6 ms·

Silicon Valley's tone-deaf take on the AI backlash will matter in 2026

83 points by howToTestFE 9mo ago

robby_w_g 9mo ago
If the tech industry leaders demonstrated any amount of responsibility, accountability, or care for the general well-being of people, then I think this would instead be an exciting time for tech innovation. The enthusiasm I felt decades ago is completely gone.
- gdulli 9mo ago
  I'd also be excited about this technology if it had come before everything we've seen in the last 25 years. It's irresponsibly naive not to understand by now that technological advances are being used more against us than for us.
- ares623 9mo ago
  It’s been really disgusting watching some people I used to look up to somewhat devolve into.
- xg15 9mo ago
  There was a recent talk from CCC that got a bit deeper into Peter Thiel's "Antichrist" ideology and where it comes from. The bottom line of that talk seemed even worse: That for some tech leaders, the general wellbeing of the population or "classical" arguments for progress such as improving living conditions and advancing mutual understanding aren't even orthogonal to their goals but are explicit anti-goals: Because a world with too much wellbeing and too little conflict would ostensibly lead to stagnation, loss of freedom and innovation and the state of what Thiel termed the "Antichrist". Too much conflict is bad as well because it carries the risk of complete destruction, so they'd aim for some kind of ideal level of conflict and suffering in the world, like some sort of twisted inflation target.
  - anal_reactor 9mo ago
    Imagine that in ten thousand years aliens actually invade Earth and try to enslave humanity. If we spend this time perfecting the art of war we'll have some chance of survival. If we spend this time just growing tomatoes, no fucking way. So yes, from the perspective of humanity as a whole, it makes sense to say that the perfect amount of war and suffering is non-zero. > but aliens won't invade Earth Native Americans thought the same.
    - fakedang 9mo ago
      > Imagine that in ten thousand years aliens actually invade Earth and try to enslave humanity. Insert Mr. Bean highway meme
    - cactacea 9mo ago
      We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
    - collingreen 9mo ago
      Super good point. Only two options with no middle ground and definitely should choose to hurt an unlimited number of people on the off chance of a long future alien invasion and the even longer chance that by going out of our way to hurt people now will somehow actually matter against a spacefaring, almost-certainly-interstellar hostile force. What nonsense.
    - pjdemers 9mo ago
      If the earth is one big tomato garden, maybe aliens will leave us alone. Also, native Americans were very aware that other groups of humans existed beyond their horizon, and some of the those groups were hostile to them. We have zero reason to believe there is anyone out in space hostile to us. In fact, we have plenty of evidence there isn't anyone at all out there.
    - beAbU 9mo ago
      Any alien race that is actually able to travel all the way to earth with the intention of invasion, with enough resources to presumably make the trip back home with all the loot/slaves (why else would they invade?) will be so far beyond our human technical abilities that we stand basically 0 chance of survival. I think it's absurd to justify killing one another in wars because it might one day save us from some hypothetical invasion.
arunabha 9mo ago
I don't think the opposition from the public is because they don't see value in AI. Quite the opposite, every single non tech person I know has used AI tools and can immediately see the value. The 'backlash' seems to be from the fact that people, esp white collar workers are finally realizing what blue collar folks have been feeling for quite some time. That an overwhelming majority of the technology driven productivity gains accrue to capital owners, not workers and AI is the ultimate productivity tool. It doesn't help that capital owners no longer feel it necessary to even pretend. Like when CEOs openly salivate at the prospect of firing all workers and replacing them with AI. When people see their electricity rates go up to subsidize billionaires building AI data centers. When they see their real wages falling continually while they are told how good the economy is. If the gains from AI were shared even a little with the regular people, they might not have the deep sense of unease and sometimes open hostility that we are seeing now.
- jaredcwhite 9mo ago
  Wow this is bubble talk. Who are you talking to?! I regularly engage with people who are totally ambivalent towards genAI at best and horrifed by genAI at worst. The only people "immediately seeing the value" seem to be marketing grifters on LinkedIn. "The regular people" …what??
- LiquidSky 9mo ago
  >Like when CEOs openly salivate at the prospect of firing all workers and replacing them with AI. I saw a series of ads in a train station the other day for some company claiming to offer "AI employees" that had slogans like "our employees never complain about overtime", "our employees don't ask about vacations", etc. and was just shocked at the brazenness of it.
  - lotsofpulp 9mo ago
    It would be funny if the ads were made by a sole proprietor.
  - watwut 9mo ago
    Yeah. And the same people seem puzzled when they see random citizens hating on AI with passion and treating it as a threat.
jaredcwhite 9mo ago
From the article, an OpenAI researcher apparently: > “Every time I use Codex to solve some issue late at night or GPT helps me figure out a difficult strategic problem, I feel: what a relief. There are so few minds on Earth that are both intelligent and persistent enough to generate new insights and keep the torch of scientific civilization alive. Now you have potentially infinite minds to throw at infinite potential problems. Your computer friend that never takes the day off, never gets bored, never checks out and stops trying.” Um, this person needs help? Serious mental issues, hello?! It's really concerning me how many people are having breaks with reality, and I don't only mean the poor people who are sadly taking their own lives.
- chadcmulligan 9mo ago
  I think its another example of the Gell-mann amnesia effect, if your'e an expert in something then the AI is often wrong and you're confused why people are saying its great, if you're less skilled then it can be impressive.
kilpikaarna 9mo ago
https://archive.is/WWBO4 https://archive.is/WWBO4
pigpop 9mo ago
and who is doing the polarizing? Honestly, I'm pretty sure that most media companies' main business now is creating problems that they can then report on. Whip up the crowd with fear and anxiety and then capitalize on it by feeding them a never ending stream of low key doom articles that they'll be compelled to read by their newfound neuroticism.

