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there are polls where a sample of people say they hate ai. on the other hand, there are a billion+ weekly active users. from a business perspective, which of t

there are polls where a sample of people say they hate ai. on the other hand, there are a billion+ weekly active users. from a business perspective, which of those two statistics would you give more weight?

bluefirebrand 5mo ago
How many of those people are just feeling like they have a gun to their heads? Use the AI or become unemployed and unemployable? "People use AI so this must be a revealed preference" is such a bad argument when people are feeling so precarious
- john_strinlai 5mo ago
  >How many of those people are just feeling like they have a gun to their heads? Use the AI or become unemployed and unemployable? in the context of answering the implied question of the parent (everyone hates it so why do they keep doing it?), it does not matter at all.
  - bluefirebrand 5mo ago
    Of course it matters If a large proportion of people are only using AI because they are being threatened with unemployment if they don't, then there's going to be massive resentment building up You may think that doesn't matter, but it does. History has shown over and over that you can only keep a lid on massive social resentment for so long before things break
    - john_strinlai 5mo ago
      [dead]
krige 5mo ago
Out of the two? Probably the polls. "Active users" is blatantly a weasel metric.
- john_strinlai 5mo ago
  odd choice, mind explaining it a bit more? why should a company listen to a gallup poll of ~1,500 people over their own internal metrics? do you think all types of companies should heed the advice of gallup polls over their own metrics, experience, and research?
  - frognumber 5mo ago
    I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics. A good example of how this works is cocaine. Capitalism and competition isn't always good governance. It works brilliantly in many places, such as restaurants or commodity goods. It fails completely for medicine or banking. It's in between for tech or education, but it's clearly failing for AI.
    - john_strinlai 5mo ago
      >I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics. hypothetically, you own a widget company. you sell a lot of widgets. every month, you are selling even more widgets. the widgets are flying off the shelves. you keep ramping up production, and the consumers keep on buying. gallup releases a poll that says "people hate widgets". would you stop/slow down your widget production?
  - Barrin92 5mo ago
    >why should a company listen to a gallup poll of ~1,500 people over their own internal metrics? for the same reason Vladimir Putin should listen to Russian milbloggers rather than his own subordinates, the metrics are being cooked up by people who get promoted for good metrics
    - john_strinlai 5mo ago
      i pose my hypothetical widget question from the sibling comment to you as well.
      - 5mo ago
platevoltage 5mo ago
Yeah, and they're all willing participants. \s
- john_strinlai 5mo ago
  >Yeah, and they're all willing participants. \s this does not matter from the business perspective. microsoft does not care that your company forces you to use their products. google does not care that your school forces you to use their products. TSMC does not care that you are forced to use their products when purchasing ~any electronics. etc.
  - platevoltage 5mo ago
    I didn't suggest that they did.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
righthand 5mo ago
But a billion active users != number of US citizens that take on the burden of AI. So go build your AI on land where your customers are if they like it so much.
- warkdarrior 5mo ago
  ChatGPT has 112M monthly active users in US, https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026#global-adoption https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026#g... Is is OK for them to build datacenters in US?
  - righthand 5mo ago
    Yeah in the states where the majority of people approve. But we already know the data centers aren’t being built in those areas. They’re being enforced on people who for the most part dont approve of their intent.
HWR_14 5mo ago
People hate AI datacenters in their backyard. From a business perspective, I hope "obey the local zoning laws" is a fairly high priority.
- bluGill 5mo ago
  I don't hate the data centers near me. However I do hate the tax incentives they were given. My local school district could really use those millions of dollars per year that someone decided we don't get.
  - HWR_14 5mo ago
    If you hate the subsidies they were given to locate next to you, how is that different from hating the data centers?
    - bluGill 5mo ago
      If they were not given subsidies I'd have no problem with them.
unknownfuture 5mo ago
This is basically an argument about revealed preference, and these things are always more complicated than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference
- john_strinlai 5mo ago
  revealed preference theory is typically applied to individuals or single decision-making units like a household, rather than worldwide aggregate market behavior. in any case, its not really that complicated in this case. - the ai companies have a billion active users and billions of dollars in revenue. - a poll comes back with 30% of respondents saying they are angry about ai. so, why do the ai companies keep doing ai things despite ~30% of people not liking ai? well, its because they are making billions of dollars in revenue from their billion users. from the ai company's perspective, it would be madness not to keep shoving ai everywhere.
  - rrix2 5mo ago
    and so it was that the tail continued to wag the dog....
  - unknownfuture 5mo ago
    The same could be said for hard drugs. It can be simultaneously true that a large part of the public objects to a thing while the market generates profits from that very thing. Of course the answer is for governments to step in as, as you point out, the AI-related companies are behaving as rational actors given their incentive structure.

