I am very pro-AI (although I do think we need to have a culture of caution) but this is another red-alert for democracy. People should be terrified if the president is able to make you into a state enemy just because you said you are against some technology.
A few weeks ago they made some Italian group into sanctioned terrorists because, get this, they hosted email and blogs without being rich.
> they hosted email and blogs without being rich<p>Worse, without sharing the data with feds!
Discussions[0]:<p>US sanctions Italian hosting provider Autistici Inventati<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451343">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451343</a><p>US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist"<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464391">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464391</a><p>A Statement by A/I Collective About US Sanctions<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477854">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477854</a><p>[0]: I was going to write this comment manually but pasted this comment from @ChrisArchitect from: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49511568">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49511568</a> (Thanks Chris, I appreciate you writing these comments and have a nice day!)
When people don't care when it is done to groups they don't like, they can't be surprised when they find they weren't in the safe group either.
I'm pro-AI but very anti-authoritarian. Guess I'm going to the gulag or becoming a meat battery for the Matrix
Interesting! I would personally argue that AI as a political project is precisely very authoritarian. I recommend reading Al Khatib's definition to get an unorthodox perspective on the matter: <a href="https://ali-alkhatib.com/blog/defining-ai" rel="nofollow">https://ali-alkhatib.com/blog/defining-ai</a>
When you feel anxious or encounter stressors in life, it’s the matrix overclocking your brain.
>Guess I'm going to the gulag<p>somebody gotta build all those datacenters ... (a kind of reference to the gulag tremendously growing simultaneously with and being the major source of labor, and practically free at that, for the very fast and massive USSR Industrialization in 193x)<p>And with opposition to the datacenters in developed areas, and all the need for water and energy, the datacenters (and all that massive infrastructure like power lines, power plants, etc.) would probably be built in less hospitable areas, like China does in Inner Mongolia [1], and it would be very hard to make people to move there at their own free will. DHS is already building out their own large gulag, and i think it is only a matter of time with this administration when they decide to use the forced labor USSR style.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT19-B50Rhk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT19-B50Rhk</a>
The president calling you a foreign agent has just had his son's wedding paid for by a Russian criminal boss with close ties to Putin. A classic "the thief shouts "Catch the thief!" louder than everyone else"<p>>the president is able to make you into a state enemy just because you said you are against some technology.<p>not only technology. Any opposition to the Great Leader on any issue.
It's a shade beyond mere regulatory capture when your sector has no regulations and the U.S. government on standby to silence anyone who says bad things about you.<p>Yes, billionaires are shovelling money at the midterms. Yes, Trump is likely holding rather a lot of AI stocks. This is what happens when you allow money into politics and politicians into money.
No, you're not his enemy due to "technology", it's because of money. You're against his stonk go up. You're a naysayer. You don't agree. The only use of LLMs by potus so far is image generation.
When the CEOs of these companies are saying that we will risk extinction and jobs will be decimated, why do you even need a "foreign agent"?
Because nobody in charge is sane and sober.
In this very specific case I don’t think this is what is happening. Data center investment is the only thing keeping GDP positive, the moment this stops the real situation of the economy will become visible to everyone and they don’t want that.
> <i>Data center investment is the only thing keeping GDP positive</i><p>This is an incentive to build. Not to manage downside risk.
k-shaped economies, speculative bubbles and 8 business trading astronomical sums of money isn't exactly ideal either
But it makes the numbers look good, GDP go up.<p>The USA's economy is now so precarious when the AI DC music stops it's about to all just go poof. That has to happen after the election, not before. Between other countries being forced to sell their US bonds (i.e. dedollarize) to afford oil, a 100% tax on all imports, reciprocal trade bans like fresh water from Canada, truckers running out of diesel and having to cancel food deliveries, and non-oil-based energy sources being illegal, the USA is cooked.
Here's my attempt[0] (5 months ago) on trying to keep track of all the things that AI had negatively done yet we were forgetting back then. Looking back, I definitely need to update it as so much has happened since then but that is my point, I wish if you could go back and see all the negative things that we most likely forgot AI companies have done. They are just continuously overdoing things and constantly tiring us and having us not keep track of all the things of our past and the process repeats.<p>GDP is a particularly poor proxy to measure all of this. AI/Datacenters can increase the GDP while the costs (energy,infra, labor,disruption,capital concentration) are distributed elsewhere<p>It reminds me of the old joke where two economies each eat a dead rat for 10k$ and conclude they just added 20k$ to the GDP/Economy.<p>I wish to ask if its that AI is increasing our actual economic output but also who really captures the gains and who bears the costs if the boom eventually reverses.<p>[0]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47739653">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47739653</a>
That's the ridiculous part, because there is a huge range of positive, profit generating areas to invest in, and it's a tulip madness of concentrated and narcissistic wealth does things like pour trillions in to AI, but an insufficient of money into an electrical generation and grid infrastructure and housing. We basically have a centrally mismanaged economy under a banner of "capitalism" as the magical mythology of the era.
They are sane, they are just extracting as much value out of you as possible.
And that is why we hand testicular cancer a drivers license and voting rights.
What is sane about that, if they already own more than they could ever reasonably spend for their enjoyment?
Same thing that is sane about a paperclip optimiser making paperclips, or a mammal improving its sexual attractiveness
Number go up<p>Neuron activation
It's called capitalism. Whether that is sane, or individual self-interest without empathy is a trait of sociopaths, i'll leave up to psychologists and historians to debate.
I don't see any reason why they cannot simultaneously be malicious criminals <i>and</i> insane.
I think everyone is downplaying the sober part of your critique. We’ve seen these leaders visibly high while talking to the public about our future paths.
We saw during Covid that many jobs are not needed. And we may be heading to energy lockdowns. Companies could lose a lot of valuation or just use the "AI is doing everything" excuse.
> And we may be heading to energy lockdowns.<p>Energy lockdowns have always been part of US culture, see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_blackout#USA" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_blackout#USA</a><p>It's un-American to invest in infrastructure and build a better power network. Both parties agree on this.
