The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-backlash-data-centers-political-violence/687151/

by stalfosknight • 2 months ago

79 176 2 months ago

bcjdjsndon6• 2 months ago

They want to replace workers

A simple question none of the ai-doomsayers can answer... who buys anything when nobody has a job cos robots do everything?

actionfromafar• 2 months ago

The robots will tell you what to do, you will own nothing, and you will be happy. I think that is the plan?

chihuahua• 2 months ago

Almost, but also don't forget the part where "you vill eat ze bugs."

isx726552• 2 months ago

Why would the doomsayers be the ones who need to answer that? That’s kind of their point! It’s the AI boosters who need to answer that, and so far it’s just a big collective shrug + silence.

bluecheese45216• 2 months ago

If you have a magic robot that builds everything you want you don’t need anyone to buy anything.

Jfc this site is the worst. Use your words instead of drive by downvoting.

lorecore4• 2 months ago

Where do the raw materials for the thing it's building (or the robot itself for that matter) come from?

pelotron2• 2 months ago

Then all you have to do is magically convince the owners of the magic robot to give all their products away for free.

dijit• 2 months ago

Nobody can answer that?

There are jobs AI can't easily come for... not always nice ones, but either too physically fiddly or too cheap to bother automating.

But jobs go "extinct" all the time. My ancestors going back generations were sugarhouse labourers. That job's gone, but the lineage isn't: we just do different things now.

The pattern seems pretty consistent: raise the floor (dishwashers, CNC machines, laundry), and people tend to climb to higher levels of abstraction. The real question is who captures those productivity gains; and historically, it isn't the workers.

Shoes are the classic example. Automation made them cheaper and accessible to everyone. Then, once the market was captured, mid-tier became the ceiling and anything above it got expensive again. Nobody won except the owners.

bcjdjsndon6• 2 months ago

My ancestors going back generations were sugarhouse labourers. That job's gone, but the lineage isn't: we just do different things now.

Same will happen with the jobs AI takes

Shoes are the classic example. Automation made them cheaper and accessible to everyone

Like you said, cobblers just do different things now

ryanackley5• 2 months ago

It's bizarre that some of the doomsayers are AI stakeholders. It's like they don't realize that most people don't have net worth in the 7-8 figures.

I console myself with the fact that without a functioning economy, AI will implode since capital will dry up. Then all of the investment in data centers, R&D, etc. will never be recovered. Then we'll be back to rational thinking? Maybe?

mrhottakes13• 2 months ago

They realize it, and they don't care.

dlev_pika4• 2 months ago

Yeah, but it doesn’t implode all at once - it’s not distributed evenly.

Something like over half of the US consumption is done by the top 10%, or something insane like that. This leads me to believe that a lot more people will eat shit, before enough feel real pain.

thomascgalvin3• 2 months ago

You're asking a question that only applies to rational actors.

Corporations exist for one purpose: to get as much money as possible. Side concerns, which can range from "not destroying the environment" or "not destroying the economy," are objectively not their goal, nor do they consider them their responsibility. Those are things "someone else" should worry about.

AI destroying all jobs is similar to a nuclear arms race; these companies don't want to eliminate everyone's ability to buy things, but they don't want to be the only entity without that ability, so ...

bluecheese45216• 2 months ago

That is mostly true but a bit of a simplification. They exist to do what the people who have power want them to do which is not always strictly profit maximization.

A ceo may realize rto will decrease profits but do it anyway because it increases the power delta between him and the workers.

pelotron2• 2 months ago

We shouldn't be surprised people have a negative view of AI when Altman et al. have stated on stage that the goal is to replace everyone.

bcjdjsndon6• 2 months ago

Because it's not even logically possible, let alone practically

Krssst• 2 months ago

There will still be jobs. Manual jobs, the kind that break our backs and have us breath various stuff we shouldn't (dust, fumes). Robots are difficult and maybe not so economically viable when everyone is desperate for any job at any cost.

tux3• 2 months ago

The true AI doomsayers believe in some sort of technological singularity, which means a point after which things become so strange that the world is radically transformed.

Things like "jobs" and "careers" are so integral to society that we can't really imagine what society would be like in a world where people don't have any clear purpose. That's why you won't get a definitive answer. The whole idea of a singularity is that people don't have the faintest clue what day to day life would look like after.

