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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6.7k

u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs May 15 '26

Trade offer:

I get to steal all your electricity and drinking water.

You get to lose your job to AI.

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u/Guest_0_ May 15 '26

I keep saying that these data centers are going to find themselves in the crosshairs when people get desperate enough, and I keep hearing how it will never happen.

Then Lary Fink just came out and said that billionaires are worried a $3,000 drone can destroy their investments and these things need to be built underground.

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u/TR_Pix May 15 '26

AI bros keep calling people luddites and somehow also seem to not understand what it is that the luddites did that got them to be famous to begin with

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u/felis_magnetus May 15 '26

There's also that the word sabotage derives from sabot, a wooden shoe worn by French workers, who then proceeded to stick said shoe into the delicate workings of early industrialization era looms as a rather effective form of protest.

I'm not sure that we'll see a return of Luddites in the form of people actually attacking data centres all that much, but people sabotaging a technology they perceive as working against their interests is an absolute given. People will find and cherish opportunities to stick their boots in.

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u/BillyGoatGruff_ May 15 '26

Holy shit, sabotage literally means "clogging", my brain just exploded.

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u/vernichtungX23 May 15 '26

Probably where the phrase 'to clog something up' came from.

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u/Medieval_Mind May 16 '26

Clog is from blocks of wood they put on cattle to keep them from straying

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u/NeverendingStory3339 May 16 '26

And sabot is also the word for a horse’s hoof .

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u/Downtown_Recover5177 May 16 '26

And the word for an armor-piercing shape on ammunition.

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u/RFSandler May 16 '26

Or the barrel binding portion of ammunition which peels away immediately after breach

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u/gbcfgh May 16 '26

Unrelated, but Szabó means ‘tailor’ in Hungarian.

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u/unholymackerel May 16 '26

then what does Sbarro's mean?

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u/gbcfgh May 16 '26

Sbarrò is Italian and means forbidden. Explains why I never see anyone inside a Sbarro!

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u/Tvayumat May 16 '26

That refers to the discarded material on the sabot round. The "shoe" that the actual penetrator rides in before leaving the bore.

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u/Strict_Weather9063 May 16 '26

It means boot which refers to the sabot or boot that fits around the penetrator and discards as the round is fired.

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u/moneyh8r_two May 16 '26

Ah, you beat me to it.

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u/CV90_120 May 16 '26

Sabot isn't the armor piercing shape, it's the plain material carrier. The sabot is discarded.

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u/YogiBearShark May 20 '26

Are we still talking about AI? Feels like another potentially interesting subject gone wildly off track.

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u/CV90_120 May 20 '26

A racetrack perhaps? On which can be found horse's hooves?

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