Nah.
Where is the backlash?
Data center and Flock protestors are cheered as heroes, and finding viral fame. Grifty content farms have sprung up to churn out anti-tech memes because the genre is so popular.
Facebook. Twitter. YouTube, Reddit.
Doesn’t matter how angry they get, they will ALWAYS go back to the very spaces those AI datacenter companies own.
Denial? No, not as such.
Admitting or changing tac would be admitting they’re not in a growth phase. That’s stock devaluation. They’re ignoring reality until they have to face it.
the real dark cloud on the horizon for silicon valley is capex spending and low profitability
Tech took the world down a dark path. It’s time to regain the light and positivity again. We sure as hell need it.
The opposition is to big tech in service of repressive oligarchy.
Yeah. No one is arguing against tools that’d give us more free time, that’d help cure diseases, and make the world a better place. What we’re getting is mass-surveillance, economic instability, larger social rifts, and environmental destruction.
No one who hasn’t been deceived by fascist capitalist propaganda will be for these things.
You think diseases aren’t being improved with technology? There are 170 AI-designed drugs moving through human trials right now. Not everything is 100% black and white.
That isn’t the AI tech getting pumped with money. We’ve done folding at home for decades, for example. Has venture capital backed that? No. So sit down and read what I said again.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say. You think that only folding at home is helping with health breakthroughs?
Adding to your point. Why Google DeepMind broke up the AlphaFold team
There seem to be only three things that data centers are going to be used for: Crypto Mining, Mass Surveillance, and Data Collection, none of which helps the average citizen, most of it hurts us badly, yet we have to pay for it all.
What’s not to love?
You forgot cyber warfare.
Tech ran out of new ideas over a decade ago. They’ve enshittified everything. The people are tired of it.
I had an old colleague who was an engineer for Emerson Electric for most of his career. Emerson started as an electric motor manufacturer and eventually got into making just about EVERYTHING. I have a house from the 70’s that originally had fans, garbage disposals, heaters, light switches etc. All made by Emerson. Even different branded appliances using Emerson components.
One time I asked my former colleague what Emerson still makes. He just smirked and said, “Money.” I knew what he meant. I work in manufacturing and as far as I can see, innovation is dead. Because the goal is no longer to design a solution to a problem and (hopefully) profit from it. The goal is to profit. Period. As quickly and cheaply as possible.
So now, all the old people who knew how to design things are gone. And young people are not going into electronics or mechanical engineering because no one is hiring. And who really wants to spend their whole career having to answer to people who don’t care about building cool shit.
Tech has a similar problem.
People are hiring … just you need to be Chinese and in China …
Lots of companies are still hiring engineers and can’t find enough of them, even in the US (and so many in the EU)
Totally agree with the rest of the sentiment
Where I’m at we’re desperate for civil and structural engineers.
This idiot has never heard of next quarter
We need it so godamn bad, and by we I mean me. And by me, I mean go fuck yourself. The next time you’re on your way to work and you see those MASSIVE houses on your way, just one after the other, don’t pay any attention to the size of your ever-growing asshole.
It’s missing a /s for some people but it’s exactly the attitude.
I don’t like using the /s, if it isn’t for em, it isn’t for em
Your comment makes no sense. Are you doing okay?
It makes some sense, I was drunk but I just reread it and it’s pretty coherent.
And absolutely not, but thank you for checking in.
It’s half rich boy parody lore and half insight into how we’re getting fucked.
Yeah, I completely see the “I was drunk” factor.
The “backlash” is half hearted and also sensationalised a little in the media.
People have not come together to meaningfully boycott these platforms. Boycott is the language these capitalists understand.
I do not understand why people still use meta platforms, for example. We could level these companies quickly. The excuse that “everyone else I know is there” is wilful paralysis: waiting for someone else to go first. And that’s why these tech oligarchs are confident. They’re probably right to be.
For the most part, there’s nothing to boycott yet. Showing up to council meetings by the dozens, imploring them to say No to the data centers they’ve already been bribed to accept, is the same action, done preemptively. Boycotts come later, when the data centers are actually open.
I’m aware that some are already operational, but they are a fraction of what these predators want to build.
Right now, the move is to let them know that we don’t want this, and there will be consequences for supporting data centers. Then vote them out in the next election, and make it very vocal why.
And in small towns and counties, where the council members also operate businesses, those businesses need to be boycotted. You don’t get to inflict existential damage on this town and it’s citizens, without feeling retribution for it. I hope your bribe was fat enough to sustain you after your business crashes, because that’s the choice you made.
The same reason smokers don’t boycott big tobacco.
This. It’s cigarettes, but worse.
I quit all Meta products 3 years ago. Apart from Marketplace every now and then, I don’t miss anything from their plarform, anything at all. I have also quit Google completely (even google play which I replaced with Aurora and F-Droid.). That has been OK as well (I moved most of my common apps to their web based equivalent). Every time i have a chance to mention it to folks around, without being the wise ass out there, I do it. People are just ignorant about the alternatives, this message comes across slowly, one chap at a time…
Dudes relapsing on marketplace
Don’t hate. It’s the only real location for Buy Nothing groups too.
That’s unfortunate
It’s no coincidence that capitalism comes along with an emphasis on individualism and “expressing yourself” through consumption. It’s designed to train people out of collective thinking (class consciousness) and collective action, and it has been very effective.