83 points by howToTestFE 9mo ago

If the tech industry leaders demonstrated any amount of responsibility, accountability, or care for the general well-being of people, then I think this would instead be an exciting time for tech innovation. The enthusiasm I felt decades ago is completely gone.

gdulli 9mo ago
I'd also be excited about this technology if it had come before everything we've seen in the last 25 years. It's irresponsibly naive not to understand by now that technological advances are being used more against us than for us.
ares623 9mo ago
It’s been really disgusting watching some people I used to look up to somewhat devolve into.
xg15 9mo ago
There was a recent talk from CCC that got a bit deeper into Peter Thiel's "Antichrist" ideology and where it comes from. The bottom line of that talk seemed even worse: That for some tech leaders, the general wellbeing of the population or "classical" arguments for progress such as improving living conditions and advancing mutual understanding aren't even orthogonal to their goals but are explicit anti-goals: Because a world with too much wellbeing and too little conflict would ostensibly lead to stagnation, loss of freedom and innovation and the state of what Thiel termed the "Antichrist". Too much conflict is bad as well because it carries the risk of complete destruction, so they'd aim for some kind of ideal level of conflict and suffering in the world, like some sort of twisted inflation target.
- anal_reactor 9mo ago
  Imagine that in ten thousand years aliens actually invade Earth and try to enslave humanity. If we spend this time perfecting the art of war we'll have some chance of survival. If we spend this time just growing tomatoes, no fucking way. So yes, from the perspective of humanity as a whole, it makes sense to say that the perfect amount of war and suffering is non-zero. > but aliens won't invade Earth Native Americans thought the same.
  - fakedang 9mo ago
    > Imagine that in ten thousand years aliens actually invade Earth and try to enslave humanity. Insert Mr. Bean highway meme
  - cactacea 9mo ago
    We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
  - collingreen 9mo ago
    Super good point. Only two options with no middle ground and definitely should choose to hurt an unlimited number of people on the off chance of a long future alien invasion and the even longer chance that by going out of our way to hurt people now will somehow actually matter against a spacefaring, almost-certainly-interstellar hostile force. What nonsense.
  - pjdemers 9mo ago
    If the earth is one big tomato garden, maybe aliens will leave us alone. Also, native Americans were very aware that other groups of humans existed beyond their horizon, and some of the those groups were hostile to them. We have zero reason to believe there is anyone out in space hostile to us. In fact, we have plenty of evidence there isn't anyone at all out there.
  - beAbU 9mo ago
    Any alien race that is actually able to travel all the way to earth with the intention of invasion, with enough resources to presumably make the trip back home with all the loot/slaves (why else would they invade?) will be so far beyond our human technical abilities that we stand basically 0 chance of survival. I think it's absurd to justify killing one another in wars because it might one day save us from some hypothetical invasion.

arunabha 9mo ago

I don't think the opposition from the public is because they don't see value in AI. Quite the opposite, every single non tech person I know has used AI tools and can immediately see the value. The 'backlash' seems to be from the fact that people, esp white collar workers are finally realizing what blue collar folks have been feeling for quite some time. That an overwhelming majority of the technology driven productivity gains accrue to capital owners, not workers and AI is the ultimate productivity tool. It doesn't help that capital owners no longer feel it necessary to even pretend. Like when CEOs openly salivate at the prospect of firing all workers and replacing them with AI. When people see their electricity rates go up to subsidize billionaires building AI data centers. When they see their real wages falling continually while they are told how good the economy is. If the gains from AI were shared even a little with the regular people, they might not have the deep sense of unease and sometimes open hostility that we are seeing now.

jaredcwhite 9mo ago
Wow this is bubble talk. Who are you talking to?! I regularly engage with people who are totally ambivalent towards genAI at best and horrifed by genAI at worst. The only people "immediately seeing the value" seem to be marketing grifters on LinkedIn. "The regular people" …what??
LiquidSky 9mo ago
>Like when CEOs openly salivate at the prospect of firing all workers and replacing them with AI. I saw a series of ads in a train station the other day for some company claiming to offer "AI employees" that had slogans like "our employees never complain about overtime", "our employees don't ask about vacations", etc. and was just shocked at the brazenness of it.
- lotsofpulp 9mo ago
  It would be funny if the ads were made by a sole proprietor.
- watwut 9mo ago
  Yeah. And the same people seem puzzled when they see random citizens hating on AI with passion and treating it as a threat.

jaredcwhite 9mo ago

From the article, an OpenAI researcher apparently: > “Every time I use Codex to solve some issue late at night or GPT helps me figure out a difficult strategic problem, I feel: what a relief. There are so few minds on Earth that are both intelligent and persistent enough to generate new insights and keep the torch of scientific civilization alive. Now you have potentially infinite minds to throw at infinite potential problems. Your computer friend that never takes the day off, never gets bored, never checks out and stops trying.” Um, this person needs help? Serious mental issues, hello?! It's really concerning me how many people are having breaks with reality, and I don't only mean the poor people who are sadly taking their own lives.

chadcmulligan 9mo ago
I think its another example of the Gell-mann amnesia effect, if your'e an expert in something then the AI is often wrong and you're confused why people are saying its great, if you're less skilled then it can be impressive.

kilpikaarna 9mo ago

https://archive.is/WWBO4 https://archive.is/WWBO4

pigpop 9mo ago

and who is doing the polarizing? Honestly, I'm pretty sure that most media companies' main business now is creating problems that they can then report on. Whip up the crowd with fear and anxiety and then capitalize on it by feeding them a never ending stream of low key doom articles that they'll be compelled to read by their newfound neuroticism.