Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 146 posts

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#51

Post by gensym »

It's funny how easily you can differentiate people in the tech industry who spend all their time with others in the tech industry from those who don't.

The former either seem puzzled about the general public's anger at AI or dismissive of it ("they don't really hate it - look at ChatGPT usage!", "they only hate it because they've been misled about water usage!" and so on).

Non-techies aren't as stupid as people in the tech industry think. Normies can see their social media feeds filling up with slop. They see people in their social circles who can no longer hold a normal conversation without feeding everything into ChatGPT. And - most importantly, I suspect - they are seeing the plan they've built their lives around - get your kids to do well in school, get them into college so they can have a good career and make enough to pay of the loans that plan will require - being casually dismissed by AI boosters ("they'll be plenty of jobs, we just don't know what they are yet!").

Here's a clue for people who don't understand the backlash: if you don't understand that stability has value on its own, then you lack a basic understanding of what more people actually care about.

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#52

Post by peyton »

xscott wrote: post #16

All that's going to happen is people will "voluntarily" take it away from themselves. The fearmongers will tell stories about biological or chemical weapons. It'll be things you could learn from a textbook - something like mercury molecules or cultivating rabies. People will vote to ban AI. The puritans will clutch their pearls because it can be used to make porn they don't like. They'll vote to ban AI. People who ar…

Is there any precedent you’re referencing? Many things that are expensive, slow, scarce, or bad are going to become cheap, fast, abundant, and awesome. Historically people like that a lot.

I just have trouble seeing how we get to there from here. Vote to ban AI? Has anything like that happened before?

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#53

Post by postsantum »

nozzlegear wrote: post #48
SubiculumCode wrote: post #46

We truly need to put a stop to leaving our citizens defenseless against nation-state propaganda campaigns coming out of China and Russia.

Are you implying this story is Chinese or Russian propaganda?

Everything is Chinese/Russian propaganda unless it comes from a respectable source like BBC

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#54

Post by nozzlegear »

dyauspitr wrote: post #41

Bunch of idiots. We’re all going to lose our jobs but you can only hold back the inevitable for so long. This idiot populous has a total inability to see past the extremely short term. What exactly is going to happen you’re going to block the data centers. You’re going to make it hard to make technical progress and then someone else will eat your lunch and now you’re just poor.

Personally I'm not convinced by pro-accelerationism arguments. Why shouldn't technical progress be hard? Why shouldn't the inevitable be held back as long as possible? What does it mean to have someone else eat our lunch in terms of AI?

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#55

Post by gensym »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #26
xvxvx wrote: post #2

Americans aren’t in favor of being driven into unemployment and poverty? How dare they! Companies have their relationship with people, specifically employees, backwards. What percentage of companies out there are truly needed? What percentage solely exist because people have some surplus money to play with? No one needs Microsoft or Google products. No one needs overpriced Apple crap. AI means jack shit to almost 100…

Why would you only rollback to the 90s. Pretty sure TV was evil and destroying culture. And Rock and roll that was devastating, so we gotta roll back at least to the 1930's. That would be a fitting era to recreate.

Were you around in the 90s? People really were more optimistic then, at least in the US. It wasn't perfect, but it really did feel like things were getting better. The Clinton administration had to start doing studies about whether paying off the national debt would be globally destabilizing! We really were talking about the "end of history". We thought the Internet would bring people together and end bigotry.

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#57

Post by mgh2 »

hydroplane wrote: post #6

I often wonder how different AI sentiment would be today if all of the layoffs that were opportunistically blamed on AI by the company CEOs were instead blamed on the real reason (likely pandemic related over hiring). The root of the backlash started as a result of all those “AI” layoffs and the hyperscaler CEOs gloating how everybody was going to lose their job due to AI. So in the end, they reap what they sow. A gr…

The best people can do is to "vote with the wallets" aka attention: like social media, avoid using AI altogether no matter how "pervasive" they become, they will soon realize they won't need it as much as they think- overcome the addiction and brainwashing...

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#58

Post by dyauspitr »

nozzlegear wrote: post #54
dyauspitr wrote: post #41

Bunch of idiots. We’re all going to lose our jobs but you can only hold back the inevitable for so long. This idiot populous has a total inability to see past the extremely short term. What exactly is going to happen you’re going to block the data centers. You’re going to make it hard to make technical progress and then someone else will eat your lunch and now you’re just poor.

Personally I'm not convinced by pro-accelerationism arguments. Why shouldn't technical progress be hard? Why shouldn't the inevitable be held back as long as possible? What does it mean to have someone else eat our lunch in terms of AI?

It’s because you live in a world with competitors now this isn’t the 60s and the 70s anymore. There are legitimately quite a few countries that can effectively compete. Someone else eating your lunch in this case means you’re poor, have no global power and life for all of us will be worse than what we currently enjoy.

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#59

Post by soundworlds »

1. So AI companies royally screwed over artists and other culture workers.

2. Culture workers are a big part of who sets the narrative for the general population - especially young people.

3. Less than 1/5 of Gen Z are optimistic about AI and the number is falling: (https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skep...)

The current wave of AI companies did this to themselves. Had things moved more slowly and actively worked with all the affected industries, I suspect people would be far less interested in seeing the technology fail.

Re: The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

#60

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

gensym wrote: post #51

It's funny how easily you can differentiate people in the tech industry who spend all their time with others in the tech industry from those who don't. The former either seem puzzled about the general public's anger at AI or dismissive of it ("they don't really hate it - look at ChatGPT usage!", "they only hate it because they've been misled about water usage!" and so on). Non-techies aren't as stupid as people in th…

Is there room for people who are already in the acceptance phase? We started aggressively adopting AI in my company this year. I think I disliked (though never hated) it for a few days, but it’s a systemic change that I can’t just push back against. I don’t believe that strong public opinion can stop technological development either—just take nuclear for example.

I think that the concerns underlying the outrage are real and honestly valid, but the question I’m asking now isn’t “how to stop it” but “what now”? Because economies are cyclical and if it wasn’t AI it’d have been something else that would threaten our survival, and there are many good alternatives right now: climate change and war.

Post reply on HN