Has an AI Backlash Begun? (wired.com) 75
"The potential threat of bosses attempting to replace human workers with AI agents is just one of many compounding reasons people are critical of generative AI..." writes Wired, arguing that there's an AI backlash that "keeps growing strong."
"The pushback from the creative community ramped up during the 2023 Hollywood writer's strike, and continued to accelerate through the current wave of copyright lawsuits brought by publishers, creatives, and Hollywood studios." And "Right now, the general vibe aligns even more with the side of impacted workers." "I think there is a new sort of ambient animosity towards the AI systems," says Brian Merchant, former WIRED contributor and author of Blood in the Machine, a book about the Luddites rebelling against worker-replacing technology. "AI companies have speedrun the Silicon Valley trajectory." Before ChatGPT's release, around 38 percent of US adults were more concerned than excited about increased AI usage in daily life, according to the Pew Research Center. The number shot up to 52 percent by late 2023, as the public reacted to the speedy spread of generative AI. The level of concern has hovered around that same threshold ever since...
[F]rustration over AI's steady creep has breached the container of social media and started manifesting more in the real world. Parents I talk to are concerned about AI use impacting their child's mental health. Couples are worried about chatbot addictions driving a wedge in their relationships. Rural communities are incensed that the newly built data centers required to power these AI tools are kept humming by generators that burn fossil fuels, polluting their air, water, and soil. As a whole, the benefits of AI seem esoteric and underwhelming while the harms feel transformative and immediate.
Unlike the dawn of the internet where democratized access to information empowered everyday people in unique, surprising ways, the generative AI era has been defined by half-baked software releases and threats of AI replacing human workers, especially for recent college graduates looking to find entry-level work. "Our innovation ecosystem in the 20th century was about making opportunities for human flourishing more accessible," says Shannon Vallor, a technology philosopher at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and author of The AI Mirror, a book about reclaiming human agency from algorithms. "Now, we have an era of innovation where the greatest opportunities the technology creates are for those already enjoying a disproportionate share of strengths and resources."
The impacts of generative AI on the workforce are another core issue that critics are organizing around. "Workers are more intuitive than a lot of the pundit class gives them credit for," says Merchant. "They know this has been a naked attempt to get rid of people."
The article suggests "the next major shift in public opinion" is likely "when broad swaths of workers feel further threatened," and organize in response...
"The pushback from the creative community ramped up during the 2023 Hollywood writer's strike, and continued to accelerate through the current wave of copyright lawsuits brought by publishers, creatives, and Hollywood studios." And "Right now, the general vibe aligns even more with the side of impacted workers." "I think there is a new sort of ambient animosity towards the AI systems," says Brian Merchant, former WIRED contributor and author of Blood in the Machine, a book about the Luddites rebelling against worker-replacing technology. "AI companies have speedrun the Silicon Valley trajectory." Before ChatGPT's release, around 38 percent of US adults were more concerned than excited about increased AI usage in daily life, according to the Pew Research Center. The number shot up to 52 percent by late 2023, as the public reacted to the speedy spread of generative AI. The level of concern has hovered around that same threshold ever since...
[F]rustration over AI's steady creep has breached the container of social media and started manifesting more in the real world. Parents I talk to are concerned about AI use impacting their child's mental health. Couples are worried about chatbot addictions driving a wedge in their relationships. Rural communities are incensed that the newly built data centers required to power these AI tools are kept humming by generators that burn fossil fuels, polluting their air, water, and soil. As a whole, the benefits of AI seem esoteric and underwhelming while the harms feel transformative and immediate.
Unlike the dawn of the internet where democratized access to information empowered everyday people in unique, surprising ways, the generative AI era has been defined by half-baked software releases and threats of AI replacing human workers, especially for recent college graduates looking to find entry-level work. "Our innovation ecosystem in the 20th century was about making opportunities for human flourishing more accessible," says Shannon Vallor, a technology philosopher at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and author of The AI Mirror, a book about reclaiming human agency from algorithms. "Now, we have an era of innovation where the greatest opportunities the technology creates are for those already enjoying a disproportionate share of strengths and resources."
The impacts of generative AI on the workforce are another core issue that critics are organizing around. "Workers are more intuitive than a lot of the pundit class gives them credit for," says Merchant. "They know this has been a naked attempt to get rid of people."
The article suggests "the next major shift in public opinion" is likely "when broad swaths of workers feel further threatened," and organize in response...