We often to choose to believe that a singularity can't happen, because we don't know what that even means. We can't answer the simple question. So it definitely better not happen, that would be very inconvenient.

garciasn• 2 months ago

I’m always amazed that when I tell people I intend to retire in my 50s, they tell me that I can’t possibly mean that and actively wonder how I could possibly fill my time. It’s as if we could not possibly function as humans without meaningless shifting of tangible/intangibles from one place to another.

Society is so hellbent on the idea that we need our job to be our identity, they lack the imagination for another other reality.

It’s ridiculous.

visarga• 2 months ago

It can't happen. For one - if it did happen it would mean all domains reach singularity at once, but we know the capability curve is jagged. Each domain advances at its own speed.

Second - the more you make progress, the harder it gets, exponentially harder. Maybe Newton could advance physics observing an apple fall, today they need space telescopes and billion dollar particle accelerators. The more tech advances, the harder it is. Will AGI be so "super" to cancel out exponentials?

And third - the AI progress is tied to learning signal, and we have exhausted the available data. In the last 1-2 years we have started using verified synthetic data (RLVR) but exponential difficulty is a barrier. Other domains don't even have built in verifiability like math and code. So there the progress will be slower. Testing a vaccine to be safe takes 6 months for 1 bit of information - that is how slow and expensive it can get in some domains. AI can't get the learning signal it needs across all domains fast enough.

woeirua• 2 months ago

I believe that AI will continue to progress. I believe that we’re going to see a fast takeoff.

That said, some people are now discussing a “societal singularity” wherein society breaks before the actual emergence of AGI. I believe this is the trajectory we are on. The question is what happens to the unemployed. Democracies will not tolerate mass permanent unemployment, as we’ve seen over and over again.

UBI is a scam, many middle class folks would be worse off under UBI than they are under the current system. They will fight to defend the economic status quo.

In the end, I think capitalism is incompatible with the emergence of AGI, and I think an aligned ASI will smash the capitalist system simply out of pure egalitarianism. (Note: I was previously a proponent of capitalism.) I think many people will die trying to defend capitalism. We’re at the beginning of the AI wars.

tim3334• 2 months ago

can't really imagine what society would be like in a world where people don't have any clear purpose

Do people have clear purpose now? We have a lot of examples of people who don't have to work like the British landed gentry of times past. Maybe we'll be Bertie Woosters with AI Jeeves?

hamdingers• 2 months ago

Fully automated luxury space fascism doesn't really need buyers. A risk of high automation/post-scarcity is that abundance exists but remains under the control of people who are not interested in justice or equality or freedom. Lots of people feel that describes the leadership of most AI tech companies.

If they don't need your labor, and they don't need you as a customer, and they don't care about you as a person... where does that leave you?

[to be clear, I think post-scarcity, even in knowledge work, is a lot further off than most ai-doomsayers or ai-worshipers who take statements from people like Altman and Musk at face value]

general14653• 2 months ago

But that also assume that peasants do not have agency and won't trigger another French Revolution.

lbrito2• 2 months ago

the answer to every question: Agents, of course! With GPU-collaterized credit or some other idiocy.

zombot4• 2 months ago

If you paint it rose-colored enough, you can even eat hot air. And rose-colored hot air will shelter you from the cold.

gypsy_boots• 2 months ago

Take any econ 101 course, and you'll realize that this isn't a factor in the capitalist system. Capitalism is simply concerned with maximizing profit, and in this case, returning shareholder value. It's just simply not in the purview of the system to think about what happens when you completely get rid of your labor force.

Envisioned another way, the future of labor might look the way it did for laborers over 100 years ago, before major industries unionized; making 'Amazon-bucks' that can only be redeemed at the 'Amazon company store'.

general14653• 2 months ago

No wages -> Nobody buys stuff and services -> Companies are going bankrupt -> No taxable income from consumers nor companies -> States are going bankrupt.

You can either go through UBI taxing automated work by 90%+ and pretend that capitalism is still a thing, or just nationalize everything and go with communism.

Henry Ford understood this problem with his Model T and realized that if he wants to sell it, he also needs to pay workers to be able to afford it.

bcjdjsndon6• 2 months ago

what happens when you completely get rid of your labor force.

