Comment by foxes
2 days ago
Its divided because its the first time the previously more class unaware techbros have been critically challenged by the consequences of their actions - oh shit we might lose our jobs.
10 years ago "Disrupting X" was seen as a good thing. Now its come for them its a different story.
100% this. Disrupting and killing the jobs of others is good. Now that we are killing our own jobs, disruption is not so good anymore.
100%? So everybody who has any negative opinion of or experience with AI is now a "tech bro" who believes killing jobs is good? That's hideous. Why even have an HN account if you harbor this kind of black-and-white hate against people in software? You shouldn't want HN to look like the rest of the internet (flame wars, petty back-and-forth rhetoric, immaturity, etc).
I don't have a hate against people in software. I am one of them. I just find it hypocritical to throw a fit now that AI has the potential to kill a lot of our own jobs. But we happily created tools that cost a lot of other people's jobs.
In the end the real problem isn't AI but the way our economic system is set up. For a while it was accepted and worked to some degree that society should be structured to allow capitalists gain maximum profit and then use that money to hire people. AI and robotics will probably break this and we will either have a permanent underclass or we will have to think about a society where all citizens gain from technological progress.
You can't hold up technological progress. If once country doesn't do it, another will.
Ive seen HN been filled with plenty of vitrol and hatred. Dang etc does clean it up mostly, but its still often here behind a veneer. Ive also seen really good opinions and ideas. It isnt black and white.
And no I dont think that generally, but it just seems like so many tech people here have been kinda mid/upper class/well off. I think a core issue around AI, around a new technology, is the class/capitalism issue, because that is the system we are stuck in.
But maybe some also havent quite connected the dots, and are starting to wake up to the reality of the situation.
It probably also gets astroturfed.
I suspect there is a lot of selection bias going on as well.
Forums like this, reddit, X, readers of news sites etc tend to be filled with people that don’t have much going on in their lives, have a lot of free time to comment, are less likely to exploit the benefits of AI, and more likely to have simpler skills sets that are replaceable with AI.
Talking to people in real world, I would say the overwhelming majority are excited by AI and interesting in using it more rather than less.
Probably not the best way to reduce complicated feelings.
Do those people not deserve to be able to live and survive or are they all just replaceable?
Everyone's replaceable in capitalism
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