bluefirebrand 5mo ago

How many of those people are just feeling like they have a gun to their heads? Use the AI or become unemployed and unemployable? "People use AI so this must be a revealed preference" is such a bad argument when people are feeling so precarious

john_strinlai 5mo ago
>How many of those people are just feeling like they have a gun to their heads? Use the AI or become unemployed and unemployable? in the context of answering the implied question of the parent (everyone hates it so why do they keep doing it?), it does not matter at all.
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago
  Of course it matters If a large proportion of people are only using AI because they are being threatened with unemployment if they don't, then there's going to be massive resentment building up You may think that doesn't matter, but it does. History has shown over and over that you can only keep a lid on massive social resentment for so long before things break
  - john_strinlai 5mo ago
    [dead]

krige 5mo ago

Out of the two? Probably the polls. "Active users" is blatantly a weasel metric.

john_strinlai 5mo ago
odd choice, mind explaining it a bit more? why should a company listen to a gallup poll of ~1,500 people over their own internal metrics? do you think all types of companies should heed the advice of gallup polls over their own metrics, experience, and research?
- frognumber 5mo ago
  I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics. A good example of how this works is cocaine. Capitalism and competition isn't always good governance. It works brilliantly in many places, such as restaurants or commodity goods. It fails completely for medicine or banking. It's in between for tech or education, but it's clearly failing for AI.
  - john_strinlai 5mo ago
    >I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics. hypothetically, you own a widget company. you sell a lot of widgets. every month, you are selling even more widgets. the widgets are flying off the shelves. you keep ramping up production, and the consumers keep on buying. gallup releases a poll that says "people hate widgets". would you stop/slow down your widget production?
- Barrin92 5mo ago
  >why should a company listen to a gallup poll of ~1,500 people over their own internal metrics? for the same reason Vladimir Putin should listen to Russian milbloggers rather than his own subordinates, the metrics are being cooked up by people who get promoted for good metrics
  - john_strinlai 5mo ago
    i pose my hypothetical widget question from the sibling comment to you as well.
    - 5mo ago

platevoltage 5mo ago

Yeah, and they're all willing participants. \s

john_strinlai 5mo ago
>Yeah, and they're all willing participants. \s this does not matter from the business perspective. microsoft does not care that your company forces you to use their products. google does not care that your school forces you to use their products. TSMC does not care that you are forced to use their products when purchasing ~any electronics. etc.
- platevoltage 5mo ago
  I didn't suggest that they did.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

righthand 5mo ago

But a billion active users != number of US citizens that take on the burden of AI. So go build your AI on land where your customers are if they like it so much.

warkdarrior 5mo ago
ChatGPT has 112M monthly active users in US, https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026#global-adoption https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026#g... Is is OK for them to build datacenters in US?
- righthand 5mo ago
  Yeah in the states where the majority of people approve. But we already know the data centers aren’t being built in those areas. They’re being enforced on people who for the most part dont approve of their intent.

HWR_14 5mo ago

People hate AI datacenters in their backyard. From a business perspective, I hope "obey the local zoning laws" is a fairly high priority.

bluGill 5mo ago
I don't hate the data centers near me. However I do hate the tax incentives they were given. My local school district could really use those millions of dollars per year that someone decided we don't get.
- HWR_14 5mo ago
  If you hate the subsidies they were given to locate next to you, how is that different from hating the data centers?
  - bluGill 5mo ago
    If they were not given subsidies I'd have no problem with them.

unknownfuture 5mo ago

This is basically an argument about revealed preference, and these things are always more complicated than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference

john_strinlai 5mo ago
revealed preference theory is typically applied to individuals or single decision-making units like a household, rather than worldwide aggregate market behavior. in any case, its not really that complicated in this case. - the ai companies have a billion active users and billions of dollars in revenue. - a poll comes back with 30% of respondents saying they are angry about ai. so, why do the ai companies keep doing ai things despite ~30% of people not liking ai? well, its because they are making billions of dollars in revenue from their billion users. from the ai company's perspective, it would be madness not to keep shoving ai everywhere.
- rrix2 5mo ago
  and so it was that the tail continued to wag the dog....
- unknownfuture 5mo ago
  The same could be said for hard drugs. It can be simultaneously true that a large part of the public objects to a thing while the market generates profits from that very thing. Of course the answer is for governments to step in as, as you point out, the AI-related companies are behaving as rational actors given their incentive structure.