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When I look at issues like this, I balance benefits against costs, like any reasonable person should, and I try to do so as neutrally as I can. Using emotional

When I look at issues like this, I balance benefits against costs, like any reasonable person should, and I try to do so as neutrally as I can. Using emotionally-charged verbiage like "chasing a shiny toy" and "deplorable" isn't helping your case and makes you sound frankly unhinged. There are substantive, realizable benefits from using AI. Over the past few days alone, it has played a significant role in helping me both identify and fix a thorny issue in a major open source project that 1/will see a fix soon that every user will benefit from and 2/will unblock a major initiative at my company. It has also greatly assisted me in my personal and professional life in other ways, like improving my communications (directionally, modulo AI slop that's still a problem), planning vacations with my family, and doing home improvement projects and my hobbies. > Oracle, Block, Ford, Cloudflare, Salesforce and others' CEOs have explicitly stated that they did layoffs because of AI They've said so, which I fully admit, but I don't believe them. AI is a convenient pretext that makes their investors happy, and it's a preferable excuse to some audiences over admitting they hired the wrong people or embarked on the wrong initiatives. Where AI taketh, it also giveth: there are new jobs, too. Competent SREs and service architects, at least, are busier than ever. > the jobless rate is growing and job growth is low or negative the last year or so How much of that is attributable to AI? How do you know? > I'm trying to prevent the bad, not just "the worst" You can't always prevent the bad. Every technological development has caused some jobs to be lost or some people to be inconvenienced or displaced, from the Industrial Revolution to "computers" (who were once human beings). When there is unquestionable value in these changes, they're simply unstoppable, and society is unquestionably better off as a whole. Perhaps not immediately, but in the long term. Yes, this sometimes puts a toll on the individual. We should support them when this happens via a social safety net. But we shouldn't try to halt progress instead. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

sophacles 3mo ago
Of course you deem the costs acceptable because you don't have to pay them. The word deplorable means: deserving condemnation and contempt. And frankly, I can't think of anything more deserving of contempt than a person willing to accept the harm to others for a slight increase in convenience. > Yes, this sometimes puts a toll on the individual. We should support them when this happens via a social safety net. But we shouldn't try to halt progress instead. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig. The social safety net is being actively dismantled by the same people building your toys. Reasonable approaches to some of these problems, like requiring solar arrays sufficient to power the datacenters (or more) or equivalent clean energy - are actively opposed by the people who are building the datacenters. Open and transparent local government is being shut down by NDAs and bribes from these datacenter builders in exchange for local tax subsidies. You'd see a lot less opposition to these things if there was a reasonable assurance that the harm was "change for some people" rather than "reduction in quality of life and increased expenses for some people". I think very few people are fundamentally opposed to datacenters, they are opposed to the actions being taken right now in the real world to put them up and not compensate people for the damages they cause. If there was anyone putting up datacenters in a way that actually addressed people's concerns in a reasonable way, that didn't force the population to pay for some rich guy to get rich off toys for people who are OK putting the cost on others... well I would be fine with it. Unfortunately that's not the situation we currently have and I will continue to oppose this. See I think the companies and sick fucks who support them should actually earn their income and compensate fairly for it, not just buy governments to force others to bear the costs while they get the benefits.
- otterley 3mo ago
  We agree that clean energy and social safety sets are worth demanding and preserving. Externalities are a real problem and yes, they need to be compensated for. > And frankly, I can't think of anything more deserving of contempt than a person willing to accept the harm to others for a slight increase in convenience. Before you claim moral high ground here, you should take a good hard look at yourself and all the conveniences you enjoy and make sure you're absolutely consistent with this principle. I'll bet you'll find that you're not.
  - sophacles 3mo ago
    What a weird statement. Just like you think if something isn't the worst it must be fine, and how if someone isn't destitute they couldn't have suffered financial harm, now you're trying to claim someone who isn't the perfect paragon of morality the must not be able to have a higher standard of virtue than someone actively advocating for the harm of others. It comes across as incredibly defensive.
    - otterley 3mo ago
      There are stories you're telling yourself (especially the unfounded and frankly insulting belief that I'm "actively advocating for the harm of others"). Perhaps you should seek clarification instead of jumping to conclusions. And check the ground beneath you before criticizing others. I told you multiple messages back that you're getting way too personal about this issue and need to back off. I'm done with this thread. Go attack someone else.

sophacles 3mo ago

Of course you deem the costs acceptable because you don't have to pay them. The word deplorable means: deserving condemnation and contempt. And frankly, I can't think of anything more deserving of contempt than a person willing to accept the harm to others for a slight increase in convenience. > Yes, this sometimes puts a toll on the individual. We should support them when this happens via a social safety net. But we shouldn't try to halt progress instead. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig. The social safety net is being actively dismantled by the same people building your toys. Reasonable approaches to some of these problems, like requiring solar arrays sufficient to power the datacenters (or more) or equivalent clean energy - are actively opposed by the people who are building the datacenters. Open and transparent local government is being shut down by NDAs and bribes from these datacenter builders in exchange for local tax subsidies. You'd see a lot less opposition to these things if there was a reasonable assurance that the harm was "change for some people" rather than "reduction in quality of life and increased expenses for some people". I think very few people are fundamentally opposed to datacenters, they are opposed to the actions being taken right now in the real world to put them up and not compensate people for the damages they cause. If there was anyone putting up datacenters in a way that actually addressed people's concerns in a reasonable way, that didn't force the population to pay for some rich guy to get rich off toys for people who are OK putting the cost on others... well I would be fine with it. Unfortunately that's not the situation we currently have and I will continue to oppose this. See I think the companies and sick fucks who support them should actually earn their income and compensate fairly for it, not just buy governments to force others to bear the costs while they get the benefits.

otterley 3mo ago
We agree that clean energy and social safety sets are worth demanding and preserving. Externalities are a real problem and yes, they need to be compensated for. > And frankly, I can't think of anything more deserving of contempt than a person willing to accept the harm to others for a slight increase in convenience. Before you claim moral high ground here, you should take a good hard look at yourself and all the conveniences you enjoy and make sure you're absolutely consistent with this principle. I'll bet you'll find that you're not.
- sophacles 3mo ago
  What a weird statement. Just like you think if something isn't the worst it must be fine, and how if someone isn't destitute they couldn't have suffered financial harm, now you're trying to claim someone who isn't the perfect paragon of morality the must not be able to have a higher standard of virtue than someone actively advocating for the harm of others. It comes across as incredibly defensive.
  - otterley 3mo ago
    There are stories you're telling yourself (especially the unfounded and frankly insulting belief that I'm "actively advocating for the harm of others"). Perhaps you should seek clarification instead of jumping to conclusions. And check the ground beneath you before criticizing others. I told you multiple messages back that you're getting way too personal about this issue and need to back off. I'm done with this thread. Go attack someone else.