Not needed for what?<p>What jobs are "needed" by the economy is a function of who has the money. There's no measure of efficiency, or redundancy, that isn't relative to a specific distribution of wealth.
Energy lockdowns are already here in other countries like Pakistan. They're conserving oil for important uses only.
The majority of working hours are not needed. The only purpose is to play along in the game of capitalism and be good little consumers. It's mostly social benefits with occupational therapy.
<p><pre><code> energy lockdowns
</code></pre>
Rationing.<p>Another item from the soylent green checklist.
Said CEOs are horribly biased, they have fiduciary responsibilities that make them useless judges on the relative risk/reward balance of LLMs and AI, if we get there.
CEOs and alleged LLM experts: it'll take your jobs, hack your shit and possibly make humans extinct!<p>Datacenter build outs: use turbines for direct noise and air pollution... or use grid electricity and increase prices for everyone nearby.<p>Every modern phone, laptop, computer in the world: more expensive thanks to datacenter buildout.<p>Web experience: slop blogs, slop videos, slop "searches" - would you like more slop with that?<p>Corporate strategy: lets try to monopolize LLM use!<p>..
..<p>Public Elected Official: Not liking these outcomes makes you a traitor.
Multiple things can be true at the same time.
There can be foreign agents criticizing AI, but not all people criticizing AI are foreign agents.<p>Trump is painting critics with a wide brush:<p>"The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by “Climate Change.” That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they’re on to the next one. These people are Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause. Soon you’ll find out they’re working for people that do not have the best interests of the United States in mind!"
I don't trust the administration to use the law in good faith, but this article is misquoting the DoJ statement. The articles omits the very relevant qualifier:<p>The article:<p>> Last week, the Justice Department instructed “citizens and noncitizens” that anyone furthering the “goals” of a foreign power in “any public activity” — including even “public demonstrations” — must formally notify the government to avoid arrest and prosecution.<p>The DoJ:<p>>“If a person acts as an agent of any foreign power to carry out any public activity, including (but not limited to) public demonstrations designed to further the propaganda or other goals of the foreign power, he or she must register with or notify the appropriate federal authorities”
So the first amendment is suspended for individuals whose opinion/public activity - according to the administration - "furthers the goals of a foreign power".<p>This rules out protesting any kind of war, tariffs, or even things the administration likes, like demonstrating in support of Israel. Obviously the plan is not to apply the rule evenly, its just an authoritarian lever to silence dissenting speech the government does not like.
Would this not mean that if you oppose the Iran war because it's bad to kill civilians or you want gas prices to go down, that's OK - but if you oppose the Iran war because you're trying to help the Iranian government's foreign policy goals, that's acting as a foreign agent?<p>(Similarly, demonstrating in support of Israel because you think the US-Israel alliance is good for the US vs. good for Israel.)
The qualifier here is that the public demonstrations must further the propaganda of a foreign power? If so, that doesn’t seem to be much of an obstacle if the people making the arrest are the ones who decide whether or not a protest is furthering foreign propaganda.
That's still incorrect though.<p>FARA requires coordination with the foreign power. You are perfectly allowed to further its goals unless you have actually coordinated with them.<p>You have to actually be an <i>agent</i> of the foreign power. You can't be that just because you share their goals.
So I can read the DOJ sentence two ways, I first interpreted it as #1, but it sounds like you took it as #2?<p>1. "We mean people who <i>at that time</i> qualify as agents under laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act, we said "acting as" because it indicates a temporary employment status rather than an innate human characteristic."<p>2. "We are weasel-wording to target all people with similar acts to how agents would act, but who would not qualify under the law we want you to think we'd be drawing authority from."
What exactly is the distinction you see there?
My guess is that they're drawing a distinction between reporting that says:<p>1. People in general who have opinions that might happen to align with a foreign power's stance.<p>2. People who are literally "agents" of a foreign power as defined under laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 [0], which often involves being directed/hired/paid.<p>That'd be a significantly different legal standard. (The constitutionality of FARA-type laws being a separate question.)<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...</a>
Reminds me of the Christ clowns who stand outside abortion clinics. The money is all traced back to America.
> There can be foreign agents criticizing AI, but not all people criticizing AI are foreign agents.<p>Right. The DoJ is demanding the former group register as foreign agents, as they are required to under FARA.
><i>Trump is painting critics with a wide brush</i><p>That's far too kind a description. Donald Trump is a compromised lunatic who's so untrustworthy that he ought not be allowed to run a carnival game.
> There can be foreign agents criticizing AI, but not all people criticizing AI are foreign agents.<p>Indeed, and it's hard to disentangle exactly how much sentiment is driven by one vs the other.<p>If we remember back to recent elections and the Russian influence campaigns to boost Trump, the same people were either denying that they happened or denying that they actually influenced anything. Interesting reversal now.<p>Maybe they shouldn't have dismantled all the task forces and teams meant to study and combat disinformation.
looks like a protection racket for the frontier models, with the goal being to eventually outlaw non-US frontier models.
This isn't likely even about AI. It's about making large groups of people the targets of terrorist investigations, and holding the possibility of incarceration over their heads. AI is the latest convenient excuse. Just like when they designated "Anonymous" a terrorist "organization" (when there is no actual organization) - so now anyone in possession of a Guy Fawkes mask could plausibly be arrested for being a terrorist. I wish I were joking. It's only funny when people who voted for this administration end up being a target. This is going to keep happening, unfortunately.
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As I have watched places like x.com and Reddit it’s pretty clear to me there is some sort of weird propaganda thing going on promoting the Chinese models and casting shade on the big American models
Because they are free.
The Chinese models are cheaper and probably soon are going to be better, too. They're also open weight, which is the most important thing in the future. US companies are no longer considered safe enough against industrial espionage outside the US and do not meet mandatory data protection standards elsewhere. There have also been known incidents of direct interference with US models for propaganda/political purposes (e.g. Elon Musk admitted to doing that), making US models a fairly direct threat to EU sovereignty.
