AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It • Hacker News Board

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#491

Post by jimmyjazz14 » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

John7878781 wrote: post #451

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhg this entire way of treating AI like a magical alien invasion is the problem, it just a statistical model, text-in, text-out (and it humans that feed the input and act on the output). Its not some alien invasion that can't be stopped, its just another technology that we as humans need to figure out how we want to use. Seriously people need to stop trying to anthropomorphize AI, because doing so is one of the bigge…

> it just a statistical model, text-in, text-out (and it humans that feed the input and act on the output). You're not thinking long-term. What happens when AI is put in charge of systems that interact with the physical world?

That is a choice a human made. Imagine if someone proposed sending the outputs of a random number generator to a space laser and had it fire at will, would we blame the number generator for the destruction it causes? You may say that LLMs are not random number generators, and I would somewhat agree, but at least in their current state and level of understanding we have about how they derive their output they might as well be.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#492

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

Ray20 wrote: post #304

rayiner wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much actual money do you think the “people with billions of dollars” have in comparison to the needs of the population as a whole? I think you’re very confused about where the actual income in the economy goes.

Generalize "people with billions of dollars" to all Americans - and then this logic will start to work fully. "Until people with salaries of many dollars per hour behind them do something with that money to offset the financial hardship that they're knowingly - and gleefully - bringing to others 90% of the world that live on less than 2 dollars per day... The distinction has no practical use." Moreover, these people…

America only has the shallowest appearance of a democracy where voters get to control who is elected.

The electoral college system, coupled with it's winner-takes-all implementation in most states, means that voting is a sham for 80% of the population. The other 20% live in a swing state and their vote can at least potentially affect the outcome of an election, but even there "your vote" will literally be cast opposite to what you put on the ballet unless you end up being part of the winning majority.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#493

Post by jimmyjazz14 » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

ambicapter wrote: post #480

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhg this entire way of treating AI like a magical alien invasion is the problem, it just a statistical model, text-in, text-out (and it humans that feed the input and act on the output). Its not some alien invasion that can't be stopped, its just another technology that we as humans need to figure out how we want to use. Seriously people need to stop trying to anthropomorphize AI, because doing so is one of the bigge…

It is definitely not "just" a statistical model. It is inextricably linked to the datasets it is trained on. Datasets that these companies possess, but that ordinary people do not. That is one half of where they get their power (the training techniques being the other, but those tend to bubble out to the general public, or at least the interested public).

How they were created doesn't change what they are, or how humans choose to use them.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#494

Post by jfengel » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

jplusequalt wrote: post #417

rayiner wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then who pays for it?

Raising taxes is the only possible way a UBI would be feasible, and even then it wouldn't be a large enough amount for most people to live off of. Also, a UBI is likely to cause inflation.

There is currently more than enough total production for people to live quite well.

If AIs simply replace people, the same total work gets done. It's just a matter of who gets the profits from it.

It won't be that simple, to be sure. Nonetheless we already produce far more than subsistence, and there's no reason why a UBI would change that. If it increases the price of some commodities because now everyone can buy them, I'm ok with that. It already horrifies me that some go hungry in the fattest nation in history.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#495

Post by customguy » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #382

only-one1701 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. It’s striking to me how many adults can’t conceive of “violence” as an abstraction that results in certain effects and fall back on “violence is dealing direct physical injury to a person’s body or building.”

[flagged]

The sole reason the concept of "physical violence" exists is because violence without that qualifier is not necessarily physical, but still violence.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#496

Post by paulorlando » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

I've been research Luddite movements around the world. Agreed that the topic is timely.

A closer comparison to Sam Altman might be Edmund Cartwright (inventor of the power loom that automated weaving). The Horsfall and Altman situations differ in that Horsfall was a factory owner but didn't create or organize the teams that built the stocking frames. There was also an attempt on Cartwright's life as he was out riding. But like Altman and unlike Horsfall, he wasn't killed.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#497

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

ethin wrote: post #410

Avicebron wrote: post #150

I feel like if people keep using AI as a blanket term for "inequality" and "inequality accelerants" then yeah, it's "AI"'s fault. When in reality the whole thing needs to be decoupled.. "Gleefully taking away people's livelihoods will be met with violence, and nothing good will come of it." - fixed.

This distinction is good in academic circles and similar (like on here). But the public (and ordinary people who aren't people who regularly visit Hacker News -- or even know that Hacker News exists) don't care. To them, AI == inequality and inequality accelerants, because it is funded and run by the richest, most powerful people on Earth. And those very people are making everything worse for all but them, not better…

It's because the consequences of AI is so direct and obvious, and also faster, where the inequality and job losses from other tech advances are just less direct.

That is, it's not hard to see why so many main streets in smaller towns have boarded up retail stores since you can now get anything in about a day (max) from Amazon. But Amazon (and other Internet giants) always played at least semi-plausible lip service that they were a boon to small fry (see Amazon's FBA commercials, for example). But you've got folks like Altman and Amodei gleefully saying how AI will be able to do all the work of a huge portion of (mostly high paying) jobs.

So it's not surprising that people are more up in arms about AI. And frankly, I don't think it really matters. Anger against "the tech elite" has been bubbling up for a long time now, and AI now just provides the most obvious target.

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#498

Post by coffeebeqn » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #269

dandanua wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone would have equal access to the ultimate means of production. You are right that AI can be a fully democratized commodity. The problem is that the current wealth inequality is not the result of AI. Musk became a trillion seeking oligarch not because of AI. It is because the entire financial system is designed to extract wealth from everyone and concentrate at the top. Democratic AI is not in their interest.…

>It will be violence from the rich towards the poor, because democratic AI is not acceptable for them. Unless the rich somehow manage to completely stifle the progress of consumer-level computing advancement (all chip manufacturers would just collude to quit selling to consumers?) and exert an iron-fisted control over the dissemination of software (when has this ever worked?), I'm not sure how they could control the…

All the chip manufacturers? Nvidia makes most of what’s running the current AI at least and they do seem to be pivoting away from the consumer market

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#499

Post by cindyllm » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #426

nailer wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Weirdly enough, I find that victims of violence who weren’t engaged in a greater act of violence (i.e., the domestic abuse victim versus a soldier in a conflict) are often the staunchest advocates for unwarranted harm towards others to preserve their personal sense of safety. They will carefully carve out a definition of violence that speaks to the specific harm they suffered and requires explicit physical action, an…

[dead]

Re: AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It

#500

Post by jfengel » Sun, Apr 12, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #425

jplusequalt wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising taxes is the only possible way a UBI would be feasible, and even then it wouldn't be a large enough amount for most people to live off of. Also, a UBI is likely to cause inflation.

I don’t understand why welfare is the answer. To me it seems we’ve super failed if that’s the case — just brings everyone down except a few ultra rich people.

UBI is not welfare. It is just a livable minimum wage, for everyone who works. For those who cannot work, it replaces welfare, but that is not it's primary purpose.

As a welfare replacement, it is much more efficient, since there is no effort spent determining who qualifies. People can spent their money however they want, rather than the patchwork of separate programs we have now.

It doesn't need to bring anyone down. It's just a different way of distributing what we already receive. For you ordinary workers, they will receive $X in a monthly check, and their salary can be reduced by $X (since the minimum wage can also be abolished).

That does mean that the desirability of some jobs will shift. Good. We have a bunch of very dirty jobs being done for minimum wage, even though demand is extremely high. I'd love to see the garbage men and chicken processors get more money for their dangerous work.

And if I get less for my cushy desk job, oh well. Especially since we seem to be putting all of the effort into replacing me, and none into the jobs that come with hazards to life and limb.