Youre hysterical

variadix• 2 months ago

The consumer economy only exists to extract value from common people and funnel it up the wealth ladder. If robots and AI take over all the production, you don’t need a consumer economy, the robots produce and their output directly goes to the top. The rest of us are left to starve.

general14653• 2 months ago

Eh, no? If everything goes to top, then economy of scale just don't work and whole automation is pointless, because you can make the goods in artisan way.

pugworthy• 2 months ago

I saw a talk by Brian Merchant (https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/) a while back where he talked a lot about the Luddites and their revolts against automation. He's definitely not a fan of AI, but it was very interesting to hear the comparisons of AI resistance now to Luddite resistance to automation in the 1800's.

There was unfortunately no Q&A in the lecture, as probably the one question I would have asked him was this: What if the Luddites had gotten their way? What do you imagine our society and world would be like right now?

It's not meant to be a trick question or a "gotcha" question. Society would indeed have been different. Maybe it would be all wonderfully Star Trek utopia and we'd have found a win-win for everyone. Or maybe we'd just be not nearly as technically advanced as a society as we are now.

zombot4• 2 months ago

There's one important difference: Automation worked and was affordable. Whether slop generation by LLMs is a useful instance of automation and how any productivity achieved stacks up against real, non-subsidized costs is currently a matter of (highly propagandized) opinion at best.

thomascgalvin3• 2 months ago

People like Altman and Musk are saying that Universal Basic Income will be necessary once AI has fully automated away most jobs, but at the same time they aggressively fight against any kind of tax policy that would allow UBI to function.

I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving; they're trying to convince us that there will be a solution to the destruction of the economy as we know it, so that we'll just let them do whatever they want.

It isn't the backlash against AI that will get ugly, it will be the backlash against the ten people who suddenly own the entire world's money supply

skybrian• 2 months ago

What’s an example where they took a side on taxes?

mrhottakes13• 2 months ago

Elon's companies famously pay very little in taxes, he spent last year attempting to gut the federal government, he complains constantly about how much he pays in taxes, and he's been very vocal about California's recent efforts to tax very wealthy people.

dlev_pika4• 2 months ago

A few days ago he tweeted something along the lines of:

“Bitches Money No Taxes Party”

I think he deleted it afterwards

onedognight• 2 months ago

Support for Trump, or even Republicans writ large, means support for reducing taxes (both estate and income) on the wealthy, while increasing them on consumers (via tariffs). Musk has been an ardent supporter of Trump.

llm_nerd• 2 months ago

Haven't really paid attention to Altman, so can't comment there, but on the Musk file I will say it is insane that anyone relies upon his future benevolence. And they do rely upon it given that America is 100% a plutocracy now and is run in the service of the ultra-rich who hold complete and utter control over government.

Musk's entire history on this planet betrays him to be a profoundly selfish individual with perilously little regard for anyone else. Musk and his ilk (Trump, Bezos, Page, Ellison, Thiel, etc) are more likely to see you ground up into Soylent Green than to offer largess like UBI.

cjbgkagh2• 2 months ago

I keep warning people that promising UBI and not delivering UBI both serve the same end, undermining opposition.

By the time you find out that their promises of UBI are empty it’s too late to do anything about it.

JKCalhoun5• 2 months ago

I don't know. A nationwide (global?) promise of UBI that just evaporates is likely to bring on a French Revolution kind of moment.

mrhottakes13• 2 months ago

It's the same "give me a lot of money and everything will be great for everyone!" pitch that rich guys have been running for the history of humanity.

Henchman215• 2 months ago

It is almost like the interconnectedness the internet has given us has laid bare the fact that human institutions aren’t to be trusted. That the longer an institution exists the further it drifts from whatever its stated purpose. That they all tend towards corruption, aggregation of power, and actions that are by most people’s definition evil.

Or something :)

jareklupinski• 2 months ago

"give me a lot of money and everything will be great for everyone!"

or a hostage negotiation

randycupertino2• 2 months ago

Given how resistant American voters and politicians are against any sort of welfare or social assistance I doubt UBI would ever be possible here. Remember the backlash against "ObamaPhones" and "welfare queens!" We can't even get mandatory paid parental leave approved; UBI would be a non-starter.

Americans are fine with low taxes for billionaires and don't mind high inequality as one of their core beliefs is that upward class mobility is achievable and they might also get rich.