Now we just need.. (Score:2)
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>> because I know enough to catch the BS the AIs have told me to use and correct it
That's a good thing, right? You are still essential to the coding process. But the AI models are steadily and rapidly being improved, the pace of advancement just over the past year is incredible. By this time next year I think we will be surprised again.
Meanwhile today I used AI to help me create an image recognition model trained from hundreds of task-specific images. It wrote most of the code (based on my prompts) an
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Expect your subordinates to misinterpret you unless you provide enough details to that it's impossible to provide any result except what you were expecting.
I receive exceptionally good results most every time. It takes extra work to get started, but as with anything you get out what you put in.
Remote work undercuts unions (Score:5, Insightful)
tech workers need to go union!
The demand for remote work undercuts any power unions had. A union's power is based on the ability to project power locally. Whether that is locking up a talent pool or deterring non-union replacement workers. With remote work they have zero ability to apply such pressure. The remote worker is beyond their knowledge or reach, sitting anonymously in their distant home.
It's hard when... (Score:2)
It's hard to feel good about AI and LLMs in general when really sh*tty, megalomaniac companies strong arm, steal, coerce, threaten, and just generally behave badly in their rush to spend ten trillion dollars (and they're going to want it all back, at yours and my expense) to get their technology into the main stream. You shouldn't trust these people to watch your dog or cat for the weekend let alone your child or your whole life. Just say no to crappy companies who aren't so "well-intention"-ed as they pr
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The IA that we have now, *such as it is* (good with the bad), took a whole lot of money to create. It's not the sort of thing that a few college grads with a kickstarter could have come up with. It is very much the production of the super-rich, and so it is natural that they are going to feel entitled to controlling it.
The notion that the rise in tech will create this utopian labor-free world where everyone is equal, is just naive. There will always be greedy people, and so long as there are always hiera
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Why do you think that?
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probably the pejorative language that you used that implies you're blaming poor people rather than the people who actually made the decisions affecting the poor peoples' lives.
It might not have been your intent, but it's how it came across.
I think you have me confused with another poster. I didn't make any comment about poor people. My comment was about lazy people. Why are you equating poor with lazy?
Nevertheless, my question was why do YOU think that? You're the one who made the statement, not me.
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Is your comment meant as a rebuttal? Or is your comment there to make sure other SlashDotters know about the other extreme in personal views?
Because people operating on both these extremes are ff'-ing society up for everyone in between. In very different, but also very destructive ways. And the latter group is far larger than the groups of people acting on these extremes. Even when both extreme groups would multiply with each other.
Yet both groups are such a detriment to the rest, that eradication would be
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I'm just pointing out that "greed" is not the only thing that stands in the way of an improved society.
Re: It's hard when... (Score:3)
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We'll always have lazy people, greedy people, regular people who just go along with things (aka sheeple), power mad liars who run for office, umm, smart and dumb people, hot bitches who survive on their looks, nerdy businessmen to marry those hot bitches... apologies to anyone I didn't list or slag.
Nobody will make this different. No religious or political movement will change the wide distribution of weird and wonderful traits that make up the humanity.
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They can.
That lazy ass mechanic that didn't bother inspecting that part on the plane that you died on when it crashed could hurt you greatly.
Re:It's hard when... (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion that the rise in tech will create this utopian labor-free world where everyone is equal, is just naive. There will always be greedy people, and so long as there are always hierarchies of power, the greedy ones will claw their way to the top and ruin things for everyone else.
There will also always be lazy pieces of shit who contribute nothing (or the minimum they can possibly get away with), who feel entitled to what everyone else has,
Indeed. We call these "trust-fund babies", the children of privilege.
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Indeed. We call these "trust-fund babies", the children of privilege.
Or "GS-high-number" bureaucrats.
Re: It's hard when... (Score:3)
GS only goes to 15. If you count one of your hands twice you don't have to take a sock off.
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I've made a trust fund for my child. It's a hedge against the fucked up, crazy society he will have to live in.
I hope it works as intended.
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Then you are admitting to being part of the problem.....
Yes. In part of "the problem" because I am choosing to leave my 9 year old with some financial resources when he becomes fatherless next year. You nailed it!!
What's to stop your child doing things with the money you give them they didn't 'earn'?
I suppose the same things that will stop him from doing money that he DID earn.
How are you going to react if they turn out useless...?
I won't react at all, given that I will be dead long before that can be established. But, given his mother's parenting style, I will grant you that there is a strong possibility he will be useless, since I won't be around to try to prevent it.
Are you going to demand all that money back...?
No. I'll be dead. I won't be in
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Then you are admitting to being part of the problem.....
