6 ms·

guys were just trying to take jobs away from you.... please stop being mean to us - richest people on earth 2026

by jaybyrd 8mo ago

GolfPopper 8mo ago
You forgot... "by stealing from artists and writers at scale".
- malfist 8mo ago
  Techbros trying to replace wage theft as the largest $ crime in the US
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  You forgot about 'open source contributors' and 'musicians'.
  - soulofmischief 8mo ago
    As an open source contributor and musician who is not rich, I am pretty stoked about the engineering, scientific and mathematical advancements being made in my lifetime. I have only become more creatively enabled when adopting these tools, and while I share the existential dread of becoming unemployable, I also am wearing machine-fabricated clothing and enjoying a host of other products of automation. I do not have selective guilt over modern generative tools because I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies.
    - nozzlegear 8mo ago
      As an open source maintainer, I'm not stoked and I feel pretty much the opposite way. I've only become more annoyed when trying to adopt these tools, and felt more creative and more enabled by reducing their usage and going back to writing code by hand the old fashioned way. AI's only been useful to me as a commit message writer and a rubber duck. > I do not have selective guilt over modern generative tools because I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies. This seems overly optimistic, but also quite dystopian. I hope that society doesn't become as integrated with these shitty AIs as we are with other technologies.
      - soulofmischief 8mo ago
        There is a way for us to both get what we want out of software development without ideologically crusading against each other's ideals. We can each have these valid opinions about how generative technology personally integrates into our lives. Of course, that might be less and less true about our work as time goes on. At some point in the future, hiring an engineer who refuses to use generative coding tools will be the equivalent of hiring someone today who refuses to use an IDE or even a tricked out emacs/vim and just programs everything in Notepad. That's cool if they enjoy it, but it's unproductive in an increasingly competitive industry.
        nozzlegear 8mo ago
        Perhaps so, but again I find your vision of the future overly optimistic. Luckily I'm self employed and don't have to worry about AI usage quotas and "being unproductive" in an increasingly unproductive and non-deterministic industry.
    - callc 8mo ago
      You can say the same thing as we invented the atomic bomb. Cool science and engineering, no doubt. Not paying any attention to societal effects is not cool. Plus, presenting things as inevitabilities is just plain confidently trying to predict the future. Anyone can san “I understand one day this era will be history and X will have happened”. Nobody knows how the future will play out. Anyone who says they do is a liar. If they actually knew then go ahead and bet all your savings on it.
      - junofan 8mo ago
        I dunno, I take a more McLuhan-esque view. We’re not here to save the world every single time repeatedly.
      - soulofmischief 8mo ago
        I do say the same thing about the bomb. It was very cool science and engineering. I've studied many of the scientists behind the Manhattan Project, and the work that got us there. That doesn't mean I also must condone our use of the bomb, or condone US imperialism. I recognize the inevitability of atomic science; unless you halt all scientific progress forever under threat of violence, it is inevitable that a society will have to reckon with atomic science and its implications. It's still fascinating, dude. It's literally physics, it's nature, it's humbling and awesome and fearsome and invaluable all at the same time. > Not paying any attention to societal effects is not cool. This fails to properly contextualize the historical facts. The Nazis and Soviets were also racing to create an atomic bomb, and the world was in a crisis. Again, this isn't ignorant of US imperialism before, during or after the war and creation of the bomb. But it's important to properly contextualize history. > Plus, presenting things as inevitabilities is just plain confidently trying to predict the future. That's like trying to admonish someone for watching the Wright Brothers continually iterate on aviation, witnessing prototype heavier-than-air aircraft flying, and suggesting that one day flight will be an inevitable part of society. The steady march of automation is an inevitability my friend, it's a universal fact stemming from entropy, and it's a fallacy to assume that anything presented as an inevitability is automatically a bad prediction. You can make claims about the limits of technology, but even if today's frontier models stop improving, we've already crossed a threshold. > Anyone who says they do is a liar. That's like calling me a liar for claiming that the sun will rise tomorrow. You're right; maybe it won't! Of course, we will have much, much bigger problems at that point. But any rational person would take my bet.
