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AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

chrbutler.com

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Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#141

Post by spaqin »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #127

AI is not overhyped. It's like saying going to the moon is overhyped. First of all this AI stuff is next level. It's as great, if not greater than going to space or going to the moon. Second the rate at which is improving makes it such that the hype is relevant and realistic. I think what's throwing people off are two things. First people are just over exposed to AI. So the overexposure is causing people to feel AI i…

Seems like an apt comparison; it was a massive money sink and a regular person gained absolutely nothing from the moon landing, it's just the big organization (NASA, US government) that got the bragging rights.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#143

Post by voidhorse »

sockgrant wrote: post #14

“As a designer…” IMHO the bleeding edge of what’s working well with LLMs is within software engineering because we’re building for ourselves, first. Claude code is incredible. Where I work, there are an incredible number of custom agents that integrate with our internal tooling. Many make me very productive and are worthwhile. I find it hard to buy in to opinions of non-SWE on the uselessness of AI solely because I t…

Did you read the essay? It never claimed that AI was useless, nor was the ultimate point of the article even about AI's utility—it was about the political and monetary power shifts it has enabled and their concomitant risks, along with the risks the technology might impose for society.

This ignorance or failure to address these aspects of the issue and solely focus on its utility in a vacuum is precisely the blinkered perspective that will enable the consolidations of power the essay is worried about...the people pushing this stuff are overjoyed that so few people seem to be paying any attention to the more significant shifts they are enacting (as the article states, land purchase, political/capital power accumulation, reduction of workforces and operating costs and labor power... the list goes on)

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#145

Post by tmikaeld »

SoftTalker wrote: post #132
sockgrant wrote: post #14

“As a designer…” IMHO the bleeding edge of what’s working well with LLMs is within software engineering because we’re building for ourselves, first. Claude code is incredible. Where I work, there are an incredible number of custom agents that integrate with our internal tooling. Many make me very productive and are worthwhile. I find it hard to buy in to opinions of non-SWE on the uselessness of AI solely because I t…

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

I’m in the same position, but I use AI to get a second opinion. Try it by using the proper models, like Gemini 3 Pro that was just released and include grounding. Don’t use the free models, you’ll be surprised at how valuable it can be.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#146

Post by sanmon3186 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #132
sockgrant wrote: post #14

“As a designer…” IMHO the bleeding edge of what’s working well with LLMs is within software engineering because we’re building for ourselves, first. Claude code is incredible. Where I work, there are an incredible number of custom agents that integrate with our internal tooling. Many make me very productive and are worthwhile. I find it hard to buy in to opinions of non-SWE on the uselessness of AI solely because I t…

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

Why would you wait for dust to settle down? Just curious. Productivity gains are real in current form of LLMs. Guardrails and best practices can be learnt and self imposed.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#147

Post by aorloff »

nacozarina wrote: post #112

The safety regulations for every new technology are written in blood. Every time. AI won’t be any different, we’ll push it as hard & fast as our tolerance for human suffering allows.

The casualty is functional literacy, and at least half of the murder was handing smartphones out to children and then putting our lives on the web (social)

But AI is certainly going to be the death knell

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#149

Post by noduerme »

SoftTalker wrote: post #132
sockgrant wrote: post #14

“As a designer…” IMHO the bleeding edge of what’s working well with LLMs is within software engineering because we’re building for ourselves, first. Claude code is incredible. Where I work, there are an incredible number of custom agents that integrate with our internal tooling. Many make me very productive and are worthwhile. I find it hard to buy in to opinions of non-SWE on the uselessness of AI solely because I t…

I'm a SWE, DBA, SysAdmin, I work up and down the stack as needed. I'm not using LLMs at all. I really haven't tried them. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clear "best practices" to emerge. I am sure that these tools are here to stay but I am also confident they are not in their final form today. I've seen too many hype trains in my career to still be jumping on them at the first stop.

I'm a SWE and also an art director. I have tried these tools and, the way I've also tried Vue and React, I think they're good enough for simple minded applications. It's worth the penny to try them and look through the binoculars, if only to see how unoriginal and creatively limited what most people in your field are actually doing if they find this something that saves them time.

Re: AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

#150

Post by jibal »

ambicapter wrote: post #100
m463 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> frees you up from a lot of little trivial distractions. I think one huge issue in my life has been: getting started If AI helps with this, I think it is worth it . Even if getting started is incorrect, it sparks outrage and an "I'll fix this" momentum.

I think AI is “worth it” in that sense as long as it stays free :D

Nothing is free, especially not AI, which accounted for 92% of U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025.
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