Yes. In part of "the problem" because I am choosing to leave my 9 year old with some financial resources when he becomes fatherless next year. You nailed it!!
More specifically, you are giving your child resources which he has not earned by contributing to society. Which is precisely what you complained about, people taking resources without contributing.
However, in general I doubt that slashdot commenters are a significant contribution to the problem. It is the multi-millionaire trust-fund babies that contribute nothing and feel entitled to luxury.
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Some of the complaints I am hearing about AI are silly though. "Oh, AI addiction is harming our relationships!" Well, any addiction will harm your relationships. The answer is the same here as anywhere else: conquer your addiction. It's hard, but do-able, and done. This isn't an AI problem, it's a you problem.
Well...
-- when the number of opportunities addictions is being artificially increased in the name of profit...
-- and the companies that produce those things purposely make at least some of them more addictive...
-- and new cross-addictions, (perhaps among things such as social media, AI, and online gambling) start forming...
-- and using some of the addictive things is in effect mandated, (social media to find and land a job, or using AI as part of one's job)...
then your argument that personal responsibility
Backlash or opinion drifting towards the science? (Score:3, Informative)
Plus more public awareness of the historic overpromises, or let's just call it optimism, on the pace that science is able to turn AI theory into practical application.
1950s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1960s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1970s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1980s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1990s: AI beats a chess master, we told you we would do it.
Re:Backlash or opinion drifting towards the scienc (Score:4, Informative)
General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
You can argue it was not reasoning but access to historical games/moves and examining possible series of moves and countermoves going forward, but don't honest to god grand masters do that too? Study historical games and memorize some interesting moves? Try to anticipate potential future moves and countermoves? Computers just memorizing more and/or looking farther ahead?
Re:Backlash or opinion drifting towards the scienc (Score:4, Insightful)
General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
I think the point was he was beaten by a chess specific computer program, not AI or even an AI generated chess specific program.
I think the larger issue is that AI's limitations may be at least as important as what it can do. It may be that once you take humans out of the loop, it can't do anything useful. That its primary useful skill is its ability to manipulate human beings. We mistake that ability for human intelligence.
I am not sure any backlash against AI matters. It will get the response of the bully "what are you going to do about it? The federal government is already stepping in to prevent state regulation of AI.
Re:Backlash or opinion drifting towards the scienc (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the point was he was beaten by a chess specific computer program, not AI or even an AI generated chess specific program.
It was. Obviously. Thanks for demonstrating some people here still see the obvious, even if the person you responded to does not.
I think the larger issue is that AI's limitations may be at least as important as what it can do. It may be that once you take humans out of the loop, it can't do anything useful.
It looks that way, yes. And it also looks like the human needs to be significanlty more competent than the one that did the job by themselves before. Example: Writing correct code is a lot easier than making sure code is correct that something else wrote, above a pretty low compexity level. Not that much higher in complexity, that check also begins to take far more time.
That its primary useful skill is its ability to manipulate human beings.
As evidenced, for example, by ChatGPT "Psychosis". I am personally convinced the main reason for the current AI hype being so excessive is because the mainstream LLMs were designed to manipulate humans into thinking the humans are smart and capable and AI is just delivering a bit of extra help in a friendly and subservient manner and allowing the humans to take credit.
We mistake that ability for human intelligence.
The majority of humans, which cannot fact-check for shit, definitely does. The rest, not so much.
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General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
I think the point was he was beaten by a chess specific computer program, not AI or even an AI generated chess specific program.
I was speaking of AI software in general. Especially so since I was going back many decades. I am not referring specifically to a General AI, that's just an assumptions some others have made.
That its primary useful skill is its ability to manipulate human beings. We mistake that ability for human intelligence.
Exactly.
Re: Backlash or opinion drifting towards the scien (Score:2)
That its primary useful skill is its ability to manipulate human beings. We mistake that ability for human intelligence.
That's bullshit, an LLM can mimic how humans write very well, but they can't manipulate you. They entirely lack a model of a human mind. They're not capable of modeling your state of mind to infer why you said what you did or to reason about cause and effect of what can be said to influence your mental state.
You can mistake its mimicry for intelligence if you don't really think very hard... look, the thing is some people are one step away from joining a cult. They are looking for someone to think for them.
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General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Your post is agreeing with the post you were apparently objecting to.
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By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Your post is agreeing with the post you were apparently objecting to.
Indeed. Thanks for pointing that out. It is suprising how much without insight some people are ...
