The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it • Hacker News Board

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#101

Post by CodeCompost » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

guzfip wrote: post #82

troosevelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lost your $60,000 a year job due to this, do you really believe a basic income funded by it will make up that loss? It won't. Basic income in the US is usually proposed at $12k per year, which would add another $3 trillion to the budget. Do you think you can even get that just taxing these companies? I don't. People who bring up basic income need to get serious about the numbers involved because I never see it…

[flagged]

You basic income is 12k? Congratulations, your rent just went up 12k a year.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#102

Post by retired » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #44

I feel like their are (at least) three main critiques of AI, and I wish we could debate them separately, because I think they each have different resolutions. The first is the fear of job loss, and I feel like this is the most straightforward to deal with. Personally, I think the solution should be to share the productivity of AI with society at large, in particular since AI owes most of its abilities to training on…

Needing less offices, less people driving to those offices, less A/C and heating for those offices and less resources building those offices could offset the energy usage of AI.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#103

Post by ambicapter » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #44

I feel like their are (at least) three main critiques of AI, and I wish we could debate them separately, because I think they each have different resolutions. The first is the fear of job loss, and I feel like this is the most straightforward to deal with. Personally, I think the solution should be to share the productivity of AI with society at large, in particular since AI owes most of its abilities to training on…

> Doing work to make it more efficient

Making it more efficient will probably >>increase<< the total energy devoted to AI, not reduce it. See Jevon's Paradox.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#104

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

Tyrubias wrote: post #80

cortesoft wrote: post #44

I feel like their are (at least) three main critiques of AI, and I wish we could debate them separately, because I think they each have different resolutions. The first is the fear of job loss, and I feel like this is the most straightforward to deal with. Personally, I think the solution should be to share the productivity of AI with society at large, in particular since AI owes most of its abilities to training on…

I understand your points, but I think what scares people is that the solutions you propose are disregarded by our politicians. At least in the US, both politicians and the large donors funding them seem to be more and more allergic to anything resembling an universal basic income, and they do their best to scare people away with fearmongering about “communism”. The US is also doing a hard U-turn away from environment…

> politicians and the large donors funding them seem to be more and more allergic to anything resembling an universal basic income

UBI has been a major donor priority, at least on the left.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#105

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

guzfip wrote: post #82

troosevelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lost your $60,000 a year job due to this, do you really believe a basic income funded by it will make up that loss? It won't. Basic income in the US is usually proposed at $12k per year, which would add another $3 trillion to the budget. Do you think you can even get that just taxing these companies? I don't. People who bring up basic income need to get serious about the numbers involved because I never see it…

[flagged]

“Let them eat cake,” or whatever.

Telling a bunch of people they should accept being poorer has always worked out historically.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#106

Post by happytoexplain » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

guzfip wrote: post #82

troosevelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lost your $60,000 a year job due to this, do you really believe a basic income funded by it will make up that loss? It won't. Basic income in the US is usually proposed at $12k per year, which would add another $3 trillion to the budget. Do you think you can even get that just taxing these companies? I don't. People who bring up basic income need to get serious about the numbers involved because I never see it…

[flagged]

This is one of the most horrifying comments I've ever read on this website. It's practically a dare to engage in civil war or violent revolution. People fundamentally experience life as relative - as changes. You can't "deprogram" intrinsic human nature. You can just wait 80 years for everybody who's not used to the new hell to die.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#107

Post by fnoef » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

jhack wrote: post #90

To a lot of people AI is just image and text generation. And yes, these uses alone aren't worth the time, money, and energy. But there are a lot of areas where AI is helping that people don't see, like in medicine. Drug development, cancer research and early detection, CT and MRI analysis, just to name a few. These uses cases are vastly more important but rarely get discussed. It's important to know that AI isn't thi…

You know, perspective matters. When you sell a knife with the promise of a tool that helps you cut onions, is a completely different story from when you market it as a weapon to kill your neighbor.

AI is massively marketed by AI people as a tool to replace your job. So either the AI people are bad at marketing or the gains in other industry are insignificant/ do not generate shareholder value.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#108

Post by troosevelt » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

hashmap wrote: post #96

troosevelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lost your $60,000 a year job due to this, do you really believe a basic income funded by it will make up that loss? It won't. Basic income in the US is usually proposed at $12k per year, which would add another $3 trillion to the budget. Do you think you can even get that just taxing these companies? I don't. People who bring up basic income need to get serious about the numbers involved because I never see it…

You never see it how. Like in terms of raw resources or political will?

I mean the numbers. 12k per year is peanuts. You cannot live off that and to do it we'd be nearly doubling the budget (that's old data, it's probably not that portion of the budget anymore).

That 12k doesn't include healthcare, it doesn't include a lot of things. It's basically ensuring that people live well below poverty level, and for what? I just don't get how the numbers work, even if it was politically feasible.

I'd much rather have free healthcare and other amenities other countries have. Here in the US if you lose your job there is virtually nothing between you and the streets besides family and friends.

I'm facing this right now. I cannot get a job in tech which means restarting my career. Getting a job right now is not easy in any field especially not in anything like a living wage. If I did not have my parents I would be on the streets right now, thankfully I don't have a mortgage or anything like that. I'm not sure how much $12k per year would really help, it certainly wouldn't pay for housing.

It's rough out there.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#109

Post by fluoridation » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #79

troosevelt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lost your $60,000 a year job due to this, do you really believe a basic income funded by it will make up that loss? It won't. Basic income in the US is usually proposed at $12k per year, which would add another $3 trillion to the budget. Do you think you can even get that just taxing these companies? I don't. People who bring up basic income need to get serious about the numbers involved because I never see it…

Just as hyperloop was designed as a techbro pie in the sky notion to kill high speed rail, basic income as an idea is designed to kill more realistic attempts to shore up welfare, e.g. * A job guarantee like we had during the great depression * Lowering retirement age * Raise minimum wage * Expanding medicare to everyone It's worth remembering that if AI really can do everyone's jobs then it'll be wildly deflationary…

Job guarantees and higher minimum wages are just UBI with extra steps, while lowering retirement age is just conditional UBI by another name. If you're giving people more money in exchange for nothing (or nothing of any value to anyone, as in the case of a job guarantee), it's effectively indistinguishable from UBI.

Re: The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it

#110

Post by lpcvoid » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

keybored wrote: post #65

Weird to have these threads and then fifteen minutes later there will be a 350+ comment, 500+ votes thread about some 200 USD/month AI subscription service which is now the I Have Seen The Light moment and My Beautiful Side Projects Are Finally Materializing. This is creative destruction in a whole new sense. Just chugging through genuine (or human) creativity, then training on human prompting, then finally ascending…

Vibecoders are by now completely dependent on their subscriptions. Their skills are in the process of deterioration, they have no other choice. It's like heroin.