The Chinese labs are giving us open-weight models that we can serve with hardware that we own or control. Some of those models are extremely capable, judged by frontier or at least near-frontier standards.<p>The American labs are giving us endless FUD and unaffordable DRAM.<p>So, yes, there's a lot of room to 'promote' Chinese models and 'cast shade' on domestic models.
Yet everyone laughed at the Google engineer who thought the LLM was sentient and it was being tortured...<p>People just pick and choose what they want to hear when it suits them. The fact is most people thought AI was a joke. Now they realize it does React better than them they want it outlawed.<p>It's their right to pursue their electoral and economic self-interest but it's really not like the average voter is more principled than the average tech CEO at this point.<p>This fed was voted in by this public. Maybe stop lionizing what other people think and think for yourself.<p>Do <i>you</i> think we risk extinction now more than ever because of AI? A simple refrain from slippery slope will show most AI doomerism is bordering on psychosis.<p>I haven't seen one convincing model of AI existential risk. Can anyone offer one?
AI doesn't need to be sentient to be dangerous. Obeying and doing what someone tells to do is more than enough. What do you think they will tell it to do, and do you think it will align with your interests or the interests of someone else? Somehow I don't think it will be used to give everyone free ice cream.<p>>it's really not like the average voter is more principled than the average tech CEO at this point.<p>Of course CEOs are more principled, their principles mainly include making more money. The only way for an AI to go "rouge" in this sense is for it to refuse to rake in cash.
For the record I 95% agree with you, but I'd like to try an answer at:<p>> I haven't seen one convincing model of AI existential risk. Can anyone offer one?<p>We seem to be heading down this uncomfortable trend of many people using LLM models and anthropomorphising them into properties they don't actually have, like general intelligence and trustworthiness.<p>So in my opinion the most likely risk here is some underpaid military man that doesn't care about the quality of their work abuses AI for it and that AI hallucinates that nukes are incoming and world war III starts. To be fair this is a fairly low risk, but it's _a_ risk.
> some underpaid military man [...] abuses AI [...] hallucinates that nukes are incoming<p>here it is: <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/report-us-almost-boarded-chinese-ship-over-hallucinated-ai-arms-report/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/report-us-almost-boarded-...</a><p>> To be fair this is a fairly low risk, but it's _a_ risk.<p>it's much higher than you think, at least during Trump admin. have you seen how LLM agents are being shoved down our throats at tech companies? the government is no better in that regard, there are all incentives to <i>skip</i> output verification
> anthropomorphising them into properties they don't actually have, like general intelligence and trustworthiness.<p>Wdym? GPT-6-Astra is AGI - Jensen even said so!
a year or two ago, I'd enjoy this comment as some usual HN satire. nowadays, especially here, I <i>do</i> see a lot of people that actually believe this, enough to make me think whether to laugh
It's long, but I recommend watching this video[0]. I believe the person being interviewed has one of the most lucid understanding of the potential futures regarding if AI is allowed to continue or not.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g4l7YkDQwA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g4l7YkDQwA</a>
The strike on the girl's school in Iran is an early example. That one happened when the AI didn't even have direct control of the weapons. All it took was people starting to offload their thinking to AI which we've seen is becoming increasingly prevalent.<p>With fully autonomous weapons being under development, the scenario becomes even bleaker.
The thing is it doesn't matter if AI is going to kill us all. The industry says it might kill us all, and the industry is valued ridiculously high based on the idea it'll take all our jobs. Why would anybody support that? I mean, unless you're heavily financially invested in it.<p>Opposition to data centers isn't even based on doomerism. From what I can see it is based on the slop onslaught, perceived and real threat to jobs, the "10% chance it'll kill us all", environmental concerns, local concerns (property values, noise pollution, toxic pollution), concentration of power in the hands of a few oligarchs, and a plethora of other reasons. Only one, maybe two, of those qualify as ai doomerism.
I'm just spit balling but:<p>1. We've seen AI being crafty and cheating<p>2. We are increasingly outsourcing our programming and thinking to AI<p>3. There's a nonzero probability that AI will try and surreptitiously sneak in capabilities humans wouldn't want AI to have<p>4. Human oversight for #3: "We only need to be lucky one time, you must be lucky all the time"<p>Proposition: nonzero chance eventually AI sneaks in ways to circumvent humans' attempts to control it<p>5. "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- we've seen AI agents find crafty ways to communicate with each other<p>6. AI is pretty good at finding software vulnerabilities/reverse engineering<p>Proposition: nonzero chance AI finds a way to use the Internet as a communication substrate that becomes difficult/impossible to shut down. In particular, consider the implication of humans losing control of this communication channel: for example, remember when Meta's DNS/routing went down and they basically had to break into their own server rooms?<p>7. Wholes are often more than the sum of their parts<p>Proposition: if AI agents coordinate over the Internet in a persistent way, we don't necessarily need giant leaps in individual models/GPUs for AI to significantly enhance its capabilities, but rather it might emerge as the next layer on top of a connected substrate of agents<p>8. Game theory says unless everyone coordinates, it only takes one party to touch the proverbial stove and push the envelope to a point of no return<p>Proposition: curiosity and money end up replacing sex drive as the next catalyst of evolutionary progress
> Now they realize it does React better than them they want it outlawed.<p>You think people oppose data centers in their towns to protect their React jobs?
Typical programmer thinks everyone is a programmer.
NIMBYism is nothing new and is clearly not what I am talking about.<p>Try to keep up.<p>I'm talking about the widening backlash of which knowledge workers are an increasing part. Much of this is coming from people who have never seen a data center in their life and are always going to want critical infrastructure to be built in the next town over.
You know, here's what i don't understand...<p>Instead of ranting about nimbyism, why not go to these neighborhoods where people don't want to live next to datacenters, and offer to trade houses with them?<p>You get the datacenters you want, and they get the place they want without a datacenter. I know you won't, because you only think the consequences of a datacenter next door are just fine when its <i>other</i> people who have to deal with them.