    - blibble 8mo ago
      > I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies I'd rather be dead than a cortex reaver[1] (and I suspect as I'm not a billionaire, the billionare owned killbots will make sure of that) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1egtkzqZ_XA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1egtkzqZ_XA
    - johnnyanmac 8mo ago
      > I also am wearing machine-fabricated clothing and enjoying a host of other products of automation. I'm not really a fan of the "you criticize society yet you participate in it" argument. >I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies. You seem to forget the blood shed over the history that allowed that tech to benefit the people over just the robber barons. Unimaginable amounts of people died just so we could get a 5 day workweek and minimum wage. We don't get a benficial future by just laying down and letting the people with the most perverse incentives decide the terms. The very least you can do is not impede those trying to fight for those futures if you can't/don't want to fight yourself.
      - Wyverald 8mo ago
        >> I also am wearing machine-fabricated clothing and enjoying a host of other products of automation. > I'm not really a fan of the "you criticize society yet you participate in it" argument. It seems to me that GP is merely recognizing the parts of technological advance that they do find enjoyable. That's rather far from the "I am very intelligent" comic you're referencing. > The very least you can do is not impede those trying to fight for those futures if you can't/don't want to fight yourself. Just noting that GP simply voiced their opinion, which IMHO does not constitute "impedance" of those trying to fight for those futures.
        johnnyanmac 8mo ago
        >GP is merely recognizing the parts of technological advance that they do find enjoyable. Machine fabrication is nice. Machine fabrication from sweatshop children in another country is not enjoyable. That's the exact nuance missing from their comment. >GP simply voiced their opinion, which IMHO does not constitute "impedance" of those trying to fight for those futures. I'd hope we'd understand since 2024 that we're in an attention society, and this is a very common tactic used to disenfranchise people from engaging in action against what they find unfair. Enforcing a feeling of inevitability is but one of many methods. Intentionally or not, language like this does impede the efforts.
      - 8mo ago
    - overgard 8mo ago
      Well, if you consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs, "creatively enabled" would be a luxury at the top of the pyramid with "self actualization". Luxuries don't matter if the things at the bottom of the pyramid aren't there -- i.e. you can't eat or put a shelter over your head. I think the big AI players really need a coherent plan for this if they don't want a lot of mainstream and eventually legislative pushback. Not to mention it's bad business if nobody can afford to use AI because they're unemployed. (I'm not anti-AI, it's an interesting tool, but I think the way it's being developed is inviting a lot of danger for very marginal returns so far)
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        > I think the big AI players really need a coherent plan for this if they don't want a lot of mainstream and eventually legislative pushback. That's by far not the worst that could happen. There could very well be an axe attached to the pendulum when it swings back. > Not to mention it's bad business if nobody can afford to use AI because they're unemployed. In that sense this is the opposite of the Ford story: the value of your contribution to the process will approach zero so that you won't be able to afford the product of your work.
        soulofmischief 8mo ago
        We were going to have to reckon with these problems eventually as science and technology inevitably progressed. The problem is the world is plunged in chaos at the moment and being faced with a technology that has the potential to completely and rapidly transform society really isn't helping. Hatred of the technology itself is misplaced, and it is difficult sometimes debating these topics because anti-AI folk conflate many issues at once and expect you to have answers for all of them as if everyone working in the field is on the same agenda. We can defend and highlight the positives of the technology without condoning the negatives.
        jacquesm 8mo ago
