pesus

Executives don't need actual results or data to lay people off.

The kids are smarter than most people give them credit for. They see their future being destroyed in real time, and AI is only accelerating it and largely being celebrated/promoted/used by the same people currently destroying their future. To them, there are few benefits beyond being able to cheat on their homework, and an enormous amount of downsides.

I think it's only a matter of time before we see some more serious, organized opposition to AI (and perhaps even the internet and other technologies) by these young people.

Blindly dismissing everyone not impressed by the AI hype only serves to further delegitimize the AI hype.

Sounds like an ultimately good thing to me. It was an interesting experiment, but the negatives largely outweigh the positives at this point.

(I do realize the irony of writing this on HN, but I digress)

You're right, I did pick a bad example. It was extreme, and I'm sure many HN users work for corporations like this and felt targeted.

But it's also worth considering exactly what the mass surveillance state we've got is directly leading to - deaths of many people. How many people have been disappeared or killed by ICE because of technology like this? That's just one group actively targeted by surveillance tech, and the government intends to go after millions more, as they've publicly stated. That's not to mention how many millions of people have had their lives worsened or ruined directly or indirectly because of tech like this.

These sorts of things aren't an innocent startup consisting of a few nerds in a garage, they're shaping the world and setting the stage for the expansion of horrible atrocities. This is ultimately what I mean - you have to look at the effects of what they're doing and the actual consequences. Once you see that and know people who are more directly affected/targeted by these technologies, it becomes a lot more clear why people are so angry at them.

You should side with the people that aren't homicidal, not the ones that are polite and closeted about it.

But also, homicidal is doing some heavy lifting here, isn't it? It may be accurate in this case, but someone saying we should go kill all the Nazis in WW2 because they're actively genociding their people would also fall under that umbrella.

Not at all. Please try reading more carefully and avoid being reductive. I'm arguing that you're confusing the tone of rhetoric with the meaning of it and drawing the wrong conclusion from that. Just because one side is more polite and shrouded by the structure of a corporation doesn't mean you should reflexively support them because of that.

> Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and side with with people who aren't openly calling for horrible deaths of those that disagree with them.

And there it is - this is why fascists coach their language in a veneer of politeness. After all, they didn't say it out loud, so whatever they're doing must certainly be the right thing to support. Why is the other side so eagerly opposed to them? Well, that doesn't matter, because they weren't polite about it.

It's important to look at what organizations/corporations/groups are actually doing, not just what they're saying.

Ah, the classic "people excluded from the democratic process must only work within the democratic process". It might be worth looking into what the suffragettes did, because it wasn't politely begging men to please let them vote.

Have you not heard of the labor movement? Or abolitionists? Or the founding of this country? Or people fighting against Nazi control of their country?

All of those worked outside "legal" means. The law is quite often irrelevant to what's right or moral, and dying on the hill of breaking the law ensures no change can ever occur when a system or person in power inevitably wrongs people.

And this is an excellent example of how "polite" fascists come to power. After all, the one with the more "civilized" rhetoric must be the one to support, regardless of why people are so strongly opposed to them.

If that's the worst problem they have, that still sounds like things worked out pretty well compared to most places.

Are you willing to stand by this argument and give up your career?

I'm not sure the next batch of schoolgirls getting bombed will particularly care whether the choice was made "democratically" or not.

I also won't particularly care about the distinction when AI is inevitably used to enact violence on the US population.

If that's the case, why doesn't he trust his own product enough to write this?

He isn't going to suddenly grow a conscience from a riveting, intellectually stimulating conversation.

He's pretending to care about the negative effects AI will have on society at large, but goes on to say it's necessary and "must" happen. If he actually cared, he wouldn't continue down that path. He also wouldn't be lobbying the DoD for contracts to use his AI to help kill people.

I find it interesting that Altman's fans seem to keep skipping past this fact. I'd love to hear their defense as to why one person potentially being responsible for hundreds or thousands of deaths is acceptable, but attacking that one person isn't. If violence is never the answer, they should be condemning Altman with even more vigor.

This is getting more and more specific - I was talking about him encouraging violence.

But some examples: Jan 6, the attack on Paul Pelosi, every ICE agent.

Personally, I've also received multiple death threats from his supporters.

> The world deserves huge amounts of AI and we must figure out how to make it happen.

> It will not all go well. The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever.

Boy, he really just encouraged the world to keep turning against him. This is so transparently disingenuous. I guess he has no choice if he doesn't want to give up his wealth and power, but putting statements like these out are only going to further fuel anti-AI sentiment.

I do think it's funny he opened this with an allegedly real picture of a baby, though. It may very well be real, but why would anyone take his word for that, especially those who already don't trust him?

> To what numerical end?

How many people live in Iran, who he just threatened to genocide? How many people hold views that Trump thinks make them his enemy, including being critical of ICE? How many immigrants are in the country? It's going to be a very large number, no matter how you slice it.

Fair enough, but I still think it at least somewhat applies to people who are willing to get involved in any kind of political process beyond the very basics or perhaps some special interest groups.

I'd say an important distinction is AI is currently threatening to displace a significantly larger number of jobs across multiple sectors. Whether it can/will actually happen is yet to be seen, but the potential amount of scorned people with nothing to lose is far greater this time.

People in politics aren't that dissimilar to tech bros (especially AI ones) in terms of world view.

It at the very least provides more cover to the ones denying the claims. They can blame it on AI in the hopes they're not the next one being targeted by vigilantes.

I'm more cynical - I think that breed is mostly extinct, and the current batch is downvoting/flagging because they don't want the sentiment to spread.

Do you spend much time with people not in the tech world? I think you'd be surprised how many people hold similar sentiments, even if not to such an extreme, especially once you talk to people in the real world. I've heard far more support for this sort of thing in real life than I have online due to fear of repercussions.

Hell, even the president regularly calls for and promotes violence, so I don't think it's that much of a minority. The US was founded on it, after all.

Wait, you think it's illegal to post something racist online? That is absolutely not the case in the US, and I have no idea why you'd think it was. It's also pretty confusing why you think simple descriptors are "slurs".

It only takes one quick google search to show that he helps promote white supremacist rhetoric:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/03/elon-musk-nick-fuentes-x-ac...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67446800

Don't worry, there's more.

How many other social network sites have their CEO posting and promoting white supremacist rhetoric?

> On the flip side, I'd ask the question: if someone supports banning these data centers, why not support just banning the AI companies entirely?

I suspect we'll be seeing more and more of this sentiment in the coming years in one form or another.

Can you explain how important they are? So far the benefits seem to be limited to faster code generation, which doesn't solve any actual problem people were facing, and is greatly outweighed by the negatives.