I'm really hoping AI does not become the next political culture war thing, but I'm afraid it probably already is moving in that direction; though it does at least seem that the dividing lines won't be red vs blue this time.
The pace may have been a little slower, but I doubt that there’d been a fraction as much backlash had they played nice and more consideration been taken. Nobody really cared about data centers until a few hastily implemented ones made nuisances of themselves.
You'd think. Every single person unreasonably skeptical of AI that I know of usually comes from blue echo chambers.
Sure one of these things could technically end humanity within our lifetimes. But the fact that the end of humanity has been predicted for as long as humans have been around is telling.
Everyone knows why they're building this stuff (to replace labor, and damn the consequences of people who work for a living), and I think that's the root of popular resistance.
Fears of species-ending catastrophe is an elite preoccupation (as the more likely economic catastrophe will leave them relatively unscathed). They also serve to show the utter insanity of the AI labs and the people who work for them: they have these fears but they're building the machines anyway.
It is already a political culture war topic.
Ironically, the first things that pops into my mind when I hear that nickname, is back when actually used to be called that, and they showed "Don't Be a Sucker":
> Admonishes Americans that they will lose their country if they let fanaticism and hatred turn them into "suckers." "Let's forget about 'we' and 'they' -- let's think about us!" In the context of the emerging Cold War, this film appears paradoxical - https://archive.org/details/DontBeaS1947 (1945)
"Vaccines and 5G" refer to direct health concerns; "AI" is a shorthand name for "what if" scenarios.
i've met not a single meatspace human outside of techbros who were in favor of unlimited AI. most of the tech bros even conceeded that it could be terrible for everyone including themselves, but mostly laughed it off as #yolo or "we can't get the Chinese get ahead".
not one of those in favor of AI was making less than 200k a year.
they're already low-key priming people with Zechariah 13:8 -- "two-thirds will be cut off and perish"? -- on places like 8chan, or via "edgy" tuber channels like ssethtzeehtach, and it's not hard to see the writing on the wall if you're an average joe.
LLMs are destroying the planet.