        > Hatred of the technology itself is misplaced I think hatred is the wrong word. Concern is probably a better one and there are many things that are technology and that it is perfectly ok to be concerned about. If you're not somewhat concerned about AI then probably you have not yet thought about the possible futures that can stem from this particular invention and not all of those are good. See also: Atomic bombs, the machine gun, and the invention of gunpowder, each of which I'm sure may have some kind of contrived positive angle but whose net contribution to the world we live in was not necessarily a positive one. And I can see quite a few ways in which AI could very well be worse than all of those combined (as well as some ways in which it could be better, but for that to be the case humanity would first have to grow up a lot).
  - dylan604 8mo ago
    these two groups are used to having their stuff stolen way more than the groups GP listed, so in a way kind of appropriate to have been omitted.
  - TheDong 8mo ago
    You're saying "musicians" aren't "artists", and "open source contributors" aren't artists _or_ writers? Artists covers both of the groups you said.
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      Yes, we're all artists. Good now?
  - myhf 8mo ago
    and don't forget "subtle backdoors disguised as regular example code"
- jaybyrd 8mo ago
  well if all the talent is stolen and put into our water destruction machine we can make significantly worse and more expensive versions of just giving the job to a wagey
  - logicprog 8mo ago
    The AI water issue is bunk. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake
    - goalieca 8mo ago
      That article was clearly AI generated. I read pages of it and still didn’t see any actual data. Just different phrasing’s of that claim.
      - logicprog 8mo ago
        What are you talking about? He goes into plenty of data, domain relevant definitions, specific cases, etc? Links to reliable sources for every numbers claim, of which there's several per paragraph, shows graphs, pictures, and does a lot of math (all of which I manually checked myself on paper as I went through). Also, the writing style is very much not ChatGPT-like, especially with all of the very honest corrections and edits he's added over time, which an AI slop purveyor wouldn't do. The deep analysis starts at this section: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake?open=false#%C2%A7national https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake... You can't just dismiss anything you don't like as AI.
        deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
- tsunamifury 8mo ago
  Something something… great artist steal.
- Mars008 8mo ago
  The picture will be incomplete if we don't mention that those 'artists and writers' are using the results at scale.
pesus 8mo ago
On one hand, we're actively destroying society, but on the other, billionaires are getting richer! Why are you mad at us!?
- Sharlin 8mo ago
  Sonething something for a brief moment we created a lot of value for the shareholders
  - Joel_Mckay 8mo ago
    With -$4.50 revenue per new customer, these gamblers are demonstrably creating an externalized debt for society when it inevitably implodes the market. Some are projecting >35% drop in the entire index when reality hits the "magnificent" 7. Look at the price of Gold, corporate cash flows, and the US Bonds laggard performance. That isn't normal by any definition. =3
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
donkey_brains 8mo ago
Today a manager at my work asked all his teams including mine “please write up a report on how many engineers from your teams we could replace with AI”. Surprisingly, the answer he got was “none, because that’s not how AI works”. Guess we’ll see if that registers…
- sublinear 8mo ago
  All of them because cost cutting is a red flag in business regardless of what year it is.
- MobiusHorizons 8mo ago
  I would love to have responded something like “only one: yours” But in all seriousness, ai does a pretty good job at impersonating VPs. It’s confidently wrong and full of hope for the future.
  - mayhemducks 8mo ago
    You're absolutely right!
- consumer451 8mo ago
  I use various agentic dev tools all day long, mostly with Opus. The tools are very capable now, but when planning mid-complexity features, I find the time estimates hilarious. Phase 1: 1-2 weeks Phase 2: 1 week Phase 3: 2 weeks 8 to 12 hours later, all the work is done and tested. The funny part to me was that if I had an AI true believer boss, I would report those time estimates directly, and have a lot of time to do other stuff.
  - whattheheckheck 8mo ago
    When youre the boss telling kids how to work what time esti.ates will you believe? Tis the cycle
  - ziml77 8mo ago
    Human time estimates are bad, but the ones that AI gives are just absurd. I've seen them used from small things like planning interviews and short presentations, all the way up to large scale projects. In no case do they make any sense to me. But I think people end up trusting them because they look so confident and well planned due to how the AIs break things down.