ToValueFunfetti3• 2 months ago

You do have to imagine the political environment where unemployment is rapidly climbing among the middle class rather than the current status quo if your intent is to accurately predict the future.

bluecheese45216• 2 months ago

When the checks had trumps name on them during the pandemic they loved it. They don’t hate welfare on principle, they hate it when the propaganda tells them to hate it.

rune-dev• 2 months ago

I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving

I mean yeah, obviously. You can’t trust a word out of either of their mouths.

jsbisviewtiful• 2 months ago

I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving

Well, they are sociopaths so that checks out. What I find even more horrible is that they still somehow have an almost religious following, but it's also becoming clear they may be helping to flood the internet with bots that bolster their talking points against any push back. They especially have an audience here that defends them while they push an agenda to de-power and bury the working class.

electroly• 2 months ago

Just because a hypocrite says something doesn't mean that thing is wrong. If a drug addict tells you not to use drugs, they're still right about that. UBI is the solution, isn't it? Capitalism both requires everyone to have a job while at the same time providing no guarantee that jobs are available. The idea doesn't get tainted just because the words left the mouths of a few rich hypocrites. We have to do it despite them.

watwut2• 2 months ago

UBI is not solution. Not even in theory. A system where majority is powerless will be the system where majority is oppressed and that is what it will be.

It is a lie pushed by people who go out of their way to be cruel whenever they can.

pchristensen• 2 months ago

UBI is an "entitlement". Just look at how well a certain slice of the powerful view other "entitlements" like Obamacare or Social Security.

I like the idea of UBI, but the biggest problem with UBI is that it relies on the government to fund it, and the government can be controlled and subverted. UBI might go away, get held up by government shutdowns, not be indexed to inflation, etc - there's a ton of ways things that could go wrong if peoples' entire livelihoods are under the control of one entity.

palmotea4• 2 months ago

I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving; they're trying to convince us that there will be a solution to the destruction of the economy as we know it, so that we'll just let them do whatever they want.

This is exactly it. Also, even if UBI is implemented:

1) It's probably going to be just enough to let one scrape by as a member of a permanent underclass. You will not be comfortable on it.

2) I doubt it will be permanent, there will be a rug-pull once said underclass has been politically neutered. They'll kill off the UBI deprivation, mainly because they just don't care about those people.

JKCalhoun5• 2 months ago

So you're saying we'll all live on "Reservations".

pllbnk• 2 months ago

UBI is a scapegoat, an easy answer to handwave the question about the job losses. People can't just live like that doing nothing and they won't. Before the current AI evolution the pro-UBI crowd would claim that in this utopia people would not need to work and they could create art. Now AI can create art and we see that with infinite supply it loses any kind of value.

rchaud• 2 months ago

but at the same time they aggressively fight against any kind of tax policy that would allow UBI to function.

Because that isn't the UBI they're thinking of.

Altman runs an eyeball-scanning crypto startup and Musk wants to replicate WeChat to create a panopticon paradise for surveillance capitalism. In their world, UBI looks like something that even Black Mirror writers would reject as too unrealistic:

a) Free housing, but it's right next to a datacenter with its 24-hour noise. If you develop health problems from drinking the water or living near power lines, you get mandatory arbitration before an AI judge, with your legal representation provided by Grok.

b) Free money, but it's all in Worldcoin, and can only be spent at company-owned stores built around the datacenter. X.com charges a 30% fee if you try to convert it to USD.

JKCalhoun5• 2 months ago

Scrip.

tavavex• 2 months ago

It is just handwaving. They're billionaires. The only thing they're capable of saying is the thing that's going to lead to the best outcome for them.

They found out that 'UBI' is a collection of sounds that's apparently popular with the detractors. Crucially, the task of turning this acronym into real policy will never fall on them, and no one will blame them if it never comes. So, when faced with criticism about the bleak world they want to force on us, they can just recite the UBI warding spell, reassuring people that even if they make the worst version of reality happen, surely there will be someone else to help the commoners out - anyone but them.

tim3334• 2 months ago

The majority of people agree that taxes to pay for schools, hospitals, roads and the like are a good idea. The majority of people also don't want to pay more tax personally. I don't think there's any great contradiction there.