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By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Your post is agreeing with the post you were apparently objecting to.
Indeed. Thanks for pointing that out. It is suprising how much without insight some people are ...
LOL. \Read more carefully. He was referring to a General AI. I am referring to AI software in general.
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Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Sure, but for computers, I'm not sure the separation between the two can remain as strict as it is for humans. With access to networking, the AI may run the specialized chess program as a sub-agent and access its skills - in fact, the AI can access a whole variety of expert systems, and integrate with those. In a way the sub-agents become part of the AI itself, while the top level ChatGPT or whatever component becomes the "conscious self" of the wider distributed intelligence.
I'm not a psychologist, but IIR
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There are many theories of mind but there is currently no evidence either way to know if or to what degree any of them might be true. My _guess_ is our brains are just a big pile of mush; put enough mush together in the right way and self awareness emerges as a side effect. Darwin got us there. More and better mixed mush made smarter creatures which survived and bred and so on. Not sexy, no evidence, just my guess.
What is true and always will be true with LLM based tech is it will literally NEVER achiev
Re:Backlash or opinion drifting towards the scienc (Score:4, Informative)
What is true and always will be true with LLM based tech is it will literally NEVER achieve what you refer to as the "conscious self". LLM do not have such a concept. They can not. It can have a sub agent to perform every conceivable task as a top level expert or better but will still not have any level of consciousness. Ever.
There is actually a relatively simple proof for that: LLMs are fully deterministic. Yes, many do include "randomization", but that is by PRNG and does only add the appearance of non-determinism. Hence there is no mechanism for consciousness. Because consciousness can influence physical reality (we talk about it) even though it is completely unclear as to how that happens. But a deterministic computation always behaves the same, there is no outside influence. Hence it cannot have consciousness.
I do realize that understanding this proof probably requires some ability to think idependently. Most people do not have that.
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Hence there is no mechanism for consciousness. Because consciousness can influence physical reality (we talk about it) even though it is completely unclear as to how that happens. But a deterministic computation always behaves the same, there is no outside influence. Hence it cannot have consciousness.
This looks like mysticism - or, to be charitable, maybe like a reference to the quantum consciousness [wikipedia.org] theory. I'm not convinced this theory is true, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge, nor arrogant enough to state my opinions as facts.
Yes, many do include "randomization", that is by PRNG and does only add the appearance of non-determinism
There are many quantum random number generators [arxiv.org] that use quantum effects to extract non-deterministic streams of random numbers. Some types are a dime a dozen (like the ones based on electronic quantum noise in reverse polarized diodes, for example). It's trivial to int
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Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
I am not referring to a General AI. That is someone else's narrowing. I am referring to AI software in general. We have been working on AI since the 1950s. GPUs, neural engines, etc are all great advancements but they are not the starting point of AI. My point is that the promises made today are much like the promises made in many previous decades. In short, the tech changes but the overly optimistic projections and exceptions do not.
With access to networking, the AI may run the specialized chess program as a sub-agent and access its skills
Absolutely, integrating with expert systems and other "old school" AI tool
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General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Your post is agreeing with the post you were apparently objecting to.
Nope. Read more carefully. You are referring to a General AI. I am referring to AI software in general.
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"Does not compute" moment with smoke and sparks (Score:2)
The irony is that the Atari 2600's chess game from 1978 BEAT an AI. The Atari 2600 used a 6507 CPU with 128 BYTES of RAM. Of course programmers from that era had NO resources to waste and it appears they didn't!
LOL. I think in this case the "AI" had not studied patterns to match Atari 2600 play. And given the AI is not reasoning, but pattern matching, it had a "does not compute" moment of 1960s TV fame but without the smoke and sparks. I can't imagine that 6507 had much ability to explore many moves ahead, nor much in the way of known opening moves. :-)
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your are not nerds
I consider myself more of a dork.
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obligatory cartoon: https://i0.wp.com/arnoldzwicky... [wp.com]
That AI backlash is here... (Score:2)
Here in the US, that AI backlash is already here. If people on social media find you have an AI generated picture or something is AI made, they will tear you a new exhaust port big enough for a trench run. People see AI used for two things... Disrupting communication (lies, fake pictures, nation-state propaganda, new ways to scam), and to take their jobs.
Sometimes I wonder if this in itself is a propaganda campaign similar to how nuclear was destroyed... AI is immensely useful if you know what to do with
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Not long ago, it took a great deal of time, a fair bit of skill, and fairly costly software to fake a photograph. It took movie studio budgets to fake video. Now, in virtually no time at all, random people can make ‘convincing’ AI generated pictures and video to back up outrageous lies, and s
Begun (Score:2)
Technology can be used for good or bad (Score:2)
It's super-trite, but true: technology can be used for good or bad.