guys were just trying to take jobs away from you.... please stop being mean to us - richest people on earth 2026

by jaybyrd 8mo ago

guys were just trying to take jobs away from you.... please stop being mean to us - richest people on earth 2026

GolfPopper 8mo ago

You forgot... "by stealing from artists and writers at scale".

malfist 8mo ago
Techbros trying to replace wage theft as the largest $ crime in the US
jacquesm 8mo ago
You forgot about 'open source contributors' and 'musicians'.
- soulofmischief 8mo ago
  As an open source contributor and musician who is not rich, I am pretty stoked about the engineering, scientific and mathematical advancements being made in my lifetime. I have only become more creatively enabled when adopting these tools, and while I share the existential dread of becoming unemployable, I also am wearing machine-fabricated clothing and enjoying a host of other products of automation. I do not have selective guilt over modern generative tools because I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies.
  - nozzlegear 8mo ago
    As an open source maintainer, I'm not stoked and I feel pretty much the opposite way. I've only become more annoyed when trying to adopt these tools, and felt more creative and more enabled by reducing their usage and going back to writing code by hand the old fashioned way. AI's only been useful to me as a commit message writer and a rubber duck. > I do not have selective guilt over modern generative tools because I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies. This seems overly optimistic, but also quite dystopian. I hope that society doesn't become as integrated with these shitty AIs as we are with other technologies.
    - soulofmischief 8mo ago
      There is a way for us to both get what we want out of software development without ideologically crusading against each other's ideals. We can each have these valid opinions about how generative technology personally integrates into our lives. Of course, that might be less and less true about our work as time goes on. At some point in the future, hiring an engineer who refuses to use generative coding tools will be the equivalent of hiring someone today who refuses to use an IDE or even a tricked out emacs/vim and just programs everything in Notepad. That's cool if they enjoy it, but it's unproductive in an increasingly competitive industry.
      - nozzlegear 8mo ago
        Perhaps so, but again I find your vision of the future overly optimistic. Luckily I'm self employed and don't have to worry about AI usage quotas and "being unproductive" in an increasingly unproductive and non-deterministic industry.
  - callc 8mo ago
    You can say the same thing as we invented the atomic bomb. Cool science and engineering, no doubt. Not paying any attention to societal effects is not cool. Plus, presenting things as inevitabilities is just plain confidently trying to predict the future. Anyone can san “I understand one day this era will be history and X will have happened”. Nobody knows how the future will play out. Anyone who says they do is a liar. If they actually knew then go ahead and bet all your savings on it.
    - junofan 8mo ago
      I dunno, I take a more McLuhan-esque view. We’re not here to save the world every single time repeatedly.
    - soulofmischief 8mo ago
      I do say the same thing about the bomb. It was very cool science and engineering. I've studied many of the scientists behind the Manhattan Project, and the work that got us there. That doesn't mean I also must condone our use of the bomb, or condone US imperialism. I recognize the inevitability of atomic science; unless you halt all scientific progress forever under threat of violence, it is inevitable that a society will have to reckon with atomic science and its implications. It's still fascinating, dude. It's literally physics, it's nature, it's humbling and awesome and fearsome and invaluable all at the same time. > Not paying any attention to societal effects is not cool. This fails to properly contextualize the historical facts. The Nazis and Soviets were also racing to create an atomic bomb, and the world was in a crisis. Again, this isn't ignorant of US imperialism before, during or after the war and creation of the bomb. But it's important to properly contextualize history. > Plus, presenting things as inevitabilities is just plain confidently trying to predict the future. That's like trying to admonish someone for watching the Wright Brothers continually iterate on aviation, witnessing prototype heavier-than-air aircraft flying, and suggesting that one day flight will be an inevitable part of society. The steady march of automation is an inevitability my friend, it's a universal fact stemming from entropy, and it's a fallacy to assume that anything presented as an inevitability is automatically a bad prediction. You can make claims about the limits of technology, but even if today's frontier models stop improving, we've already crossed a threshold. > Anyone who says they do is a liar. That's like calling me a liar for claiming that the sun will rise tomorrow. You're right; maybe it won't! Of course, we will have much, much bigger problems at that point. But any rational person would take my bet.
  - blibble 8mo ago
    > I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies I'd rather be dead than a cortex reaver[1] (and I suspect as I'm not a billionaire, the billionare owned killbots will make sure of that) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1egtkzqZ_XA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1egtkzqZ_XA
  - johnnyanmac 8mo ago
    > I also am wearing machine-fabricated clothing and enjoying a host of other products of automation. I'm not really a fan of the "you criticize society yet you participate in it" argument. >I understand that one day this era will be history and society will be as integrated with AI as we are with other transformative technologies. You seem to forget the blood shed over the history that allowed that tech to benefit the people over just the robber barons. Unimaginable amounts of people died just so we could get a 5 day workweek and minimum wage. We don't get a benficial future by just laying down and letting the people with the most perverse incentives decide the terms. The very least you can do is not impede those trying to fight for those futures if you can't/don't want to fight yourself.