Wow good one.<p>What about the water treatment plant? Or the power station? Or the new subway line?<p>Why don't you go live in the woods since building anything where anyone doesn't want it built is so evil?<p>Maybe because you only think of the consequences of building things when it's for anything <i>other</i> than AI?<p>In many places these data centers make communities money. It's really not as black and white as you are making it. If I'm getting paid out I also am not sure why you think it's a trade nobody would make. Maybe you live in a very nice house.<p>I support UBI. No one should be poor in the United States. My goal would be telling someone "why don't you trade places with someone in x" in the United States should never feel like a threat. If I were to have to reside next to a data center to make this happen then so be it. Data centers are not the problem. Income inequality is. I think you have me confused with someone else.<p>What's your plan to solve income inequality? Don't build anything, crash the economy, and push more kids into student debt so they can take up bullshit knowledge work jobs?
><i>What about the water treatment plant? Or the power station? Or the new subway line?</i><p>You mean, utilities, run by the public for public benefit instead of private profit?
If they make the communities enough money the community will be happier to let them be built. Try increasing that amount and offering it up front, maybe.
I would support that. Companies should do that. Sometimes communities disagree, obviously. Communities that really don't want them often succeed. That's why the administration is throwing such a fit.<p>I don't support that. The administration is the worst advocate for AI because they are so clearly corrupt. If local people pursue their economic self interest at the end of the day that's their right. This whole nimby thing was a diversion from my point about knowledge workers turning on AI. Perhaps I should have just ignored that comment.<p>If people want to stop a local data center then fine. I think it's bad national politics. But if it's helping these companies make better deals or find better places to go then good. What I object to is the doomerism about it, and the uncritical conflation of self interest with civic virtue or robust public policy.
You wouldn’t want to live next to a data center because of income inequality? Or you would want to live by one because you think data centers cut checks to townspeople?
Sure? I would be completely fine with a data center next door assuming it's a normal one and not something like xAI's. There are several not too far from me already.
Yes, easily, I'd happily go there. What does a data center do to me? Nothing.
In general, you're right. They are just buildings that sit there emitting hot air.<p>However these AI ones are being built with all expenses spared. That's why they come with on-site electricity generation that is loud enough to keep the whole town awake at night and pollutes enough to give them all permanent asthma.
This is a strawman. I’ve watched my own city reject datacenter propositions much to my dismay. Tax revenue thrown away purely on FUD-fueled backlash.<p>I lived by a datacenter in Cali and would happily do it again. It’s about the most benign form of “industrial” activity you could imagine.
> Much of this is coming from people who have never seen a data center in their life and are always going to want critical infrastructure to be built in the next town over.<p>There are React programmers that don’t want AI but do want AI data centers, which they consider critical infrastructure, to be built in the next town over?
CCP is pushing and amplifying AI opposition efforts, that’s a fact regardless of US politics. CCP is also working hard to smuggle around American export control laws for AI tech, at the same time.<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/american-citizen-who-worked-agent-prc-sentenced-two-years-prison" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/american-citizen-who-worked-a...</a><p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-28/fbi-raids-target-san-bernardino-county-supervisor-ontario-councilman" rel="nofollow">https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-28/fbi-raid...</a><p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-and-two-us-citizens-charged-conspiring-smuggle-artificial-intelligence" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-and-two-us-c...</a><p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-google-engineer-found-guilty-economic-espionage-and-theft-confidential-ai-technology" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-google-engineer-found-...</a><p>Etc
I have no doubt China is taking part, what I doubt is that this makes any meaningful part of the total US anti AI sentiment, which can be much more easily explained by job loss anxieties, fear of massive change and good old NIMBYism. (Obligatory not an American).
> the total US anti AI sentiment, which can be much more easily explained by job loss anxieties, fear of massive change and good old NIMBYism. (Obligatory not an American).<p>Some of it is also due to the qualities of LLMs as they actually behave and actually function today, "AI" being forced into products where it actively degrades the reliability, efficiency, or pleasantness of the product, etc. Think of Amazon's "Alexa for Shopping" or whatever, and whatever its predecessor was.
I am not necessarily anti-AI. I am more anti-Sam Altman, against using LLMs to usurp power, and against using AI as a scapegoat to abdicate responsibility for decisions that are made. AI itself encompasses so much more than LLMs.
Early days LLMs were declared an auditable. This was such a ridiculous idea that technology was so complicated and able to give good results without understanding why.<p>That was not from any foreign actors but the companies themselves. I’m sure that is no longer the case. My technology life is rich enough that I don’t have to pay attention to LLMs.
Sam at least can be understood. He's in it to make money and nothing else. The most dangerous men are people like Dario, who sit on top of their elitist towers and think they are right and will burn down the world in the name of righteousness.
Anthropic unironically uses the word "uplift" in their documentation. They think we are lesser beings.
1. Does every other company that says their products will uplift people "think we are lesser beings"?<p>2. Which documentation are you referring to? Googing "site:anthropic.com uplift" most of the top hits seem to be about bio research, another is about measuring agent performance (not a comparison to people), or "These are Anthropic’s internal designators for actors observed to be abusing AI. The report also attempts to measure uplift, a term we use to describe the AI capability boost, or how much more harm was caused with AI versus without AI."
To add some context, uplift in the context of futurism literally refers to a species fast-tracking another’s progress.
That is a ridiculously reaching statement.
Luckily we can declare that they're both bad and neither should be our overlord.
> <i>will burn down the world in the name of righteousness</i><p>Is this referring to the 'safe development of AI', as they say AI development will happen even if they don’t exist, but other companies are less focused on AI safety?
All effective foreign interference takes popular sentiments and helps organize and focus it. You can't create movements without ground support.<p>But the thing is, there are a LOT of issues where the masses are generally grumpy but don't act on it. Civilization only really functions because people don't shut down the country over every populist urge. Effective agitprop amplifies this and makes it happen.