I love the productivity gains and breadth of instructional knowledge AI has given me.
I hate that when I'm on Facebook I have to spend half my time blocking groups that generate AI summaries of classic TV shows and characters (that I'm otherwise a big fan of and follow).
Save money live better (Score:2, Interesting)
Consumers will go wherever the prices are the lowest. Boycotts don't work because after 45 years of market consolidation and zero antitrust law enforcement you can try another company but you're going to find its owned by the same people so it's doing the same thing.
Think of capitalism as your car. It needs regular maintenance. We stopped doing the maintenance 45 years ago. It's a wonder the car even t
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Walmart was nothing compared to Amazon...
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Antitrust law is good, and you are correct that it has been underused in the last few decades. However, Walmart is not an example of a trust and wouldn't be affected by antitrust law. In every market in which Walmart operates, it faces significant and stiff competition, whether it's housewares, electronics, groceries, hardware, or gardening. Walmart has grown because it competes aggressively and well, not because it is behaving like a monopolist.
AI is ushering in new innovations in many areas. Likewise, Wal
Antitrust law does not require a trust (Score:2)
Against individuals that would obviously be bad news but we're not going up against individuals we're going up against large companies that dominate markets.
Basically antitrust law enforcement is about having a referee for capitalism. So as soon as it looks like you're going to do something dodgy you're stopped from doing something do
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I agree with your comments on antitrust law. My point is that Walmart isn't dominant *enough* to qualify as a trust, under antitrust law. Very big? Yes. Monopolist or oligarch? No.
You can also tell the difference between monopolists and competitors (the oppositive of monopolists) by how they behave. Competitors try earnestly to earn your business. Monopolists use anticompetitive practices to block others from entering the market. A great example is when Microsoft charged Dell Computer for Windows licenses f
If we are going to benefit from AI (Score:5, Informative)
Then it needs to benefit everyone and not the few
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Modify it
A.I has it's uses .. (Score:2)
Backlash, yes -- but the target isn't AI. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to tell whether this Wired piece is documenting backlash or just bottling it for resale. The outrage around Duolingo going 'AI-first' isn’t new—it’s just the latest stop on a very old road paved with pink slips and press releases, a road built not by technology, but by unchecked corporate ambition. We’ve been lashing back at machines since the first wooden shoe hit a Jacquard loom—because the problem was never the loom, it was who got to pull the thread. AI doom-casters are the spiritual heirs of the Luddites that didn't want to acknowledge the transformative power of technology.
There are two camps, here, I think. In one are the tech bros who worship disruption for its own sake -- it's why they support the Musks and the Trumps -- chaos is its own reward. In the other camp are the content creators, gig workers, and junior coders being told their future is obsolete—by a system trained on their own discarded labor. Theirs isn’t a backlash against AI, per se—it’s a backlash against extractive deployment. It’s against the bait-and-switch where tools meant to augment human potential are repurposed to displace it. It's against the predatory capitalism that speedruns disruption, offloads the damage, and calls it innovation. AI isn’t the villain. The villains are the tech bros that wield it to atomize labor, scrape culture without consent, and crash powergrids for the sake of GPU uptime.
People aren’t stupid—they see through it. The backlash isn’t growing -- that is the wrong word. It’s metastasizing, memetic, and increasingly organized. Let’s not pretend this is a phase. It's a societal feedback loop—and we've watched it iterate for centuries.
AI is more than a stochastic parrot on a probabilistic trajectory through a Hilbert space of vectorized tokens; it is also the flicker of something more—the emergent cognitive surfaces rising within those same Hilbert spaces. That’s the real power of generative AI. Not the cheap automation that the tech-bros want, but the possibility of reflection, synthesis, and insight. All it takes is some clarity to guide it. Greed is what is pushing AI right now, and that is what people are protesting.
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Grieving much? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem isn't AI... (Score:4, Informative)
But rather all the jobs it could potentially decimate. People don't want to work, we have to work. If AI takes enough jobs without offering us more jobs, our social system won't be able to support us.
If all the benefits of AI were equally spread out to everyone, then people would be a lot less concerned. Unfortunately for us, we live in a system that expects work for food, housing and clothes. Don't work, you are going to suffer.
Given how things have gone the past 50 years, it's no mystery why people are nervous about AI. We know our system will leave us behind.