[Tyrubias]

This was evident everywhere except within the AI industry itself. The rhetoric from many of the industry’s top leaders has been “this technology will eliminate millions of jobs, fundamentally reshape countless other jobs, and automate the use of lethal force, but we’re going to develop it anyways”. Many of the current economic woes, including mass layoffs, have been blamed on AI by the very executives conducting said layoffs. In addition, the major AI companies have shamelessly stole intellectual property to train their models and shoveled AI down everyone’s throats. Is it any wonder that the general public hates AI? The AI industry isn’t exactly doing its best to appear likable.

[monksy]

Roy Sutherland has a really good take on AI. Most of the AI companies are targeting a cost cutting proposoition where they should target a value creation one. Targeting and pushing towards a regressive elimination route is tox and destructive to those around it.

Then again the CEOs of these companies want to get their company at all cost to society.

[ncouture]

The title of the original article feels like click-baiut to me. It's covering an act of violence under the pretext that people hate AI.

In fact it's a very sad story about a 20 year old throwing their life away instead of fighting for what he believes is right through non-violent activism and/or regulations.

Last year I wrote an article asking the very question "Who will be the next Luddites?", National Geographics followed-up months later. I'm sure many before, after or in-between covered the same topic. There is truth to it, we will be impacted but let's not forget we went through this during the industial revolution and we should be better equipped than ever to fight using meaningful non-violent acts and operations.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-neo-luddites-more-importa...

http://nationalgeographic.com/history/article/luddite-indust...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism

[estimator7292]

Non-violent means don't work and get you killed by cops. This is what the people are left with.

[atmavatar]

Non-violent protests do work, though they require you hit a critical mass to become effective. There even exists a 3.5% rule[1] in political science whereby authoritarian governments will topple if 3.5% of the population engages in nonviolent protest.

One of the more famous examples here in the US is that of the equal rights marches in the 1960s ultimately leading to the end of segregation.

What I'm not sure of, though, is what kind of impact there is on the required percentage of people participating when we have media outlets like Fox News, which was demonstrated to have fabricated images during events like the Black Lives Matter protests to make them look as if they were violent.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule

[danaris]

While I agree with your basic premise, that 3.5% "rule" is much more of an observed effect than an actual rule.

There needs to be an actual mechanism for the protests to bring about the fall of the authoritarian regime. Unfortunately, in our current context, a lot of the feedback mechanisms that should cause protests to change actual policy and affect the people in power are broken, largely due to the Republicans' efforts over the last several decades to eliminate accountability both from the actual institutions and as a valid concept in our national consciousness.

[joquarky]

> There even exists a 3.5% rule[1] in political science whereby authoritarian governments will topple if 3.5% of the population engages in nonviolent protest.

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

> equal rights marches in the 1960s

Since then, authoritarian think tanks have planned ahead and now have comprehensive documents for how to nullify the effects of peaceful protests.

[nozzlegear]

> Non-violent means don't work

MLK Jr.'s Civil Rights protests are an obvious counterpoint to this claim.

[joquarky]

Times have changed and authoritarian think tanks have nearly perfected the mitigation of peaceful protests.

[esalman]

If you get killed by cops that does not necessarily mean the means are not working. All good things in life come at a sacrifice.

[collingreen]

It doesn't necessarily mean it is working either though.

Not all sacrifice needs to be all or nothing.

[globalnode]

but violence doesnt work either, even if you conquer a whole nation (or social class or insert w/e here), you didnt really win and oneday they will get their revenge, so you're better off trying the non-violent way

[slg]

Does anyone else see the disconnect between how Americans talk about our history compared to how we talk about political violence of today?

How can we glorify Thomas Jefferson and teach kids about him saying "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" only to then condemn the spilling of any modern blood? Truly what is the difference between torching a warehouse of toilet paper compared to tossing some tea in the harbor?

How can we condemn one and celebrate the other without being hypocrites?

[collingreen]

Propaganda and "history is written by the victors"

Propaganda is the difference between rebels and freedom fighters.

[hackable_sand]

I don't think anyone should be glorifying Jefferson.

You could have written L'Overture instead and it would have been a great example.

[Balgair]

So, at my BigCo, this rings very true.

We've tried to internally pitch many ideas to the larger organization before but mostly got nothing back.

Finally, one of the various board members talked to my boss and told them that, essentially, it has to be top line growth, not bottom line savings.

We looked this up and it came down to some MBA mumbo-jumbo about how X% of growth is better than that same X% of savings once you run the math (?). Look, I know, that's not how percentages work and I know that savings actually do matter. But in 'I have an MBA-land' the mantra is topline > bottomline.

So, then we started to pitch ideas around growth (new lines, more customer sales, more customers, etc). Which went ... nowhere ... again.

Time goes by again, and another helpful person reaches out and tells us that our ideas are 'not worth considering' as they 'don't meaningfully impact revenue targets'. Again, essentially, just to justify the salary-time that these internal boards spend, the idea has to be net positive. Then it we learned that, no, it has to impact the revenue to 1%. For our BigCo that in the ~$10M ballpark. We do have the customer base to support that, but it is in the revenue ballpark of Atari or the Hypixel servers.

Look, either way, the run-around that I get told is that for AI projects that we pitch internally: 1) Top line growth only 2) ~1% increase in revenue (~$10M).

Now, why anyone would not just go take that ~$10M idea and not just make a company themselves is beyond me, but I don't get paid the big bucks, so who knows.

Still, that is what these BigCos are looking for: Growth in the ~$1-10M range.

[z3c0]

Not to mention, it doesn't actually create the productivity promised at the lower rates promised. The most enthusiastic proponents are middle-management, not actual doers.

It's an expensive route to mediocrity, which doesnt offer an edge in a market where everyone is using the same snakeoil.

