[vouaobrasil]

> Either way, this is an exercise in futility.

Is it really? Every drop of opposition towards AI in my book is a good thing. This robots.txt thing is a small drop maybe, but over time public hatred for AI can build and it might in fact be taken down. Especially outside the tech bubble, many people are ambivalent towards AI.

Yes, in modern society were are taught to value innovation and ignore its downsides, but the more vocal opponents are against it, the more those downsides will become apparent. Hopefully, it will bring the ruin of all AI companies and research.

[cabirum]

I'm kind of out of the loop in regard why do we need to hate on AI? The bubble will burst given time, like all the other bubbles before.

What needed is indifference, not hate.

[nerdjon]

I think we need to be careful to assume that the AI bubble is really going to burst, there is way too much money being put into it by big players for them to just give up on it. I mean Microsoft is even pushing for a new key on Windows keyboards.

We also have to look at this bubble differently. With Crypto there was a general technical level that was required to use it that many people just did not have. I would say the same is true for most bubbles we have seen.

AI is generally available for anyone that has enough understanding on how to open a browser to use. Too many non technical people have just accepted it without understanding the risks.

Edit: You can really see just how bad this is going to get if you look at Apple. How they are deemed to be "behind" because they don't have generative AI right now and how they are so desperate that they are looking at Google.

I really don't think this is going to burst and really all that is going to happen is even more consolidation and we will be screwed.

[starbugs]

> Edit: You can really see just how bad this is going to get if you look at Apple. How they are deemed to be "behind" because they don't have generative AI right now and how they are so desperate that they are looking at Google.

> I really don't think this is going to burst and really all that is going to happen is even more consolidation and we will be screwed.

It's always FOMO until it's FUD.

[starbugs]

> What needed is indifference, not hate.

Agree that hate is not the solution. But saying "no" decidedly and loudly is absolutely something that people need to relearn and I am happy to see that some do now.

Just being indifferent is not sufficient.

Finding and taking measures to protect yourself and others is a positive way to approach this IMO.

[vouaobrasil]

I disagree. If something is truly damaging to society, we need to opposite it actively and crush it.

Indifference is what leads people to ignore climate change. Indifference is what leads people to allow corporations to destroy communities. Indifference is what allows global capitalism to keep going.

I am not concerned with an AI hype bubble bursting. AI already has enough power to strengthen the industrial society outside the hype. Perhaps hatred is not quite the right word. Perhaps love is a better one: a love for smaller communities and more sustainability. Wasn't it Che Guevara who said, "the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love."?

Regardless, indifference is not he answer: it is passionate opposition with a zero tolerance policy towards AI, AI researchers, and AI companies.

[Wissenschafter]

Only on hackernews you get the most ironic of takes. Supposedly someone who is educated and technologically literate to a high degree, thinks opposition to AI is a good thing.

Crazy world.

[quickslowdown]

Crazy world when any random person on the Internet just assumes everyone else thinks the way they do. Put me solidly in the camp of educated & "technologically literate to a high degree" and also in opposition of AI.

[Wissenschafter]

The two are inherently incompatible to me. I don't understand how you can hold those positions.

To me, being against AI is pretty much 'evil'. You support humans existing in a barbaric existence like animals, suffering. I support laws to criminalize people hampering it like they are doing in Japan.

I literally will fight against people like you.

[ler_]

Well, with AI people will still likely be suffering, except those at the top of the pyramid will be doing even better. Not so great. The AI debate is not about technology per se, but more so about seeing how gains in technology / productivity only go to the top, and extrapolating how bad that will be when greed meets the hyper-productivity of AI.

[quickslowdown]

I'm not going to fight you lol, and your hyperbole means nothing to me. You strut in here making assertions and assume everyone just feels the same and is going to go along.

Your mentality is irresponsible and exactly the problem I have with AI.

[lewhoo]

The level of scrutiny and plurality of opinions towards technology in general is imho what makes a tech forum good.

[Wissenschafter]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just so unexpected that every time I see it it fascinates me.

[nerdjon]

> thinks opposition to AI is a good thing.

Because we don't want nearly every job to be automated by AI?

"Crazy world"

[Wissenschafter]

It's crazy you think we don't want our jobs automated away. The whole point of automation is to reduce human labor. Mind boggling people literally choose to want to have to labor even if it is no longer necessary.

[krapp]

>Mind boggling people literally choose to want to have to labor even if it is no longer necessary.

It is necessary, it just isn't available. We still live in a capitalist society in which anyone not a member of the capitalist class is required to labor in order to afford the necessities of survival. AI means fewer opportunities to do so, despite the requirement remaining constant. No one is choosing to labor under this system, any more than one chooses to eat, drink or sleep.

AI is not being implemented to free the labor class from this obligation, it is being implemented to free the capitalist class from the obligation to provide the means of survival to the labor class in exchange for their labor. The end result will not be the labor classes living lives of luxury in creative and intellectual pursuit, but as much unemployment and poverty as the market can bear.

[bembo]

Why wouldn't we want jobs to be automated exactly?

[vouaobrasil]

Because if a job is automted, it means that the person whose job is automated now is unemployed. Even if we have UBI, it means that the person DOING the automating will get a disproportionate share of the resources compared with the pittance given to the person who was automated.

Personally, I don't want my job to be automated. I write for a living and if AI takes my job, I won't get paid. I prefer to create value in the world that other people appreciate. I don't WANT to sit in a concrete cage (an apartment) and consume media, with no real purpose in society.

