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Comment by steelkilt | Hacker News Reader

If I were an adversary of the U.S. I would encourage anti-AI sentiment among young people, to my strategic advantage.

They don't need much help, the industry's incentives are not aligned with the public interest.

Disruption, by definition, has winners and losers and the losers tend to be more visible, more vocal, and more immediate than the winners.

Who do you imagine the winners and losers will be? To the extent AI is useful and disruptive, it's best utilized by people with capital. Which is to say, the winners are few and the losers are everybody else. In this case, the losers aren't just more vocal, they're louder and more visible because they're much more numerous.

See below. Small business owners who learn how to use the tools right are one example.

Who are the winners? Where's the profitable billion dollar industry?

I’ve been a small business (manufacturing) owner for about 25 years. AI saves me time, extends my reach and reduces my time to market. AI isn’t a threat to me; it’s a daily tool I use. I’m also a former SWE - I took time most of Anthropic’s courses to maximize my ability to leverage the tools. It’s a win/win for me.

We're talking about an entire generation being impoverished and powerless, and the response from people like you and Schmidt is a dismissive "winners and losers". If this is the whole plan from AI evangelists be prepared for a heck of a lot more blowback.

If you care about society and this technology reaching its potential I hope you find your way to "yes" on giving a shit about other people.

That assumes that there is benefit to be had in all this AI craze. So far, none has yet materialized.

Yesterday I needed to create an SDS (material safety data sheet) for one of my products. This would usually take me a few hours, maybe half a day. An agent did it for me in 5 minutes. This example isn’t unique; for a small business owner, AI is a quality of life improvement.

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