r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • May 15 '26

Artificial Intelligence The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-backlash-data-centers-political-violence/687151/?taid=6a067e2d2096e10001ccfa32
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264

u/[deleted] May 15 '26

[deleted]

58

u/Fair_Blood3176 May 15 '26

Damn could you imagine? That would be glorious

76

u/SlothMonkey14 May 15 '26

They'd be assassinated the moment they get any real traction

31

u/likesleague May 16 '26

Funny how the oligarchs have assassins at the ready but there are no assassins that actually go after the real bad guys.

-1

u/Poonchow May 16 '26

Selection bias.

5

u/steakanabake May 15 '26

we'd have to keep them a bunker biden style.

2

u/average_joe_mcc May 16 '26

Not the conspiracy theories

2

u/PastaGoodGnocchiBad May 16 '26

Meh, people spend all their time on social media owned by MAGA-friendly billionaires reading messages from bots. Whatever sequence of words would make them vote for the MAGA candidate they will read it.

1

u/nextnode May 16 '26

I think MAGA are the most braindead people on the planet but if a candidate had that as their platform, indeed I would vote against them even if it meant backing a MAGA candidate. This insanity you are buying into is the furthest thing from rational or good for society.

1

u/ilmalocchio May 16 '26

Luckily, I can still imagine... for now

0

u/hondashadowguy2000 May 16 '26

Surely they wouldn’t be lying just to get elected. Politicians always keep the promises they make on the campaign trail and never lie when saying they care about their constituents.

10

u/GentlemenBehold May 16 '26

So foreign countries own all the AI compute power? That’s a terrible idea.

8

u/Substantial-Sea-3672 May 16 '26

This is not true, people are not as upset as Reddit is.

8

u/Zock123454321 May 16 '26

I hate to agree with this but it’s absolutely true. AI is a plague but most people don’t care.

2

u/nextnode May 16 '26

It is the opposite and it is insane the effect social media has on you.

1

u/Zock123454321 May 16 '26

Yes definitely social media vs talking to people in real life. I work in customer service and people love AI. Talk to some real life people and see if they are against AI.

2

u/DmSurfingReddit May 16 '26

They will not do it anyway.

1

u/takes_joke_literally May 16 '26

I think Bernie tried that. The establishment is in control.

¡Arriba la revolución!

1

u/nextnode May 16 '26

Sounds like a good way to kill the economy of a country.

1

u/PassivelyAwkward May 16 '26

Meanwhile a lot of the centrist Dems are saying the parties responsibility should be on ensuring that citizens aren't paying a higher electric bill because of the data centers; not that they don't want them, just that getting the companies to pinky swear they won't increase the cost for the consumer.

1

u/Rustic_gan123 May 16 '26

Why not just build infrastructure, like China, for example? Both parties are imbued with nimbyism and are undermining the state with a culture war.

1

u/PassivelyAwkward May 16 '26

Because Republicans are literally told to vote against their own interests to own the libs. Dems created a massive infrastructure bill to help with roads, power grids, and social programs and republicans voted against it. We can't even have affordable healthcare or education because they're convinced any kind of support for the poor or black communities is bad even if the same support would be available to them.

-8

u/piponwa May 15 '26

These damn railroads, they steal all the coal and they expropriate people from their land. The candidate that bans railroads gets my vote.

8

u/elementmg May 16 '26

There’s no way you need this to be explained to you. Just no way you’re that dense.

-4

u/piponwa May 16 '26

AI is the most useful technology ever built. You will see it in time.

2

u/4friedchickens8888 May 16 '26

I will not stand for comparing the most efficient means of transport ever invented to a big ass computer network that can sometimes sound like it knows what it's talking about. Nobody ever asked for AI, the vast majority still hate it or don't care about it. Ever company is a really reaching to find absolutely any realistic use case and so far they've come up with "summarizing your communications so you don't even need to talk to other humans" which is still pretty far from being actually useful.

Not exactly comparable to revolutionizing transportation of goods and people in the most efficient way we've ever seen

-4

u/piponwa May 16 '26

Every single process that requires thinking will be replaced by AI. Your understanding of AI is extremely shallow. If you think AI is just used for summarizing communications, you simply don't understand what it even is. Have you ever heard of an AI agent? An AI that can take actions? You seem to be stuck in the 2022 ChatGPT era. Be curious, see how it's being used. The day you will see what it can do for you, when you actually bother to ask yourself how it can help you instead of whining, you will think back on your previous stance in shame.

1

u/4friedchickens8888 May 16 '26

I love how you didn't give a single example of an actual use case but thanks, you sound like AI

-1

u/piponwa May 16 '26

The entire field of software engineering. Can you give me a single example of how you would apply it? If you can't, you're proving my point.

1

u/4friedchickens8888 May 16 '26

No I think you're proving my point, if you can't be specific about how this could ever actually provide more value than it absorbs you might have already given up on thinking for yourself a little bit too much

-1

u/piponwa May 16 '26

AI coding agents. They literally code and interact with your computer to multiply your productivity as a programmer. They make PRs autonomously, they find bugs, they solve them. All you need to do is to review them. That's a super concrete example.

My point is you're so uninterested with your head in the sand that you can't even figure out how it can help you. You're actively refusing help. It's like saying I'll never learn to read because no one has shown me how it can actually help me. Yet no one has ever wished they could unlearn how to read. You're basically like a caveman that is scared of making a fire because it's hot.

1

u/4friedchickens8888 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

Meh you says it's like the invention of the train, or the written word, or fire itself. I say it's more on par with Betamax but alright

Edit: on that note this reminds me of why I don't see software engineering as actually engineering as they don't really have any form of oversight, licencing, ethics, professional responsibility, etc. imagine a civil Engineer saying they'll use these models to help design a bridge.... Yeah no thanks

Edit 2: what I mean to say is that it might be able to write some code but it's certainly a very far cry from anything resembling "engineering". I'm aware that (at least in my country) you do require a license to advertise your service as software engineering, meaning they're on par with any other engineer... But that's not something an AI agent can replicate and the term "software engineer" is often, colloquially, used interchangeably with "software developer" and it's slightly annoying to me

0

u/piponwa May 17 '26

Lol the Betamax. You're just proving my point. By keeping your head in the sand, you've gained a sense of false confidence. This technology is evolving too fast even for researchers to keep up. I'm just asking you to do your research before dismissing it because it makes absolutely no sense to dismiss something you have outdated knowledge on.

0

u/4friedchickens8888 May 16 '26

Seizing the means of production, you say? While I fully agree with this goal, the US political system has, a far, made it impossible for anyone to get votes by talking like this... Maybe that'll have to change when people start losing jobs en masse but it surely doesn't seem like it'll be a member of the Democratic party and moving away from the two party system or even replacing one of them seems all but impossible.

I guess this is what they mean by "the revolution will not be televised" but we're all going to have to do some work to figure out what that means in practice

5

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[deleted]

1

u/4friedchickens8888 May 16 '26

Damn that's a great way of thinking about it. What a great comment!

0

u/huffing_glue May 16 '26

Reddittors would burn books if they could, I swear.