Is the ai hate a global or western thing? A friend of mine in Japan says people don't hate it there. Maybe she's just in a bubble?
> I think the US is a lot more exposed to the apocalyptic narratives from the bosses of AI labs, who sort of painted themselves into that corner in the pursuit of valuations.
I'm sure that narrative plays into why AI is so hated in the US, but I think widespread distrust in our government to handle things well also plays a huge part in why the average American is so anti-AI.
Our social safety nets have all either been falling apart or have been being purposefully dismantled for decades. Most of us are wholly reliant on our jobs in order to be able to get even the most basic healthcare. Most working class people are already struggling to keep their heads above water in the face of constant inflation and limited wage growth.
When the most likely outcome if the job displacement narrative does turn out to be even partially true means you can't afford a place to live, can't afford to eat, can't get healthcare and based on current trajectories you suspect the most likely government solution to the problem could be rounding up more and more of a growing underclass and sticking them in corporate run prisons, it isn't too difficult to understand why people might not be super jazzed about AI.
If none of those things are true for you it's going to feel apocalyptic and existential.
Related is probably cultural bias to "evil" or dangerous technology, particularly thinking machines, vs. benevolent partners, assistants or tools.
Because in reality, I'm seeing a mix in my group of friends with younger kids. They are, at a macro-level nervous-curiosity about the unknown (future of jobs, their kids' job market future, is this going to make us all dumber, etc), but are also trying the various tools and benefitting from them and acknowledging that too.
That's 3 things to be nervous about, none anyone is "curious" about. So they're nervous about the prospects, but also acknowledge they "benefit from them", which is 100% vague versus actual concerns. If that's the best you can come up with after this stuff about the media trying to find boogeymen, that's kind of an own goal.
And you don't even mention something I see mentioned in the wild all the time, often at the forefront: how these companies just took and take everything people made, without asking, while if you take from them they sue you. That is so glaring I would even say if all people you know don't care about that, it would be a problem with your friends, not legitimize what these companies did and do.
Maybe the difference in certain other countries is that people aren't so used to being treated like baggage by a government run by people who are obviously interested in self-enrichment above all else. It's very hard to square the AI industry's promises of an eventual transition to luxury gay space communism with what we see in eg the Trump administration (as well as their own desperate obsession with growth at any cost).
And so much more...
Can you explain this line of reasoning to me. My own intuition tells me that as AI automates away jobs, the center will be more open to government programs that create jobs, provide a social safety net, and allow people to retrain.
Why is it you think the right gains power?
Historically, they used their dominance of mainstream media to control public opinion, but now much of that power is being democratized (e.g. Twitter being uncensored), which enables the average user (using GenAI) to participate in public discourse. The US left doesn't have the ability to do this since the average individual only parrots what mainstream media says and can't create any novel/interesting ideas (thus "the left can't meme").