SF tech CEO's billboards are 'dystopian.' That's how he wants it | Hacker News Reader

SF tech CEO's billboards are 'dystopian.' That's how he wants it

sfgate.com

41 pointsthehoff21 comments

Annoying trust-fund kids never fail to impress us with their arrogant display of ignorance and their half-brained "genial" schemes.

We should tax inheritance more just to make our society less subject to the bad taste of this gross people.

It's not a "death tax", it's a "birth-time windfall tax".

This is a perfect manifestation of our social cultural dynamics at play. If an employee comes in hungover on a Friday, it usually means they lived a little on Thursday night. But to think that ‘hungover employees’ is a force of evil is to completely misunderstand the greater human experience we all share. We are all playing in this game of economics to varying degrees of immersion. Ideally, the economy is just a labor focusing engine that puts people in the right place at the right time to produce the maximum efficiency in terms of what they provide to society. But the car that this engine drives is one that is meant expand and deepen the human experience by keeping people healthy for longer and giving people back more free time than ever before to explore themselves and the world. But some people don’t see it this way. Most ceos and founders are able to impose their deeply flawed worldview onto society as a whole by accruing capital at the cost of everything else. They benefit hugely by dragging us as far into ‘the game’ as they can and pitting us against each other. The only solution I can see is one where machines and automation can carry out all the essential functions needed to feed and care for a large population. Then everyone is given a universal basic income and the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives. I’d like to believe most people will immerse themselves in the more human hobbies like arts and sports instead of wasting their lives away without purpose. Maybe I’m just hopeful

> But the car that this engine drives is one that is meant expand and deepen the human experience by keeping people healthy for longer and giving people back more free time than ever before to explore themselves and the world. But some people don’t see it this way. Most ceos and founders are able to impose their deeply flawed worldview onto society as a whole by accruing capital at the cost of everything else.

I agree, the CEOs and founders see the car a vehicle to further their own greed and power, they're personal human experience, not the collective human experience.

Many of the ideologies that underlay our culture, especially at its elite ranks, allow and encourages that.

> The only solution I can see is one where machines and automation can carry out all the essential functions needed to feed and care for a large population. Then everyone is given a universal basic income and the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives. I’d like to believe most people will immerse themselves in the more human hobbies like arts and sports instead of wasting their lives away without purpose. Maybe I’m just hopeful

That's an utterly unrealistic fantasy. Automation isn't a solution, it will be more of the same without fundamental change in those underlying ideologies. Hoping that automation will be the solution is a disparate, unrealistic hope that putting the cart before the horse will work out.

The only reason the "ceos and founders" share anything with you (i.e. pay you) is because you're useful to them. What happens when automation means you're no longer useful? Are they going to keep sharing? Have their kind ever made that choice through all the other prior waves of automation?

Isn't the richest man in the world right now working really hard to slash government spending in a way that will likely hurt all the people already discarded due to the prior waves of automation?

What needs to happen before total automation, is an ideological change needs to be forced on the "ceos and founders" that massively reduces inequality and greatly lessens their power. And that needs to happen before most workers lose all economic power to automation.

UBI's only purpose is a sop to keep the population passive in the face of changes that will pull the rug out from under them.

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I tried to limit my writing while keeping the core ideas true as I’m not going to write a multi page paper for a HN comment. I agree, automation alone will not bring equality to the masses. As I see it, it should go something like this: automation scales to the point where it’s pushing people out of jobs. This scares the working class. It gives them a real reason to go out and force change (hint: the working class can force change. They just have to want the change so much that it overcomes the many roadblocks in place to prevent them from making change. Partisan politics, big corporation lobbying, big media outlets all stand in the way of this, but I believe all of them can fall to the pressure of the core change making machine that is the American democratic system). Now this is far out there but here is what I think: My hope is this ‘movement’ will have deep enough considerations to the future of civilization to be able to overturn the outdated capitalist system and replace it with a neo capitalist system that should essentially rob large companies of systems essential to the country. There should be an upper limit to the net worth one can obtain. Think like this: Amazon slashes 80 percent of its workforce through automation. Then it is clear that they have created a system largely self sustaining that will suck up many more times wealth than it will give back to the population, and this wealth will condense into the owners of Amazon. Then the government should essentially strip the owners of their share of profits the company makes. They can keep their power within the company. They can keep their roles and they still manage the company for a hefty, hefty salary. But every dollar of profit over what it takes to keep the company running and pay the owners well will be evenly distributed to the American people because otherwise society will collapse. I know this reads more like a fiction novel than anything but I think the scale of problems that we face today require such thinking. I appreciate your willingness to comment and think critically about the future of society because this is something we need more of. We need more people to a. Believe in a vision of a future where we progress as a people - b. Believe they have the power to advance our society toward such a lofty goal. Because if enough of us believe so, it becomes attainable.