[the_snooze]

They got way over their skis on this one. There's a difference between "impressive" tech vs. "operational" tech. That difference usually boils down to prioritizing engineering rigor over marketing.

[EA-3167]

Unreliable mediocrity, because you simply can never be sure when the damned thing lies/hallucinates unless you double-check everything.

So now you're wrangling an "AI" system and you're doing most of the work you would have had to anyway. ...And when you don't it can get really embarrassing.

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/elite-wall-street-la...

Not the first time, surely not the last. The problem is that so much money is tied up in this thing, and the moment the music stops the bag holders are going to be utterly doomed.

[girvo]

> the bag holders are going to be utterly doomed

Good news, the plan is for us to be the bag holders as they rush to IPO.

[autaut]

I think tech ceo got a little bit too excited and their mask fell off and started saying “oh yeah, you don’t like it? Too bad nothing you can do about it”. You’ll see them quickly backpedal to woke 1.0 when it turns out they were a bit too quick about it.

[Gigachad]

And when people showed up at Sam Altmans house.

[yoyohello13]

I’m frankly more shocked that people in the industry are surprised the general public hates them. Like it’s been non-stop fear mongering and hype from them for years, AI has basically done nothing to improve the lives of normal people, wtf did they expect?

[SpicyLemonZest]

They didn't expect anything else and aren't surprised. "The X industry is discovering..." is one of those stock phrases that people just kinda deploy willy-nilly; the article contains no argument that anyone in the AI industry didn't know or didn't expect this.

[emp17344]

Presumably these companies on the verge of an IPO don’t want the public to hate them or their product. It wasn’t exactly a calculated maneuver - they made a decision to leverage fear-based marketing and it backfired.

[SpicyLemonZest]

It wasn't any sort of maneuver! It's what they genuinely believe! Both OpenAI and Anthropic have been telling people about the existential risk of powerful AI since the very day they were founded; OpenAI has been at it since 2015, 8 years before they had any meaningful product to market.

Sam Altman still says, after being the victim of anti-AI violence, that "the fear and anxiety about AI is justified" and "it will not all go well".

People simply refuse to believe that AI companies are serious about this, and get twisted into knots trying to understand why AI companies would choose this messaging under the premise that they can't be serious.

[operatingthetan]

If they are in a cult that shuns outside opinions, it could be a surprise when they find out...

[dominotw]

not to mention all the AI boosters seems to have the most hatable scammy personalities. why are they all so smug.

magnet for scum like boosters on X, middle managment types, linkedin ai influences, ppl making fake videos on facebook.

[rvz]

Not a surprise. Seems like AI is more hated than crypto and this shows that the AI industry is in a bubble.

At least crypto does not take away more jobs than it creates, where as we all know AI takes away more jobs and no-one can give a solution or explain what the "new jobs" are.

Because the value from AI is to automate the jobs from humans. Claiming otherwise is being intellectually dishonest. Same goes for defining "AGI".

[YZF]

Crypto sucks energy and creates no value. It's complete and utter speculative garbage that also destroys the planet.

AI has real value. We can argue about whether the cost is worth the value, whether we're on an exponential improvement curve or not, whether it ends up creating jobs or destroying jobs, but AI is mind blowing science fiction that nobody would have believed you will exist 10 years ago.

[rvz]

> Crypto sucks energy and creates no value. It's complete and utter speculative garbage that also destroys the planet.

All of what you said is false.

Stablecoins are not speculative and have value, and you can send money at a low fee, low cost, worldwide to wallets on the same day, right now with far less energy than today's "AI".

> AI has real value.

What do you mean by "AI" specifically? LLMs in data centers?

The value in for this mysterious "AI" or even "AGI" paradise is not even for you. It is actually used against you.

> We can argue about whether the cost is worth the value, whether we're on an exponential improvement curve or not

You understand that the current iteration of "AI" needs tens of gigawatts of energy and hundreds of billions of dollars and wasteful amounts of water which causes electricity prices in certain cities to skyrocket?

The way that it is financed appears to be close to fraudulent with vague "commitments" and mountains of debt that would take almost a trillion dollars in revenue to pay off the data centre build out.

> whether it ends up creating jobs or destroying jobs, but AI is mind blowing science fiction that nobody would have believed you will exist 10 years ago.

Assuming after the data centers will be built (if they ever will be), can you name what are those new jobs that will be created from "AI"?

[YZF]

How much market cap is in stablecoins vs. proof of work crypto? Has Bitcoin gone down and disappeared due to the avabilability of stablecoin?

Bitcoin uses 200TWh (per year) probably pretty similar to all the AI usage today give or take. Certainly if we look at the area under the curve Bitcoin still by far has used more energy (~1000TWh) than AI/LLMs. For what is essentially a scam/pyramid scheme. And this is just Bitcoin. But yes, LLMs are using more and more energy (but also potentially with a larger % of renewable sources).

I mean AI in the colloquial sense. Large language models. It's ridiculous to compare the value produce by Bitcoin (negative- crime, money laundering, funding terrorist regimes, tax evasion etc.) to the value of LLMs.

LLMs enable people who couldn't produce software applications before to do so. This enables new business that didn't exist before. Those business hire people directly (including eventually software engineers) and create indirect jobs. This is no different than the steam engine or the Internet. You're arguing that the Internet took away the jobs of the people working in the post office because letters could now be sent electronically. I don't have a crystal ball but the historical experience teaches us that new jobs do get created and the economy is not a zero sum game. Maybe this will be different and maybe it won't.

[binyu]

> At least crypto does not take away more jobs than it creates

Except sometimes when there's a huge black swan event, or when the bubble pops. Such things can result in significant layoffs even though it's a completely different mechanism.