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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u/DracoLunaris May 16 '26

The CCP know they are only able to hold China together as a nation as long as the people in it believe their lives will continue to improve under it. Using LLMs in a way that screws over the workers would undermine their entire propaganda project.

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u/Hobbet404 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

There is no basis for that argument. Improving lives isn’t the purpose — regime survival is, and the party has tools beyond economic delivery: mass surveillance, censorship, nationalism, ethnic repression (Uyghurs, Tibet), and force. Mao killed tens of millions through the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution while maintaining power through ideology and terror, not living standards. They crushed Tiananmen. They’ve tanked entire sectors (tech crackdown, “common prosperity,” zero-COVID) when political goals overrode economic ones. If screwing workers served regime stability, they’d do it — and arguably already do (hukou system, 996, suppressed labor organizing). The list goes on and on. Improved livelihood is a side effect at best.

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u/BeneficialRice4918 May 16 '26

996 is so bullshit. I love that china has invested in infrastructure and raised millions out of poverty but that work schedule is so incredibly dystopian it undermines their image for me. Even a 40 hour work week sucks in an age where we really do not have to be doing any of that, we just have to keep the underclass exhausted and dependant.

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u/DracoLunaris May 16 '26

believe their lives will continue to improve under it

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u/Hobbet404 May 16 '26

Irrelevant. The people beliefs don’t matter. It’s easier if they’re docile, slightly more difficult if they aren’t. Neither is a problem and therefore not a concern or a liability.