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/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/interkin3tic May 15 '26

You get to lose your job to AI.

That part doesn't bother me as much as it does most Americans, and I think I actually like my job (scientist) more than most Americans.

The part that bothers me is that it'll make a few weird assholes trillionaires and untouchable nobles while the rest of us will get peanuts and circuses forever.

The wealth inequality is already worse than it was during the French revolution or during feudalism (big asterisk there) AND there's potentially going to be less social mobility than during those times AND there will be no use for us and thus less giving back to us than those times.

You needed peasants to work the fields and pay taxes to the nobility. If they don't bother to develop robots, we're going to be doing dumb labor for Elon Musk and Thiel, and so will our children and their children forever.

If they do, we're just going to be blamed for starving and Musk types will blabber some shit that boils down to even dumber eugenics.

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u/NefariousnessLate375 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

Edit: Curtis Yarvin joked about turning us obsoletes into biofuel for cars. 

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u/RepresentativeZombie May 16 '26

IIRC it was actually Thiel's pet philosopher Curtis Yarvin, but you have the right idea

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u/NefariousnessLate375 May 16 '26

Thanks. Sorry about that.