1. I used America as an example because I am American and that’s just how I think - no doubt the path could be blazed by other countries but I want to see my country survive

2. I’m sure there are many many technical issues with my vision of the future to be solved which would require many great minds to combine forces and analyze history. The question is will such an effort ever materialize, or will humanity be forever chained down by biology and circumstance? I would like to think it’s possible because as an American I see the formation of our government and constitution as possibly the greatest triumph in human history. Democracy was a revolution. But to progress we will soon need another revolution about equal in weight.

> As I see it, it should go something like this: automation scales to the point where it’s pushing people out of jobs. This scares the working class. It gives them a real reason to go out and force change...

The biggest problem with that idea is that it's highly likely that the working class will wait to take action until long after they've lost the power to succeed at anything they try.

We've already had analogous waves of job losses (e.g. due to NAFTA, the China shock), what happened then? Forget going out an forcing change, the working class lost a lot of their leverage (e.g. factory owner to the workers: give us concessions or we'll move the factory to Mexico more quickly).

A reaction is insufficient. A proactive response is the only thing that can succeed, but that's very hard with a decentralized group like "the working class."

"its only existing product is an artificial intelligence “sales agent” called Artisan, built to automate the work of finding and messaging potential customers."

So they use "AI" to generate spam, and that is going to replace the workforce? Good luck!

Well to be fair, the rest of the billboards in SF off the 80/101 are generally bland and corporate AF. Gee, another HR/payment processing platform. Wow, a new iPhone! Anyone unfamiliar with the SF Bay Area's rich cultural history who was just passing thru would think it's a company town filled with docile, well-scrubbed tech serfs.

His company, like 9 out of 10 YC companies, is destined to fail. That is all the poetic justice you'll ever need.

Y Combinator Funded AI Firm's 'Stop Hiring Humans' Billboard Sparks Outrage

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42380054

So once all of the workers get replaced with AI who's going to buy the products these companies sell?

FFS, it's a marketing campaign. In San Francisco. If it's posted to HN every picosecond, it's obviously working.

If you don't make AI-nonsense procurement (or investment) decisions, you aren't its target. The only utility you can provide to the ad is in sharing it. Edgy, insulting marketing is common throughout history because it's effective, both in virality and in defining an us-them dynamic, typically on a strong-weak axis. (You see it in non-advertising memes, too. Snowflakes, Karens, et cetera work because they're infuriating to some people.)

He wants you talking about him, that's all

> “They are somewhat dystopian, but so is AI,” said the young CEO over text. “The way the world works is changing.”

It really blows my mind that people can see that all of this is taking us to a dystopian future, but are eager to help that along rather than try to avoid it.

It's pure sociopathy.

It isn’t pure sociopathy. In this instance the sociopathy is heavily doped with high-test stupidity. “My spam chat bot is going to change the world” is the sort of thing an autoerotic asphyxiator gasps out before things take a bad turn

"People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks." is up there as well

Or the classic tweet (https://x.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538):

> Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale

> Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

If you rule the dystopia, then it's not a dystopia to you. He can see it but is hoping to gain power instead of be ground into dirt or Luigi'd

Is "getting Luigi'd" becoming a thing?

For the most part, I'm not in the loop as cultural phrases come into being, and I'm often not aware of the references. I'm conflicted by the fact that I find this phrase both tragic and funny as hell. I can't get Nintendo's Luigi out of my mind.

these guys all see themselves as the future rich elite of the dystopia, they don't understand that they get get revolutionaried when the warlords come and can't stand competition.

just another ai customer service bot with ads meant to shock you.

this guy is competing against a trillion other identical and replaceable firms and he needs recognition so he's making annoying and insulting ads. congrats, you're an edgelord.

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