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They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

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Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#21

Post by mriziq »

baq wrote: post #6
renewiltord wrote: post #3

> These people literally come to the event to learn about new things, and even they are gagging on this stuff. I remember the reactions on /r/technology when the iPhone or the iPad were announced. I remember the reactions when the M1 processor came out. Just like this audience, lots of people who subscribe to this stuff nominally care about new technology. But the truth is that where I religiously chant "We're ARSENA…

I remember the reactions when the first M1 macbook actually landed in people's hands and honestly can't remember a single one which wasn't at least 'well I'll be damned this is actually ok' - and the great majority was 'this is a revolutionary device'. This kinda never happens in football, sorry ^_^

“I can do everything at the same time” “u got the pro?” “No bro it’s the air”

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#22

Post by jlangenauer »

keiferski wrote: post #5

I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but in the last decade or so, the message coming from the tech industry has been less "technology will improve your life and help you be a better human being" and more "technology will replace you as a human being and make you obsolete." I think this is a big, big mistake and a large reason why AI specifically and the tech industry in general is being perceived negatively. S…

Or alternatively, "*technology will be used to extract profit, or preferably rent, from you and constrain your agency even further than it already is."

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#24

Post by cjk2 »

sgt101 wrote: post #17

People are fed up with grift. There are two types of grift - pure cynical (crypto, vr, ai influencing & fake products) - make me a medical system that I know can never get approved - make me a business that will never ship a thing but get daddies tax bill halved - make me code assistants that don't actually help and pure mean: products that are exploitative or knowingly unethical. - make me a mental health chatbot wi…

Nailed it.

The benefits are overstated and the negatives are sold as benefits.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#25

Post by lm28469 »

keiferski wrote: post #5

I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but in the last decade or so, the message coming from the tech industry has been less "technology will improve your life and help you be a better human being" and more "technology will replace you as a human being and make you obsolete." I think this is a big, big mistake and a large reason why AI specifically and the tech industry in general is being perceived negatively. S…

Most of it isn't even made to improve human life, it was just a matter of time until people wake up they're getting a downgraded experience to please shareholders and business owners.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#26

Post by keiferski »

lm28469 wrote: post #25
keiferski wrote: post #5

I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but in the last decade or so, the message coming from the tech industry has been less "technology will improve your life and help you be a better human being" and more "technology will replace you as a human being and make you obsolete." I think this is a big, big mistake and a large reason why AI specifically and the tech industry in general is being perceived negatively. S…

Most of it isn't even made to improve human life, it was just a matter of time until people wake up they're getting a downgraded experience to please shareholders and business owners.

I'm not that cynical, and I do think that a lot of tech has done good things for people. Even something like Facebook was useful at the beginning, even if that is obviously no longer the case.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#27

Post by JumpCrisscross »

posix_monad wrote: post #16
lovich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask truckers about this with the nearly decade long plus narrative that the second self driving is mastered they will be laid off, combined simultaneously with complaints about how no one is entering the lucrative trucking industry. I’ve had non tech family and friends who are currently dealing with the result of American cutthroat capitalism and barely able to cover living expenses despite having two people working…

I assume you are a programmer. In my view, if AI can do software engineering, then I don't think any white collar job is safe.

Software engineering at the CTO level, sure. Coding? It’s looking like the chess versus go of jobs.

My bartender and ski instructors’ careers are secure. My friend whose ten year old stayed indoors for a few years to play around on REPL, less surely.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#28

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ordu wrote: post #15

> the audience booed louder when the word disrupted was used as a term of praise Yeah, it is often goes like "lets disrupt and see if we will be able to rip some benefits from the chaos after the disruption". And the fun thing that potential disrupters seem to believe that it is good for all, not only for them and only conditionally.

The original use of "disrupt" was in the sense of, we're going to disrupt these porky record labels and rotten taxi medallion cartels. This got a bad reputation for two reasons.

The first is that the industries being disrupted were the bad guys, but that doesn't mean they liked it. And because they were the bad guys, they couldn't just come out and say "Uber sucks because we don't like having competition". So what they do instead is turn over every rock looking for something to blame them for in the hopes they can get the government to thrash them hard enough to make the market uncompetitive again. Which, of course, damages those companies' reputations, as was the intention.

The second is that a lot of the companies that used to go on about disrupting things are now the incumbents in need of being disrupted, e.g. mobile app stores and big social networks. People look at them as the bad guys because they are, but the problem there is not that disruption is bad, it's that the gander should get what came to the goose.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#29

Post by doktrin »

PeterStuer wrote: post #23

One has to wonder wether those same people also boo when pundits praise advanced automation in factories. Feels like they suddenly discover luddism when the automation is coming into their own backyard.

> Feels like they suddenly discover luddism when the automation is coming into their own backyard.

Sounds to me like you're describing a broadly universal human trait. I for one certainly can't claim with a straight face to always place the concerns of others on a fully level footing with my own. Can you?

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