Believe it or not, the majority of people in the world need to feel like they are working for something. Yes, some people will be able to find other causes (mine will be the opposition of AI), but others won't. Of course, that will mean the necessity of drugging people with media (and physical substances...why do you think marijuana is becoming legal in more places?).

The end result is a mode of pure consumption for almost all except the elite who control all the production, and they will decide what happens with the world. Personally, I don't want that: I want land and autonomy to use it to grow food and preserve ecosystems. I want the world to be sustainable, and not just set up for the purpose of furthering technology.

You speak of societal changes on a year-scale. I'm talking about decades and the long-term. This level of automation is bad, and won't do any favours for humanity except the ultra-rich, who will eventually perish like everyone else.

[Wissenschafter]

I'm always dumbfounded by the luddites on hackernews, it blows my mind.

[vouaobrasil]

Don't worry, I am equally dumbfounded by blind faith in technology.

[pseudonamed]

Is your position that the scenario outlined above is irrational?

[pseudonamed]

...unless we change our socio-political systems. A complex endeavour but worth remembering.

[vouaobrasil]

Change, or revolt against them...

[nunez]

Because every job that gets automated creates massive unemployment for those who were skilled in it

what do you think will happen to us devs if AI gets good enough to do our jobs? Do you think our companies will keep us around because we're just so darn smart?

What do you think is _already happening_ to in-house artists, content/technical writers, marketing analysts, and other jobs that are directly impacted by LLMs in their current form?

[Wissenschafter]

I'm not a selfish asshole, just a normal asshole. Yeah, I'm going to be affected by my job also being automated, everyone will. It's not a field specific problem. It's a societal paradigm change.

[nunez]

This doesn't bother you? If not, how come?

[nerdjon]

Well at this point in time we live in a capitalist world and people need money to survive?

I assume you like being paid, buying things, food, etc.

Would it be great if we lived in a utopian society that money no longer mattered. Sure! Even with AI I see basically zero chance of that happening in any reasonable amount of time before AI destroys our society.

[vouaobrasil]

Actually, I believe it was my education in pure mathematics (PhD), computer programming, and technology, as well as living in three countries and seeing the word that allowed me to truly realize how damaging AI can really be. Believe it or not, I was heavily into technology when I was in my 20s.

But after seeing environmental damage, reading widely in philosophy and sociology, writing about it to clarify it, I came to a different conclusion: that technology is not all it's cracked up to be, especially when it is plugged into a system of global capitalism whose ultimate aim is consumerism.

Just think: one of the biggest companies in the world (Google/Alphabet) has as its primary goal to promote unsustainability. If that doesn't make you think, what will.

And let me ask you this: are you so sure about technology, given that you were raised in a world that praises it like a religion? I think the fanatical religious witch hunters also thought they were right, simply because they were raised in such an environment.

Loving technology is the default position of the rich. Is that just a coincidence?

[Wissenschafter]

I'm 30, you sound older. I did my education in philosophy and physics and I'm a data engineer at a F200. I think you couldn't be more wrong, and out of touch. You sound like Kaczynsky.

I love technology because it's interesting, who cares what rich people think. I can't understand this oldhead defeatist mentality a lot of people here seem to have similar to yours.

[vouaobrasil]

I love wildlife and the natural world, and technology is utterly dependent on destroying it via mining. The directions we go in shouldn't be determined based on just whether they are interesting. They also need to be constrained based on whether they are sustainable. You obviously don't care much about the negative environmental effects of technological development.

By the way, I am not defeatist because:

1. I think we can make great progress, only progress towards rewilding nature

2. I only consider technology a dead-end, not humanity! I believe we can move past arbitrary technological development and discard our consumerist ways.

[Wissenschafter]

A mine is just as natural as an antill. It's your perspective that is the unnatural one.

Humans are not separate from the nature we exist in.

[pseudonamed]

Indeed, we aren't separate; that does not mean that swimming in an acid mine lake is equivalent to swimming in a clear glacial lake... one is more likely to kill you than the other.

You mentioned studying philosophy, you're confusing your ontological and epistemological positions.

[vouaobrasil]

In that case, we should just eradicate all life on this planet because any action we do is natural....

...or, we could actually evaluate the transition of life from natural to technological. Yes, in a philosophical sense, you are right, what we do is "natural". But then if we just say everything we do is natural, then we might as well just do nothing. But there are still meaningful distinctions between the technological human organization (even if natural) and the rest of the world, and we would do well to examine if what we are doing is really harmonious with everything-but-us -- because if not, then I reject it outright even if it is natural in the sense that you describe.

Your wordplay is really not very impressive.

[pseudonamed]

"who cares what rich people think" is an astoundingly politically naive statement.

[beeboobaa3]

You sound incredibly naive. Good luck enjoying technology when all you get to do is manual labor to feed the machine. Everything else will be done "for us", with the rich people in charge of it all.

[Wissenschafter]

I sound naive? Have you even read any Marx?

[beeboobaa3]

Are you going to reply to the comment, or just keep slinging vague personal attacks?

[starbugs]

> Supposedly someone who is educated and technologically literate to a high degree, thinks opposition to AI is a good thing.

Ignoring that your comment is phrased in a hurtful way towards the parent which got you a downvote from me, why do you think these two are connected in any way?