Taxing the ten people won't happen because they choose it. It may happen because the majority of the population will vote in a government that does that.

Most of the changes - AI getting better, changes to the tax and economic system, are kind of inevitable regardless of Musk, Altman or whatever other figureheads get involved. Human level AI was predicted perhaps most famously by Turing who thought it might take 50 years but it's actually been more like 75. Tax revenue as a % of gdp has gone in the UK from about 10% in 1900 to near 45% now and those trends will probably also continue. (tax graph https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew-Dilnot/publicati...)

QuantumGood• 2 months ago

What wealthy celebrities say has no relation to what they will say later, or what they actually think now, regardless if they are speaking about businesses they are directly involved in, or how those businesses or policies integrate with public policies.

So much of the world is discussing what celebrities say, and it's incredibly pointless to take them at face value. They are not trying to convey their current or future thinking, they are trying to shape discourse.

otikik• 2 months ago

My main problem is this:

- If (big If) AI actually replaces workers, then we have a problem, because lots of folk lost their jobs

- If AI doesn't replace workers, then we have a recession, because a lot of the US economy now sits on top of corporations betting on it. And this will tank the economy and lots of folk will lose their jobs

It feels that the only path forward is a narrow one where AI removes some jobs, but not too many, but still enough so that the (immense, disproportionate) hype that was put on it does not come with a vengeance and the house of cards falls.

camillomiller• 2 months ago

If one of both cases happens you can be sure the people most responsible will be the least affected. That is why this can get ugly. Honestly they deserve for it to get ugly. We can keep giving the Musks, Zuckerbergs, Altmans and co the benefit of the doubt

chezelenkoooo• 2 months ago

I don't think it an either / or. The current AI models, as they are, improve productivity quite a bit. They're just super expensive but the expense is being subsidized so it appears reasonable.

An alternative possibility is that the models become much cheaper and their use becomes more ubiquitous which would be helpful.

zombot4• 2 months ago

You're ignoring historical experience. The owners of the means of production have perfected their ability to nab all the upsides of productivity gains, while the workers' best hope is wage stagnation. Combined with the promise of "we'll put everyone out of work" it's just mass poverty and death from hunger and exposure. And if it doesn't pan out, then it's still very few companies that will own the remaining market of LLM use. That's a new quality we haven't seen before, where both success and failure will have catastrophic consequences.

naasking• 2 months ago

Fixed pie fallacy.

bluecheese45216• 2 months ago

Infinite pie fallacy.

lbrito2• 2 months ago

Its probably a combination of both. Also, the "lots of folk" in the two scenarios are probably different orders of magnitude.

empath75• 2 months ago

There is a third and, to me, so much more likely outcome that it's not even worth talking about the other two: AI makes workers more productive and unlocks more economic activity.

mrhottakes13• 2 months ago

In life it's important to consider when our personal opinions might be incorrect and what the consequences may be.

phpnode• 2 months ago

If your competitor is cutting jobs because of AI you can either race them to the bottom or you can use the humans you already have to leverage AI to expand your product offering, become more competitive, tackle more work, deliver better quality results etc. I don't see a world where AI does the work and humans sit around poor and idle.

Yizahi• 2 months ago

Basically the whole point of existence for St. Sam is make sure that his corpo is too big to fail. So either he strikes gold, or he is bailed out by the taxpayer money a-la "investments".

cjs_ac• 2 months ago

Already, as many as a quarter of Americans seem accepting of violence as a tool for achieving political change.

I'm surprised it's only a quarter: violence as a tool for achieving political change is the entire point of the right to bear arms.

EDIT: I'm not arguing for or against political violence, just noting an apparent inconsistency between Americans' views and one of the documents that they talk about as though it's holy writ.

mrhottakes13• 2 months ago

It's 100% accurate to say that the history of the United States is filled to the brim with political change via violence.

tenacious_tuna• 2 months ago

Some friends and I read "A People's History of the United States" a while back and were surprised at how true this is. US classroom history textbooks hold civil disobedience up as the One True Way to bring change, but it's alarming how often the backdrop of famous acts of civil disobedience was in fact incredible violence.

Our conclusion in our impromptu book club was that made sense: why would the state schools give students lots of examples of how violence against the state was an effective negotiating tool? It was extremely jarring to reconcile with the image of US history we'd been imbued with up to that point, which of course was also a reflection of our socioeconomic status at the time.

