about copyright violations. They'll vote to ban AI.
So citizens won't be allowed to use AI directly.
Instead, there will be regulatory capture. Microsoft and Apple will pay fees for compliance testing (bribes). Then they'll serve you a dumbed down version you can't escape. "I see you're trying to analyze numbers. Click here for a free signup to Office 365!".
The social media sites will make sure you still have access to create rage bait slop. That improves engagement.
Big software companies will pay for bug finding services. Small open source projects won't have the money.
If you're upset by AI, you should ask yourself if that's part of the plan. Because there's a lot of money to be made and power to be stripped from citizens if everything above comes true.
If you read the article, it's mainly about data centers. Which is understandable regardless of your feelings about the technology. There's a ton of money, energy, labor, water, etc. going into building and operating data centers. It's a big change and a big topic for a lot of local governments. Because there's so much money involved and local government is so dysfunctional, there's also at least the appearance of the public will being given short shrift.
Then you add in on top of that people hearing that everyone's job is in jeopardy, like right now, even if it's not really true. Plus rumors about how untrustworthy people like Sam Altman are. Not to mention that they are San Francisco elites. Lawsuits. Cozying up to Trump. Etc. It's not surprising most of the sentiment around AI is incredibly negative and getting more negative by the day.
While the west clutches their pearls, China roars ahead on manufacturing, energy, and AI. Unqualified military supremacy will soon follow. I weep for my children.
Bunch of idiots. We’re all going to lose our jobs but you can only hold back the inevitable for so long. This idiot populous has a total inability to see past the extremely short term. What exactly is going to happen you’re going to block the data centers. You’re going to make it hard to make technical progress and then someone else will eat your lunch and now you’re just poor.
It's funny how easily you can differentiate people in the tech industry who spend all their time with others in the tech industry from those who don't.
The former either seem puzzled about the general public's anger at AI or dismissive of it ("they don't really hate it - look at ChatGPT usage!", "they only hate it because they've been misled about water usage!" and so on).
Non-techies aren't as stupid as people in the tech industry think. Normies can see their social media feeds filling up with slop. They see people in their social circles who can no longer hold a normal conversation without feeding everything into ChatGPT. And - most importantly, I suspect - they are seeing the plan they've built their lives around - get your kids to do well in school, get them into college so they can have a good career and make enough to pay of the loans that plan will require - being casually dismissed by AI boosters ("they'll be plenty of jobs, we just don't know what they are yet!").
Here's a clue for people who don't understand the backlash: if you don't understand that stability has value on its own, then you lack a basic understanding of what more people actually care about.
The current wave of AI companies did this to themselves. Had things moved more slowly and actively worked with all the affected industries, I suspect people would be far less interested in seeing the technology fail.
The looting began with how they trained their models and now they want to continue the looting with how the models are being used. You can't loot entire industries by cooperating with them.
America has a proud tradition of offering college students a very broad education. Unfortunately, this trend doesn't seem to have made it to the techbros -- the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world -- who are not only spoilt, sheltered rich kids and uncultured philistines in their own right, but are also college dropouts; shamelessly so. That lack of culture drives their wanton disrespect for others' artistic output.
The entire AI wave is built on the shameless wholesale theft of the hard work of others. This exploitative, extractive business model is really no different from the legalised banditry operated by PE value extraction outfits like Vista and their ilk -- just on a vastly greater scale.
Late stage capitalism stopped building value years ago. It's now all about building wealth pumps and toll booths all over the economy to immorally extract as much value as possible, from as many different people as possible, as efficiently as possible.
AI is fine, AI eating up jobs and taking away autonomy of people's lives. Not okay. It is a tool, it is expensive to run if it isn't more efficient or better.
It is a very fun tool when used correctly. I think there is a point where our current technology will wall before we achieve genuinely good AI. We're starting to see that now.
We are also over invested in it which also leaves us vulnerable for a crash in the market.
There's a lot to like about AI, but there's so much slop and everthing is getting so shitty, if I had to choose a side, it would be "against it."
I had to suffer through taling to Sutter Heath's AI three times today before I could get through to a person to tell them about a billing mistake. I finally decided to send a formal demand letter via FedEx (written with the help of AI) rather than deal with all this AI slop they've put between me and customer service.
Job losses are being fueled by cost cutting, not realized business transformation. There are early indicators of massive productivity gains in certain roles, coupled with a pervasive belief that the technology is advancing at a rate that means we must all evolve to survive in this new landscape, both people and organizations.
Executive teams are under pressure to cut costs now to fund AI investment and capture efficiencies they believe competitors are already realizing, fueled by an echo chamber that inflates small AI advancements (relative to impact) into evidence of sweeping transformation. My gut says offshore is benefiting from, and accelerating through, this transition because it remains the most familiar and defensible path to immediate cost cutting for most organizations.
This is the product of a massive own-goal by America's rightwing feral business overclass.
They were bragging to shareholders about how AI was being used to slash headcount, to gratuitously ruin thousands of lives to pump up the bottom line and "reward" their already-pampered shareholders. They themselves got handsomely rewarded for it.
Now they're crying and acting all butthurt for the intense negative public reaction their greed-driven communication strategy provoked.
29 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 49.0 ms ] threadCompanies have their relationship with people, specifically employees, backwards. What percentage of companies out there are truly needed? What percentage solely exist because people have some surplus money to play with?