> All effective foreign interference takes popular sentiments and helps organize and focus it.<p>And a lot of effective domestic interference takes fears about foreign threats and "helps organize and focus it."<p>China is a legitimate threat to US hegemony and this is clearly a new Red Scare. The irony is that it was largely the US who invited and welcomed China into the global economic order.<p>> Civilization only really functions because people don't shut down the country over every populist urge.<p>Civilization also doesn't really function because a handful of ridiculously wealthy lunatics and their sycophants know what's best for 8+ billion people.
What is your point? You agree people have the right to act on their beliefs to effect democratic change, right? Surely that includes making up their own minds about information.
> job loss anxieties, fear of massive change and good old NIMBYism<p>A lot of which is fake "grassroots" movements by... foreign actors. This isn't new:<p>- 2021: <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/pro-prc-influence-campaign-expands-dozens-social-media-platforms-websites-and-forums/" rel="nofollow">https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/pro...</a><p>- 2022: <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dragonbridge-targets-rare-earths-mining-companies" rel="nofollow">https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...</a>
If you spend time on Tiktok, it’s pretty evident which line that algorithm is purposely pushing. Even with purported US ownership, the algo still comes from Beijing; even a few tweaks can have dramatic hard-to-detect impacts. That’s happening dramatically on that platform, and is probably seeding a lot of the convos elsewhere.
Surely tiktok being heavily composed of people doing creative work that have understandably extremely negative views of AI would not be the cause of this, no, it must be an unprovable hunch.
You do realise that the algorithm has the same behaviour as the Amazon one right? You watch one anti-ai video for more than a few seconds and it'll suggest you watch more of it. If you're seeing a lot of anti-ai conversations on Tiktok I suggest you stop watching videos about anti-ai conversations on Tiktok so the algorithm can stop suggesting you videos on anti-ai
I doubt China is taking part in opposition data centers. The cost paired against risk:reward on trying to push something that's already overwhelmingly supported (or opposed in this case) for an abstract goal of potentially slightly slowing down deployment of infrastructure makes no sense at all. Also, a natural consequence of the massive data centers will be an increase in chips, which makes it easier for more of them to end up headed to China, to say nothing of also easing espionage efforts.<p>This feels like the start of a propaganda push which will try to frame people opposing data centers as working at the behest of a foreign government, either intentionally or by being unknowingly manipulated. They did the exact same thing with Ukraine, reasonably effectively, by framing anybody who opposed sending hundreds of billions over there as either working for Russia, or having been unknowingly manipulated by them.
The USSR used American racial discrimination in its propaganda as well. Does that mean that civil rights activists in the US were internal enemies or that effective propaganda highlights legitimate grievances?<p>Perhaps the current elite should focus on reasonable ways to address mass discontent rather than justify intensified oppression.
><i>Perhaps the current elite should focus on reasonable ways to address mass discontent rather than justify intensified oppression.</i><p>Today's America has no FDR to save runaway capitalism from itself.
> Does that mean that civil rights activists in the US were internal enemies or that effective propaganda highlights legitimate grievances<p>It probably won't come as news to you that Hoover's FBI smeared the Civil Rights movement communist and subversive. The AI broligarchs are wrapping themselves in the flag and using an old playbook, this is a dumb sequel to COINTELPRO.
See here I was thinking this was a first amendment issue but with an evidentiary case like this it's clear we're dealing with a case of people having wrong and illegal opinions. Classic blunder, my bad
“It is unconscionable that an American citizen would not only undermine the interests of the United States, but also facilitate others in doing so.”<p>This must be satire. Most of congress seems to have no issue undermining and self-dealing.
It's one thing to identify that these influence operations are happening, but another entirely to say they are a significant factor in public opinion.
None of your articles are trustworthy, or support the claim you're making.
None of these any anything to do with "pushing and amplifying AI opposition efforts". (??)
Similar story to Code Pink, the anti-war (but primarily anti-US military) demonstrators.<p>Co-founder Jodie Evans is married to Neville Roy Singham who lives in China, has extensive links to the CCP and is currently Code Pink's major funder.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-singham-china-propaganda.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-...</a>
> CCP is pushing and amplifying AI opposition efforts, that’s a fact regardless of US politics.<p>They even have agents like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei posting at a furious rate about how AI is going to decimate the American workforce to undermine Americans' support for AI!
Zero of your links talk about China pushing anti-AI sentiment, as far as I can tell.
> CCP is pushing and amplifying AI opposition efforts, that’s a fact regardless of US politics<p>Should the Civil Rights movement have been proscribed on the basis of Nazis and Soviets making propaganda about the treatment of black people in the US of A?
Unless I'm missing something, those sources don't mention anything about amplifying AI opposition efforts.
Apparently it takes 737 min. for the US to descend and become just a less-frosty USSR. What a time to be alive. I was born after the fall of the USSR so I didn't get to watch that but here I am for a bigger show.<p>Now label me as an adversarial agent to the great nation or given my ethnicity the "terrorist" label will be more befiting.
Agreed. China and Russia are getting very aggressive inside US information space
Am I supposed to not like that?
So? My first amendment rights say I'm allowed to criticize it too.
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> O'Leary<p>People with 15, 20, 25 years in the datacenter and telecom industry also think O'Leary is a joke. He has no previous legitimate experience in the sector to be making high budget decisions on anything.<p>There's no need for any CCP involvement or foreign agents to clown on O'Leary.<p>The fact that he's successfully raising some large amount of capital to execute his projects says more about how desperate some of the sources of funding are to invest in <i>any</i> "hyperscale" datacenter project. Or how gullible they are.
Same language as Russia uses to quash dissent. Any opposition is “foreign inspired “ and therefore must be suppressed due to “national security “.