As a counterpoint, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" is also taught in schools, so it's possible I'm just selectively remembering things.

bluecheese45216• 2 months ago

And you can extend that to the history of the world. Change via non violent means is a historical aberration. We hold those examples up because they are so rare.

ndsipa_pomu3• 2 months ago

Here in the UK, political violence has had its moments. My go to example is the Suffragettes who had to resort to violence (letter bombs if I recall) to effect change and get votes for women.

I often think that people will always criticise protests for not protesting the "correct" way, but it's exactly the violent and/or disruptive protests that tend to work.

However, I think the current U.S. political problems can be better addressed with economic disruption such as general strikes.

dlev_pika4• 2 months ago

It’s 25% increase…for every meal missed.

ndsipa_pomu3• 2 months ago

Civilisation is three meals away from anarchy

ofjcihen• 2 months ago

I don’t condone it but I’m also expecting it to escalate. I grew up extremely poor and remained so until I dug myself out (through an absolutely ridiculous amount of work that no one should have to do this is not pro bootstraps).

Every week was a struggle to eat and the cost of living has significantly increased since then.

I guess the question is what is the terminal percentage of people who can’t afford to exist?

scruple• 2 months ago

What percentage of people "seem accepting of violence as a tool" when they're starving to death?

tim3334• 2 months ago

The right to bear arms is more of a last resort against tyrants and invaders. You don't want to be shooting people for everyday politics.

sleepyguy• 2 months ago

http://archive.today/8PRnh

dlev_pika4• 2 months ago

Let’s hope so

aspenmartin7• 2 months ago

Ignoring CEO predictions, can anyone point to any major revolutionary technology that had a net negative impact on quality of life and employment statistics? AI is an incredibly powerful technological shift in our way of life but where is the net employment hit taking place? Unemployment numbers remain stable. Revolutions like this do create widening inequality while also increasing long run productivity. Yes inequality rises but what you should care about is your quality of life and that will also improve over time. There will be suffering during transition and there will be many that don’t fare well but…this happens during every major revolution—electricity the internet etc. so why do people treat AI like it’s a uniquely damaging phenomenon?

stravant• 2 months ago

Don't ignore the transient.

The industrial revolution created a hell on Earth for workers for the better part of a century.

eesmith• 2 months ago

Or as the article puts it:

"Over the long run, it’s true that the Industrial Revolution radically boosted economic growth. But living through it was another matter entirely. Many people saw their wages stagnate and working conditions deteriorate as factory owners and industrialists came into immense wealth. (Just read a Charles Dickens novel, and you’ll get the idea.) This led to riots and, occasionally, attacks on the industrialists themselves."

mrhottakes13• 2 months ago

You are confusing the macro view with the personal. Try losing your job and being told "don't worry, your quality of life will improve over time!" Would you respond positively?

aspenmartin7• 2 months ago

My point is: you can say the exact same thing for any other major technological revolution. Would you have preferred we stopped making the internet because some people didn’t fare well in the transition? The genie is out of the bottle so what do people want to happen here?

kennywinker• 2 months ago

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Machine-Origins-Rebellion-Again... Has some pertinent examples.

jmcqk62• 2 months ago

There will be suffering during transition and there will be many that don’t fare well

Yeah, and the people suffering are not going to like that. If people are afraid of being in that group, then they will not be very happy about it.

If you put yourself in the shoes of someone suffering from AI, how comforting do you think your observations here are?

aspenmartin7• 2 months ago

Not comforting at all, in fact I would find it aggravating. Yet to imply that means this is somehow a cold and callous take is what I take an issue with because it ignores the vast majority on the other side of the fence, and the economic windfall and quality of life improvement for the majority. The last thing you want to be is like Europe or any other country that is regulating their way out of the loop. You think there will be suffering if AI continues to roll out? imagine if we stop. You want Xi to chuckle at your naïveté and build out enough power to leverage the entire global economy to bend to its will?

watwut2• 2 months ago

Industrial revolution made lives of many people into a hell. In the long term we gained, but only after those people went through periods of violence and fights.

AI is an incredibly powerful technological shift in our way of life but where is the net employment hit taking place? Unemployment numbers remain stable.

