I often wonder how different AI sentiment would be today if all of the layoffs that were opportunistically blamed on AI by the company CEOs were instead blamed on the real reason (likely pandemic related over hiring). The root of the backlash started as a result of all those “AI” layoffs and the hyperscaler CEOs gloating how everybody was going to lose their job due to AI. So in the end, they reap what they sow. A growing backlash that is not going away anytime soon.
The pandemic over hiring that ended 4 years ago?
I think you'll find the American public is less motivated by how well-treated Mag7 software developers believe themselves to be.
Another part of the problem is our lax regulatory "anything goes" environment which puts no guardrails on how AI can be used / abused. For example, eventually nearly everyone needs healthcare and the idea you might be denied or fighting AI to get a claim accepted is nightmare fuel enough.
All that's going to happen is people will "voluntarily" take it away from themselves.<p>The fearmongers will tell stories about biological or chemical weapons. It'll be things you could learn from a textbook - something like mercury molecules or cultivating rabies. People will vote to ban AI.<p>The puritans will clutch their pearls because it can be used to make porn they don't like. They'll vote to ban AI.<p>People who are afraid of losing their jobs will make tangential arguments about copyright violations. They'll vote to ban AI.<p>So citizens won't be allowed to use AI directly.<p>Instead, there will be regulatory capture. Microsoft and Apple will pay fees for compliance testing (bribes). Then they'll serve you a dumbed down version you can't escape. "I see you're trying to analyze numbers. Click here for a free signup to Office 365!".<p>The social media sites will make sure you still have access to create rage bait slop. That improves engagement.<p>Big software companies will pay for bug finding services. Small open source projects won't have the money.<p>If you're upset by AI, you should ask yourself if that's part of the plan. Because there's a lot of money to be made and power to be stripped from citizens if everything above comes true.
Non-paywalled link: <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-american-rebellion-against-ai-is-gaining-steam/ar-AA23w1HH" rel="nofollow">https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-american-rebellion...</a>
Americans aren’t in favor of being driven into unemployment and poverty? How dare they!<p>Companies have their relationship with people, specifically employees, backwards. What percentage of companies out there are truly needed? What percentage solely exist because people have some surplus money to play with?<p>No one needs Microsoft or Google products. No one needs overpriced Apple crap. AI means jack shit to almost 100% of Americans. Streaming services are one bad day away from ruin. We’ve seen what piracy can do. Now we have faster, better internet. Food delivery services RIP. I buy so little from Amazon these days that I’m questioning the $15 per month value of Prime.<p>I hope we see society correct course and go back to how it was in the 90’s, before everything went to shit. No social media. No smart phones. Going out more. Less digital noise. Physical media from physical stores. The list goes on…
All of these companies and their products and services are getting worse and more expensive. If their hostility to customers has not been punished so far then what reason is there to believe it ever will be?<p>The time to have quit Prime was years ago, before the price hikes, the degradation of service, their complicity in the sale of counterfeit goods, etc. People didn't leave. They won. They know they can do what they want now.
It would be nice, but is it likely to happen?
People don't see the safety net, that's the problem. Big tech hopes that bigdiks gonna bring in UBI and the like to ease the pepl, but it's nowhere near on the horizon. And it will be hard to persuade the ruling psychos to let the millions of their slaves running amok.<p>So pepl gonna riot and hunt down AI researchers and ceos and gonna burn them at the stake and then eat them :D.<p>Oh and data centers gonna be looted after hungry pepl eat the security guards and the mercenaries. Also remember everyone have rifles and gatlings buried in the garden :DDD.<p>Niice future.
I'll just keep repeating this:<p>There are three options:<p>1. AI owned by everyone<p>2. No AI<p>3. AI owned by billionaires<p>If you can make the masses fight for 2 instead of 1, then you guarantee that you don't get 1. If instead, the masses fight for 1, they've got a chance of getting it. You present AI as a false dichotomy: no AI or AI for billionaires. But 2 is a fantasy. There will be AI.<p>Any of us arguing for (1) get shouted down by the very people who would benefit most from it. The masses do the job of the billionaires.<p>Most utopian science fiction has AI doing the work and humans leading a life of leisure (e.g. Culture novels). Dystopian futures have AI keeping the rabble under control (Neil Asher's Owner Trilogy, Elysium). Time to choose folks.
It's going to get worse, way worse, before it gets better. You know that right?