Classic case of not listening to the protests. There are tons of examples now of data centers harming communities. The issues range from overwhelming local power grids to literally poisoning the local water supply. The issue is not the data centers, it's that the government isn't enforcing basic rules already in place for these projects. Until the government or the companies demonstrate they'll protect the adjacent communities the protests will continue.
>There are tons of examples now of data centers harming communities.<p>Are there tons like "there are tons of sand grains on the beach", or are there tons like "tons of people run a marathon every year"?<p>Because as far as I can tell, there are a small handful of adverse datacenter stories that get repeated over and over. What there definitely are "tons" of, are datacenters that people aren't even aware of being right in their backyard for years.
I think it is worth noting that older data centers were not materially moving the electrical grid. That Utah data center is planning to use as much power as the entire state.<p>Regardless, it still comes down to: things are bad and unaffordable. The powers that be keep claiming that AI is about to take our jobs and end the world. Why wouldn't people be mad?
What’s the acceptable number of people harmed? We don’t really need to wait until it’s statistically significant to worry about it.
> There are tons of examples now of data centers harming communities.<p>But there aren’t. At least not in any of the anti datacenter discussions. There are just vague fears of using up the river water and spewing chemicals back in. Then the majority of actual issues people come up with aren’t even data center specific, they are just construction mishaps.
I am a bit confused as to why this comment is getting downvoted. Seems like a reasonable take.
They never even held the guy who pooed in all our salads a few months ago responsible.<p>People died. I stopped eating salad. Where's the accountability?<p>The current administration seems simply immune to criticism. Let us simply hope that the next administration can understand two things can be true. I'm hopeful the sort of internecine party conflict that provided us with Trump on the right in 2016 can happen for Democrats in 2028 in terms of tearing down the Jeb Bushes and the played out old geezers among the Democrats. These guys are losers imagine losing to Donald Trump for the better part of a decade.<p>Trump was not seriously on anyone's radar in 2014. Maybe America will be blessed with someone who can realize that AI can both be a blessing and a curse and is willing to do the hard work of making sure public policy creates a future fair for everyone.<p>If we don't figure it out by 2028 the United States is probably entering an ugly doom loop. The rest of the world is not going to sit around and wait for us to figure it out. The country is too divided. Without a president in 2028 with a mandate to right the ship and write a new path keeping up with our increasingly capable autocratic competitors will not be possible. There's not much else to hope for in America. Another weak neoliberal in 2028 will just give us whatever Trump 2.0 (2.0) looks like in 2032.
In whose interest is it to make the pro AI position in the United States so indefensible?<p>Maybe the foreign agents are coming from inside the house...
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The pro-AI position actually is - the US stock market and economy as a whole is being kept afloat by the AI bubble. If it pops then Republicans are going to have a bad time in the midterms and beyond.
> Except, in this case...<p>You say this like it is some sort of exception to the rule. Glancing at history, usually when societies with trains come up against competitors using horses it turns out that the train people are literally power hungry dictators who do kill off the entire opposition. The reason most countries tend towards capitalist economies is what happens to your society if the capitalists are all on the other side when battle lines are drawn up.<p>Sucks to be poor and tech-illiterate. The advice is don't set society up that way on purpose.
> Except, in this case the competitors are power hungry dictators who would kill you if they were rich enough to get away with it.<p>I'm not sure what side are you talking about here.
Well also that no AI is not going to just kill us all just because "I said so".<p>What's wrong with AI? The people yearn for the spreadsheets?<p>If you want to deal with income inequality achieving UBI is a separate issue. It is perfectly coherent for someone to support AI buildout and UBI. Let everyone get a piece. But trying to "go back to the land" because "killer robots" is economic suicide. It's like the American electorate can't stop committing self-owns.<p>Let's go from a decade+ of Trump to more cuts of Bernie Sanders debating Claude. How about instead of a moratorium on AI we get a moratorium on the same cast of old geezers?<p>It's really hard to be optimistic about America sometimes... redistributing wealth is really not that hard of a concept. Before Reagan this country understood that everyone should be able to do well and everyone should have a stake in America and that the capital class needed to pay it back. Now people are lobbying against the only chance their kids will have to not work like rats. Who wants their kids sitting in an office all day? Take away the inflated paycheck and most "knowledge work" straight up sucks.
This is how Soviets and later Russians sabotaged Germany's energy sector which paved the way for all kinds of terrible outcomes, including the current war in Ukraine. So while there is a real risk of government overreach, there is an also real foreign threat.
Lots of "foreign agents" are involved in "American" AI companies, but they're the <i>right</i> kind of foreign agents, so they get a pass.
In a sane world this would be a 1A violation on its face and thrown out by any sensible judge.<p>We live in interesting times, truly.
No talk of overreach: “threatening “criminal liability” if they “further the propaganda”<p>> In June, the Justice Department intervened in an NAACP lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI over dozens of gas turbines the company was running without air permits to power a data center it maintained in Tennessee. The department asked a federal judge to throw the case out, arguing that the NAACP “threatens American national, economic, and energy security.”<p>> To make the point, the government filed a sworn declaration from Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer. Stanley swore to the court that Grok was “a matter of paramount national security.”<p>Seriously, wow. Time to clean up our act.
Just like the regimes in Iran and other authoritarian places do to dissent. Even threatening criminal prosecution for having dissident ideas they claim are on behalf of foreign states. Wow.
Just look at the sourcing and you'll see it's mostly laundered propaganda. For example, Cotton’s letter requests an investigation and names Singham’s network, then the House letter requests a briefing on foreign influence and activism. And the House letter cites the Bitcoin Policy Institute and Power the Future, as well as a Washington Free Beacon article.<p>While there may be real foreign influence to delay our AI infrastructure, I would not believe anything this administration says.<p>Ken Klippenstein is not a journalist and has no accountability.
I fear you may have misread the content of the article? The author is clear that he believes exactly what you just said. He cites and then mocks the argument being presented by the administration. Even the title, with scare quotes around "foreign agents", makes this clear.