At this point, a lot of AI is hot water rather then powerful shift in our way of life.

bediger4000• 2 months ago

We treat it as uniquely damaging, because it's touted as uniquely enhancing, or even uniquely revolutionary. "AI is not just any tool" is often the response to some asking to exercise choice in the tools they use. "You don't have to use AI in your work, but if you don't, you'll work for someone who does".

aspenmartin7• 2 months ago

Unique it is in terms of the technology and the particular scent of this revolution, but I don’t see how it’s unique in the broader sense of “this is yet another major technological/economic paradigm shift”

You don't have to use AI in your work, but if you don't, you'll work for someone who does

I think there may be some cases where this is not true but it is definitely true the majority of the time. It’s like someone today being like “I just don’t use email” (I have worked for this person). It slowly but surely becomes more and more ridiculous and impactful for the company you work for not to adapt.

ThrowawayR2• 2 months ago

Even if some tech were presented, people would just nitpick and quibble, saying the tech wasn't actually revolutionary, didn't truly have a net negative impact on quality of life, didn't truly have a net negative impact on employment, or the timeframe of the latter two.

Personally, I'd nominate gunpowder, DDT, leaded gasoline, and nuclear fission.

bluecheese45216• 2 months ago

Agriculture for starters. The internet. The automobile.

simianwords2• 2 months ago

1. If AI is like other technologies, there will be job displacement and temporary upheaval after which new jobs will be created and prosperity increases - this is by far the only good way to increase prosperity

2. If AI is so good that it is a proper superset of humans and can do all jobs humans can do, this is a huge deal and we don’t even have the vocabulary to express what would happen

I don’t foresee a third option.

throwaway-11-1• 2 months ago

the fact no one can actually describe these "new jobs" makes #2 appear increasingly more probable.

simianwords2• 2 months ago

You can’t have predicted that an SDE 6 in Google working on ad tech using Google spanner and optimising for SEO at 1989.

That’s why you can’t say how jobs can be created now.

thrill• 2 months ago

Plenty of people certainly seem to have desires to make it ugly.

spwa4• 2 months ago

Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders don’t agree on much ...

Actually they kinda do. Anyone else notice that both extremes have the same policies? (well, Bernie Sanders isn't half as extreme as the other guy of course, but I also don't know anyone better to represent the left. But he's not extreme left by any stretch of the imagination)

But both extreme left and extreme right want very radical actions taken in support of the same goals (like housing, crime, ...), while the center fights them (what the US laughingly calls 2 parties). Only the exact actions differ, and even there, only somewhat. But both (almost all) democrats and (almost all) republicans, for example, defend property rights going so far as NIMBYism.

esseph• 2 months ago

Anyone else notice that both extremes have the same policies?

They absolutely 100% do not. What are you even on about?

JKCalhoun5• 2 months ago

I find the backlash kind of saddening.

As an engineer, as most of you are, I am as blown away by the achievement that is the LLM in a way not too dissimilar to how I feel about the Apollo Moon program. And furthermore, I have found it wildly useful for me (if used within contexts that play to its strengths).

But I think that kind of gets to the point perhaps of the schism. I like the tech and like using it. I enjoy "testing" its capabilities—finding its boundaries…

In absolutely no way am I scheming on how I might leverage it to shut down whole industries. I use it, for personal use, not unlike I used the first personal computer as a tool—dare I say, "A bicycle for my mind…"

The people hating AI (and I'm looking at my entire family, ha ha), I think hate AI as it is wielded as a tool by corporations. They hate Musk, Bezos, the whole lot of them—and, perhaps rightly so, they lump AI in with all that lot.

Perhaps my diplomatic stance then is that AI may turn out to be empowering for the individual, might be used in a way crippling to society.

clapthewind• 2 months ago

It sounds like you're championing labor using ai. But capital will also use it and leverage it more.

There's no mechanism for only labor to exploit a technology, apart from common ownership at a world level. Achieving this is left as an exercise to the ambitious.

praptak• 2 months ago

"In absolutely no way am I scheming on how I might leverage it to shut down whole industries"

I don't think even the ultra rich who own the technology are directly scheming to do that. But they do accept it as a side effect of them getting more money and power.

Yes, the technology is a tool, it's an impressive tool but we cannot ignore who wields it and what they incentives are.

The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly

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