[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.