    - Wyverald 8mo ago
      >> I also am wearing machine-fabricated clothing and enjoying a host of other products of automation. > I'm not really a fan of the "you criticize society yet you participate in it" argument. It seems to me that GP is merely recognizing the parts of technological advance that they do find enjoyable. That's rather far from the "I am very intelligent" comic you're referencing. > The very least you can do is not impede those trying to fight for those futures if you can't/don't want to fight yourself. Just noting that GP simply voiced their opinion, which IMHO does not constitute "impedance" of those trying to fight for those futures.
      - johnnyanmac 8mo ago
        >GP is merely recognizing the parts of technological advance that they do find enjoyable. Machine fabrication is nice. Machine fabrication from sweatshop children in another country is not enjoyable. That's the exact nuance missing from their comment. >GP simply voiced their opinion, which IMHO does not constitute "impedance" of those trying to fight for those futures. I'd hope we'd understand since 2024 that we're in an attention society, and this is a very common tactic used to disenfranchise people from engaging in action against what they find unfair. Enforcing a feeling of inevitability is but one of many methods. Intentionally or not, language like this does impede the efforts.
    - 8mo ago
  - overgard 8mo ago
    Well, if you consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs, "creatively enabled" would be a luxury at the top of the pyramid with "self actualization". Luxuries don't matter if the things at the bottom of the pyramid aren't there -- i.e. you can't eat or put a shelter over your head. I think the big AI players really need a coherent plan for this if they don't want a lot of mainstream and eventually legislative pushback. Not to mention it's bad business if nobody can afford to use AI because they're unemployed. (I'm not anti-AI, it's an interesting tool, but I think the way it's being developed is inviting a lot of danger for very marginal returns so far)
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      > I think the big AI players really need a coherent plan for this if they don't want a lot of mainstream and eventually legislative pushback. That's by far not the worst that could happen. There could very well be an axe attached to the pendulum when it swings back. > Not to mention it's bad business if nobody can afford to use AI because they're unemployed. In that sense this is the opposite of the Ford story: the value of your contribution to the process will approach zero so that you won't be able to afford the product of your work.
      - soulofmischief 8mo ago
        We were going to have to reckon with these problems eventually as science and technology inevitably progressed. The problem is the world is plunged in chaos at the moment and being faced with a technology that has the potential to completely and rapidly transform society really isn't helping. Hatred of the technology itself is misplaced, and it is difficult sometimes debating these topics because anti-AI folk conflate many issues at once and expect you to have answers for all of them as if everyone working in the field is on the same agenda. We can defend and highlight the positives of the technology without condoning the negatives.
        jacquesm 8mo ago
        > Hatred of the technology itself is misplaced I think hatred is the wrong word. Concern is probably a better one and there are many things that are technology and that it is perfectly ok to be concerned about. If you're not somewhat concerned about AI then probably you have not yet thought about the possible futures that can stem from this particular invention and not all of those are good. See also: Atomic bombs, the machine gun, and the invention of gunpowder, each of which I'm sure may have some kind of contrived positive angle but whose net contribution to the world we live in was not necessarily a positive one. And I can see quite a few ways in which AI could very well be worse than all of those combined (as well as some ways in which it could be better, but for that to be the case humanity would first have to grow up a lot).
- dylan604 8mo ago
  these two groups are used to having their stuff stolen way more than the groups GP listed, so in a way kind of appropriate to have been omitted.
- TheDong 8mo ago
  You're saying "musicians" aren't "artists", and "open source contributors" aren't artists _or_ writers? Artists covers both of the groups you said.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    Yes, we're all artists. Good now?
- myhf 8mo ago
  and don't forget "subtle backdoors disguised as regular example code"
jaybyrd 8mo ago
well if all the talent is stolen and put into our water destruction machine we can make significantly worse and more expensive versions of just giving the job to a wagey
- logicprog 8mo ago
  The AI water issue is bunk. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake
  - goalieca 8mo ago
    That article was clearly AI generated. I read pages of it and still didn’t see any actual data. Just different phrasing’s of that claim.
    - logicprog 8mo ago
      What are you talking about? He goes into plenty of data, domain relevant definitions, specific cases, etc? Links to reliable sources for every numbers claim, of which there's several per paragraph, shows graphs, pictures, and does a lot of math (all of which I manually checked myself on paper as I went through). Also, the writing style is very much not ChatGPT-like, especially with all of the very honest corrections and edits he's added over time, which an AI slop purveyor wouldn't do. The deep analysis starts at this section: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake?open=false#%C2%A7national https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake... You can't just dismiss anything you don't like as AI.
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
tsunamifury 8mo ago
Something something… great artist steal.
Mars008 8mo ago
The picture will be incomplete if we don't mention that those 'artists and writers' are using the results at scale.