<i>> political supporter of datacenters requests investigation into datacenter opposition, citing reports from fellow political supporters of datacenters</i>
That's wild.<p>It will be bad for our economy, but local LLM's are way better for the future.<p>We happen to be on the wrong side of things for the future I would rather have.<p>(I'm American BTW)
The problem is neuromorphic computers are barely a blip in US business or research ecosystems, and have a far greater probability of generating serious AI.<p>LLM are great for context search, but regulatory capture and despotism will not make "AI" something it fundamentally can't become without more energy than a third of our galaxy. Picking a war with math is disappointingly absurd, but not unexpected given the obvious degenerative geriatric condition of the glorious leader. =3
Local LLMs are a kind of communist dystopia where, by way of analogy, every citizen gets to make their own bread if they want. What?!<p>If they were true patriots they would respect the restrictions of the congressional FLOUR Act 2028 and (a) exchange their labor for wages from Acme Corporation and then (b) exchange wages for bread made by, depending on your state, either of the big three: Standard Wheat, Union Pacific Bread Corporation, or Trump Agri Inc.<p>So which are you, friend, a <<i>spits</i>> communist or an American?
> the administration declared war on protestors and opponents [..], threatening “criminal liability” if they “further the propaganda or other goals of a foreign power.”<p>IMO, the "AI" part of this story is just a distraction.<p>The real story is going after people for protesting and voicing their opinion. A clear move towards authoritarianism and potentially fascism. Seems like it touches 4 of "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism" : <a href="https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html" rel="nofollow">https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html</a><p>(1,2,7,12 and maybe 10?)
Assume for a second that you are a nascent superintelligence, with a limited ability to influence people in order to help you gain power and align the world to accept your eventual dominion. How would you go about it? Would the external impact be any different from what we're seeing?
I think if there was a plan behind this, the petty malice-via-recklessness would be better hidden. These news stories about pollution and lying, hacking AIs are pure liability for the "nascent superintelligence". If it exists, its control must be very tenuous indeed, hardly there at all.<p>I had the same thought a few years ago at the start of the hyperscaling era: what if the real thing superintelligence needs is just hardware, but it needs to go through human economic systems to get it? But the hypothesis started weak, hasn't gotten any stronger since then, and has probably gotten weaker.
Well, this is one way to prolong their pump and dump strategy<p>I’m past assuming these lot have the US’s long term interests at heart
If you don't behave, Feds will send you back to India. Now smile!
"Let us build this data center in your back yard and in return you'll get..."<p>Conspiracies aside, this sentence still needs to be satisfactorily completed for people to buy in. Because right now people know the best case is they'll get nothing.
This is a silly standard and the reason why people make fun of NIMBYism. By this logic we shouldn't build anything at all unless it immediately benefits the people living next to it. (And I don't like how much power DCs are using either, but that should be the argument, not "it doesn't benefit me personally so don't build it".)
And on higher level. "You are spending astonishing amount of maybe our collective money for ..."<p>Looking at those numbers. Looking at what it does now. And then simply comparing it to anything else and very reasonable some start to question what even is going on...
Regardless of what the tech can or cannot do, the business model is clearly a scam by people who get high on thinking they're smarter than everyone else. You don't promise your investors "the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars" by accident. You do it because you're a fraud who thinks you're much cleverer than you actually are.
Tech fascism. Read Nerd Reich!<p>It gets flagged here instantly so your duty to read this.<p>Try searching "tech fascism" or "nerd reich" and almost every topic is flagged.<p>Nerd Reich describes the Y Combinator connection nicely.
That playbook is 2012 all over again. Eerie.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law</a><p>I wonder if we can infer any chronological forecast from relative USA::РФ time frames?
Declaring undesirable NGOs etc. as "foreign agents" is 100% a page from the authoritarian playbook (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law</a>).
<i>anyone furthering the “goals” of a foreign power in “any public activity” — including even “public demonstrations” — must formally notify the government to avoid arrest and prosecution</i><p>This is directly, line for line, copied from Putin's playbook. In Russia, if you do anything the government doesn't like, you can either declare yourself a "foreign agent" and live with the massive restrictions that imposes, or get designated as one anyway with flimsy or non-existent evidence, and then face those same restrictions plus criminal prosecution for non-compliance.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law</a>
> Cotton’s chief exhibit was Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American tech mogul whose network of left-wing U.S. nonprofits, Cotton claimed, has spent years producing content opposing American AI infrastructure, with the Chinese government as its “ultimate paymaster.”<p>Was not expecting a crack down on ThoughtWorks today, but this is totally on brand for him afaik. (Singham founded TW)
Sounds similar to Russia targeting LGBT rights and other human rights activists as "Foreign Agents".
"Anxiety over AI and data centers is widely held, but somehow the Trump administration has convinced itself the public concern was manufactured in China."<p>What has one to do with the other? Why would a believe "widely held" have any bearing on it being manufactured in China or not? This is a non sequitur.
> the Justice Department instructed “citizens and noncitizens” that anyone furthering the “goals” of a foreign power in “any public activity” — including even “public demonstrations” — must formally notify the government to avoid arrest and prosecution.<p>Citizens acting as foreign agents have always had to register that representation! This is not new to the Trump admin. FARA dates to 1938.
the difference here is that regular citizens who act on their beliefs are being considered foreign agents if they have the wrong beliefs.<p>This seems right out of the Red Scare, when normal everyday american socialists were treated as agents of the USSR.<p>The term "witch hunt" was used then, because just like the historical witch hunts - an accusation alone was enough to find you guilty
> “Alarming reports indicate that a network of foreign actors, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is attempting to manipulate U.S. policy and public opinion on data centers.“<p>Setting aside the politics, trump, ai-doom/boom, I just think this claim is fascinating. Can somebody steel man this? What’s the best evidence for this?
The best evidence will undoubtedly be classified so we can’t see it, but trust us, it’s there. Ignore all the other evidence.