No one needs Microsoft or Google products. No one needs overpriced Apple crap. AI means jack shit to almost 100% of Americans. Streaming services are one bad day away from ruin. We’ve seen what piracy can do. Now we have faster, better internet. Food delivery services RIP. I buy so little from Amazon these days that I’m questioning the $15 per month value of Prime.
I hope we see society correct course and go back to how it was in the 90’s, before everything went to shit. No social media. No smart phones. Going out more. Less digital noise. Physical media from physical stores. The list goes on…
There are three options:
1. AI owned by everyone
2. No AI
3. AI owned by billionaires
If you can make the masses fight for 2 instead of 1, then you guarantee that you don't get 1. If instead, the masses fight for 1, they've got a chance of getting it. You present AI as a false dichotomy: no AI or AI for billionaires. But 2 is a fantasy. There will be AI.
Any of us arguing for (1) get shouted down by the very people who would benefit most from it. The masses do the job of the billionaires.
Most utopian science fiction has AI doing the work and humans leading a life of leisure (e.g. Culture novels). Dystopian futures have AI keeping the rabble under control (Neil Asher's Owner Trilogy, Elysium). Time to choose folks.
So pepl gonna riot and hunt down AI researchers and ceos and gonna burn them at the stake and then eat them :D. Musk will tell the sect members to hunt down Sam and the first one who bites his calves will be awarded a cybertruck.
Oh and data centers gonna be looted after hungry pepl eat the security guards and the mercenaries. Also remember everyone have rifles and gatlings buried in the garden :DDD.
Niice future.
The fearmongers will tell stories about biological or chemical weapons. It'll be things you could learn from a textbook - something like mercury molecules or cultivating rabies. People will vote to ban AI.
The puritans will clutch their pearls because it can be used to make porn they don't like. They'll vote to ban AI.
People who are afraid of losing their jobs will make tangential arguments about copyright violations. They'll vote to ban AI.
So citizens won't be allowed to use AI directly.
Instead, there will be regulatory capture. Microsoft and Apple will pay fees for compliance testing (bribes). Then they'll serve you a dumbed down version you can't escape. "I see you're trying to analyze numbers. Click here for a free signup to Office 365!".
The social media sites will make sure you still have access to create rage bait slop. That improves engagement.
Big software companies will pay for bug finding services. Small open source projects won't have the money.
If you're upset by AI, you should ask yourself if that's part of the plan. Because there's a lot of money to be made and power to be stripped from citizens if everything above comes true.
Then you add in on top of that people hearing that everyone's job is in jeopardy, like right now, even if it's not really true. Plus rumors about how untrustworthy people like Sam Altman are. Not to mention that they are San Francisco elites. Lawsuits. Cozying up to Trump. Etc. It's not surprising most of the sentiment around AI is incredibly negative and getting more negative by the day.
The former either seem puzzled about the general public's anger at AI or dismissive of it ("they don't really hate it - look at ChatGPT usage!", "they only hate it because they've been misled about water usage!" and so on).
Non-techies aren't as stupid as people in the tech industry think. Normies can see their social media feeds filling up with slop. They see people in their social circles who can no longer hold a normal conversation without feeding everything into ChatGPT. And - most importantly, I suspect - they are seeing the plan they've built their lives around - get your kids to do well in school, get them into college so they can have a good career and make enough to pay of the loans that plan will require - being casually dismissed by AI boosters ("they'll be plenty of jobs, we just don't know what they are yet!").
Here's a clue for people who don't understand the backlash: if you don't understand that stability has value on its own, then you lack a basic understanding of what more people actually care about.
2. Culture workers are a big part of who sets the narrative for the general population - especially young people.
3. Less than 1/5 of Gen Z are optimistic about AI and the number is falling: (https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skep...)
The current wave of AI companies did this to themselves. Had things moved more slowly and actively worked with all the affected industries, I suspect people would be far less interested in seeing the technology fail.
The entire AI wave is built on the shameless wholesale theft of the hard work of others. This exploitative, extractive business model is really no different from the legalised banditry operated by PE value extraction outfits like Vista and their ilk -- just on a vastly greater scale.
Late stage capitalism stopped building value years ago. It's now all about building wealth pumps and toll booths all over the economy to immorally extract as much value as possible, from as many different people as possible, as efficiently as possible.
It is a very fun tool when used correctly. I think there is a point where our current technology will wall before we achieve genuinely good AI. We're starting to see that now.
We are also over invested in it which also leaves us vulnerable for a crash in the market.
Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona after praising AI
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48172419
Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674
Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177107
An AI Hate Wave Is Here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173318
I had to suffer through taling to Sutter Heath's AI three times today before I could get through to a person to tell them about a billing mistake. I finally decided to send a formal demand letter via FedEx (written with the help of AI) rather than deal with all this AI slop they've put between me and customer service.
No Javascript
http://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA23w1HH/
Executive teams are under pressure to cut costs now to fund AI investment and capture efficiencies they believe competitors are already realizing, fueled by an echo chamber that inflates small AI advancements (relative to impact) into evidence of sweeping transformation. My gut says offshore is benefiting from, and accelerating through, this transition because it remains the most familiar and defensible path to immediate cost cutting for most organizations.
They were bragging to shareholders about how AI was being used to slash headcount, to gratuitously ruin thousands of lives to pump up the bottom line and "reward" their already-pampered shareholders. They themselves got handsomely rewarded for it.
Now they're crying and acting all butthurt for the intense negative public reaction their greed-driven communication strategy provoked.
Well, that is RATHER unfortunate, isn't it??