pesus 8mo ago

On one hand, we're actively destroying society, but on the other, billionaires are getting richer! Why are you mad at us!?

Sharlin 8mo ago
Sonething something for a brief moment we created a lot of value for the shareholders
- Joel_Mckay 8mo ago
  With -$4.50 revenue per new customer, these gamblers are demonstrably creating an externalized debt for society when it inevitably implodes the market. Some are projecting >35% drop in the entire index when reality hits the "magnificent" 7. Look at the price of Gold, corporate cash flows, and the US Bonds laggard performance. That isn't normal by any definition. =3

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

donkey_brains 8mo ago

Today a manager at my work asked all his teams including mine “please write up a report on how many engineers from your teams we could replace with AI”. Surprisingly, the answer he got was “none, because that’s not how AI works”. Guess we’ll see if that registers…

sublinear 8mo ago
All of them because cost cutting is a red flag in business regardless of what year it is.
MobiusHorizons 8mo ago
I would love to have responded something like “only one: yours” But in all seriousness, ai does a pretty good job at impersonating VPs. It’s confidently wrong and full of hope for the future.
- mayhemducks 8mo ago
  You're absolutely right!
consumer451 8mo ago
I use various agentic dev tools all day long, mostly with Opus. The tools are very capable now, but when planning mid-complexity features, I find the time estimates hilarious. Phase 1: 1-2 weeks Phase 2: 1 week Phase 3: 2 weeks 8 to 12 hours later, all the work is done and tested. The funny part to me was that if I had an AI true believer boss, I would report those time estimates directly, and have a lot of time to do other stuff.
- whattheheckheck 8mo ago
  When youre the boss telling kids how to work what time esti.ates will you believe? Tis the cycle
- ziml77 8mo ago
  Human time estimates are bad, but the ones that AI gives are just absurd. I've seen them used from small things like planning interviews and short presentations, all the way up to large scale projects. In no case do they make any sense to me. But I think people end up trusting them because they look so confident and well planned due to how the AIs break things down.