It’s because these products work. They actually provide value to the users, despite opponents’ insistence to the contrary.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they do bring value. If all you need is a car, any car, would you buy a “used, in great condition, original owner selling” F-15 that comes with a subscription to use the flaps and work the landing gear?
Your comment is complete and utter bullshit.
Do the services work? Most of them do what is expected, yes. But to have them sqeezing me at every point, and looking as far up my ass as the camera will go to use something that works is just fucking moronic.
And here I’ve tried generative LLMs about once a year and every time I go “what the fuck are people smoking to think this is good”.
I think everyone insisting all this stuff is providing value are legitimately idiots who haven’t spent even a half second thinking for themselves or about the future or the quality of their work.
I wish I was more dumb and saw these products working like you insist and didn’t have to spend half my time rejecting AI slop PRs that genuinely don’t address anything.
That’s the worst fucking part. You can’t fix stupid, and they’ve just learned how to weaponize stupid.
The amount of effort it requires to create a useable work flow built around a genAI llm as the core instead of just a tool in the work flow is absurd.
It basically takes three times the effort to get good results out of it when compared to doing it the old fashion way.
And both require you to still actually understand art to actually produce good results. You can’t just tell an ai to shit out a picture and have it be good. No more then you can tell an artist to just shit out a picture and have it be good.
Both require you to actually put effort in, go though the process and make mistakes fix them. Go back and forth and test ideas.
And that’s the fundamental problem. GenAI is only good enough to at best do the equivalent of a rushed first draft with flat colors. It’s “good enough” not actually good.
And the sort of people using genai arnt the sort of people who are going to go back and edit or clean up the picture. To test and try different things. Hell they aren’t even going to be the sort that custom tunes their model to actually produce what they want.
They just take what ever generic shit model they can find and run with it.
The difference between a generic model and custom trained one is night and day after all. But again the fucking idiots using gen AI ain’t gonna bother to do that let alone know how.
Prompt jockeys are the least qualified people to use genAI. It’s comical.
“old fashion way.” * old fashioned.
I mean, people like you insist on this, but I can’t evaluate the truthfulness of that claim since I haven’t used a Meta product since Facebook in like 2009 lol.
But sure man, glad the mega company is really working out for you!
Depends on the definition of “work”. There’s plenty of people I had on Facebook that I no longer talk to because I don’t use Facebook. To be clear, my Facebook still exists. It’s there to face tank all the family photos my MIL shares. That’s the only reason the account still exists at all.
That’s technically working for me.
But lots of people are just addicted and Facebook or insta or messenger scratches an itch for them.
They provide value for some, but so far most people use the free version and monetizing the thing by moving users to paid subscriptions fails miserably. Professional users also question the value compared to price hikes they’re seeing.
Tech these days delivers products designed to collect data. They design products that force the consumer to navigate through a bunch of hurdles so more data gets collected.
The benefits of AI, Flock and meta glasses outweighs the price to the consumer. AI is fundamentally flawed at its core.
Do you mean the detriments of AI, Flock, and Meta glasses outweigh the price to the consumer?
Not per se but yes. You’re thinking too big.
Negative feedback might slow down adaptation but that’s about all that’s going to happen.
Mark Zuckerberg had to testify in front of congress for the first time about privacy issues back in 2018. That’s almost a decade ago. Look at them now.
Ticktock, Facebook and Google are all still around and thriving. ChatGPT is the #1 free app in the App Store. Google Chrome is the number one web browser. Genuine question, what tech been stopped because of the detriments?
Testifying in front of Congress doesn’t mean anything. That’s just a dog & pony show meant to placate the rubes. NOTHING ever happens as a result.
Look at Tickemaster/ Live Nation. They e had to explain themselves a number of times to Congress over the last 30 years, and they’ve only gotten bigger and more predatory. It finally took all those politicians trying to get Taylor Swift tickets for their screeching daughters that made them angry enough to finally do something about it. They are finally having a trial about it, but it’s still unclear if they’ll feel any consequences or make any changes.
There’s nothing fundamentally flawed about its core. That’s been proven repeatedly in the medical and biochemical fields.
Full stop. There is zero argument here. If you think there is one you are too ignorant to be even remotely making a informed claim.
The problem is the misuse, lies, abuse and snake oil that is being peddled. That’s not a problem with the tech. That’s a problem with the people.
Strip out the lies and bullshit those fucking retards are trying to claim and your left with a perfectly fine tool that when used correctly is extremely helpful and doesn’t actively fuck the environment.
There is zero argument here. If you think there is one you are too ignorant to be even remotely making a informed claim.
“I can’t handle conversations with people who might disagree with me.” - Holytimes
Your naivete in thinking that human abuse is not par for the course–and something which needs to be expected and anticipated–is not helpful to your argument, either.
This is the argument I’ve always had about nuclear energy. Sure it works great in other countries, but in America the plants will be built by corporations whose ONLY priority is profit, and they will cut corner after corner, and legally bribe government regulators to do nothing about it, until it fails. It is inevitable, and we ALL know it, which is why nobody really advocates too hard for nuclear power in America. We all know how fucked up it would be.
They think it will blow over because so many consumers have short memories when it comes to bad press.
The problem is, the press keeps on coming and so people keep being reminded they’re up to no good. Keeping AI in the news cycle isn’t helping them win over people who are increasingly dissatisfied with it.
Yes. I think they just need to get their data centres built. Once they’re in position there will be less to report on, unless the people find a way to make the already existing centres newsworthy. That’s harder.
