It's important, in my opinion, to always ask 'who benefits from me believing this?'
> who benefits from me believing this?
In the case of this article, presumably the exploited* laborers whose labor conditions might improve if the population to whom this article is addressed both became aware and started to care about the labor conditions of the people behind the systems they use. Trying to 4D chess ourselves into not having to actually address the issue at hand isn’t clever or insightful, it’s just abdication with numbers attached.
* I’m not arguing whether or not the behavior described in the article actually constitutes exploitation or is just the noble hand of the market more perfectly forming working conditions - that’s not my point. The point is if you DO read the article and you DO feel that behavior’s exploitative, scratching your head over who’s got an agenda to want this thing you find abhorrent changed, as opposed to trying to change the behavior you find abhorrent, is the kind of thing people think smart people are supposed to do, and tends to contribute to more things you find abhorrent happening in the world.
FTA:
>"MMC Ventures surveyed 2,830 AI startups in the EU and found that 40% of them didn’t use AI in a meaningful way."
While not the same as an AI winter, it can still be indicative of "peak hype". If accurate, a large portion of companies are claiming to have some nebulous AI advantage aren't really delivering on that promise. It's doesn't have to be astroturfing to be pointing out a hype machine. Particularly if that hype is predicated on a shaky ethical foundation.
What you did have was increasing skepticism that things like fully-realized door-to-door autonomous driving were going happen in the short-run--but a lot of the skeptics didn't think that would necessarily translate into an AI winter.