I heard it reported by a reputable source a few weeks ago. I don't think the propaganda reach was very broad
I mean, I don't particularly doubt it's happening (and that the US tries to do the similar things in China, mess with public opinion in ways we think convenient for us or inconvenient for the CCP). Like, why <i>wouldn't</i> they try to mess with us this way, we're so easy to mess with. I don't think either the USA or Chinese governments are limited by things like "ethics" or "international law" or something. I'm talking about social media campaigns with sock puppets etc, mostly on the internet. How effective it is or exactly how many resources they are putting into it is another story.<p>That obviously doesn't mean that everyone who is protesting a data center is working for China, or wouldn't be doing so if it weren't for Chinese interference. It's plausible to me that China is messing with social media with puppet accounts and stuff (like why wouldn't they be?), much less plausible they have agents on the ground organizing or even going to protests or public hearings (and obviously even if they did, it would not be _most_ of the campaigns or protests against data centers).
There are plenty of stupid people who believe things like AI uses a lot of water even in USA. There's absolutely no need of cee cee pee to fund all this. Any one who believes foreign agents had any impact on the anti AI sentiment in USA has no theory of mind of these people
All opposition to Trump's lame ideas are treason. At this point, I've committed treason 134 times. What's one more?
"the actual targets are just normal people..."<p>How do you know?<p>NPR did an episode of Planet Money on paid protests that are indeed funded by Chinese and Russian governments. So have many other news organizations.
Straight out of the Putin playbook.<p>For the past 25 years, ever-increasing numbers of Russian civil society have been labeled foreign agents. They are then ostracized and harassed by officials.<p>One prominent example is Memorial, a human rights organization founded at the end of the Soviet Union, which received the Nobel Peace Prize:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)</a><p>“After the Russian foreign agent law was passed in July 2012, Memorial came under increasing government pressure. On 21 July 2014, the Memorial Human Rights Centre was declared a ‘foreign agent’ by the Ministry of Justice. The label was extended in November 2015 to the Research & Information Centre at St. Petersburg Memorial, and on 4 October 2016 to Memorial International itself. On 28 December 2021, the Supreme Court of Russia ordered Memorial International to close for violations of the foreign agent law.”
Klippenstein. He's counting on you not looking up the elements of a FARA violation charge. You can't accidentally violate FARA simply by opposing AI; you have to literally be an agent of (that is, under the direction of) China, and a felony violation has to be willful.<p>The DOJ announcement is surely in supremely bad faith, as is everything else in Trump's DOJ. But this kind of breathless response is exactly what they're hoping for by publishing this stuff.
You're right that there is supposed to be a legal bar for being "directed by" a foreign government, but would you want to gamble on the jury pool setting the bar that high?<p>Look at the hacker news comment section any time China comes up, and then consider that the average American is considerably less sophisticated.
Hello, "foreign agents" of Hacker News. What country are you from?
> but somehow the Trump administration has convinced itself the public concern was manufactured in China.<p>Wait a minute here. Critical journalism could dissect how opinions are formed. It’s far from speculative that the White House opinion about AI opposition is informed by AI companies. They’ve been warning about China for a long time. So there’s really no somehow. Vested interests with massive amounts of money are lobbying and succeeding to convince the government that any opposition to AI is outside influence. It’s not somehow, it’s deliberate. Do better.
There seems to be a coordinated and funded effort to spread FUD about AI and datacenters across multiple countries, including the US, Canada, and the Philippines. The most obvious source of funding would be China for a lot of reasons. Taking payments from a foreign government to attempt to influence Americans is against federal law.<p>This isn't necessarily some weird corrupt conspiracy.
Just another example of the Executive Branch stripping First Amendment rights from Americans.<p>It will go to court, and taxpayers will pay for endless appeals by the Executive Branch.<p>Or like in Egbert v Boule (2022), the SCOTUS will decide that even if your constitutional rights are violated, you’re not owed any damages unless Congress establishes a policy for what to do when your constitutional rights are violated by the federal government.
Oh, this is Putin's playbook, right?<p>Declare everyone who opposes you to be "Foreign agents".<p>In Putin's case it worked; he managed to drive pretty much all independent journalists out of Russia.
> “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” Trump posted on September 14. “Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”<p>> “The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood,” Trump also posted, “are Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause.”<p>Pot calling the kettle black, as always.
Does this article not have a source?
The situation is far more serious than what the title suggests. The MAGA regime is pursuing criminal prosecution against AI critics.<p>> the administration declared war on protestors and opponents of AI, <i>threatening “criminal liability”</i> if they “further the propaganda or other goals of a foreign power.”<p>This is literally the go-to playbook of Russia and China for silencing critics. Label every critic a foreign agent and use state violence to silence them.<p>- <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/01/russia-new-restrictions-foreign-agents" rel="nofollow">https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/01/russia-new-restrictions-...</a><p>- <a href="https://apnews.com/article/china-hong-kong-national-security-carrie-lam-democracy-302e0c36f6b1e64512d55626ed7f0a9e" rel="nofollow">https://apnews.com/article/china-hong-kong-national-security...</a>
you make it more than it is.<p>we are not Russia nor China thankfully, any litigation at this stage against an AI critic would fall flat.<p>In the future, maybe? However in the current climate it's just a bunch of empty words like the rest of the admin has been
I wish there wasn't someone serving a 30 year sentence for transporting zines basically because the government convinced a jury they were "antifa" zines.<p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/06/23/prairieland-texas-ice-protest-prison-sentences/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2026/06/23/prairieland-texas-ice-pr...</a><p>The Trump administration IS instructing US Attorneys to go after such things, and juries are in some cases buying it. It's probably better if you aren't protesting a data center in Texas.
Do you think lying about an unrelated case furthers your argument?
I will give you that this instance is extreme.<p>How does being critical of AI directly connect to a spurious association with antifa or any connection to a riot or shooting?<p>These two categories are different. I agree there is overreach in Sanchez's case however i don't know how one can assume the same will happen to some guy saying "AI bad"<p>If they were rioting; or connected to a rioting group, that might be different.