Mo-OM, the tech bros are being weird and scary again!
Still.
Always?
Our society’s glorification of productivity above all else may have contributed to the latest inanity out of the mouth of overpowered Peter Thiel:
When all that matters is getting things done, and not whether or not those things are beneficial, that leads us to where we are today: waste, pollution, and planned obsolescence (including our own).
You know how people talk about old appliances that used to last forever?
Do you know what the problem is with old appliances that last forever?
People don’t need to replace them.
Quantity becomes more important than quality because that’s how you keep making money and patting yourself on the back for being a job creator, even though the employees never see the same return on their productivity. They’re lucky to have the job, like it’s a gift and not a role that needs filling, and only until they get replaced by automation or so-called “AI”. A growing number of people are finally asking who will keep billionaires rich if too many people become unemployed or underemployed. We can’t all become plumbers or electricians because nobody would need to hire one, and it’s all moot if the water runs dry and nobody can afford electricity.
(And what are they building all those bunkers for, anyway?)
If we moved toward a more sustainable system that prioritized quality over quantity, we’d see less waste and pollution, but fewer people would need to work for as long, and artistic and recreational industries would become more important. Some tech bros claim AI can bring us this reality, but they’re lying. If they don’t want to pay people more now, they aren’t going to pay people more for less work later on. And, again, their AI-fueled utopia is not sustainable or compatible with life in the long term.
When they aren’t making promises they don’t intend to keep, tech bros say AI threatens our very existence. I mean, yeah, but not in the sexy Hollywood way they’re trying to sell. Mostly it’s just more BS marketing. Anthropic has been calling for stricter “AI” regulation under the guise of safety, but only to thwart competition. OpenAI’s Sam Altman wants less regulation, but he’s not coming from a place of altruism either. Instead, he says,
What bad things? Which people? Agency to do what? Deny someone else’s?
A US court recently ruled child sex abuse material (CSAM) can not be restricted under current laws. Our technological “advancements” increasingly outpace laws and ethics. Many push a defeatist “too late now” narrative in defense of continued development. Is CSAM one of those bad things Sam Altman thinks we should accept?
The administration wants to entrust the industry with their own regulation, and also force everyone to call it superintelligence or else we’re enemies.
I won’t even call things like LLMs AI. Now wut?
Back to Sam Altman, he just can’t get enough negative attention.
Immigrants and “the left” don’t want to take things away from us. Tech bros like Sam Altman do so they can rent it back to us.
He tried to backpedal, but AI data expansion that exceeds demand is fueling the DRAM shortage. Much like planned obsolescence, the goal of so-called AI is finding new ways to profit from delivering worse products and services, sustainability be damned.
