You can read Marx’s chapters on technology in Capital volume 1, and what he describes from his own time about how tech is developed and for whose benefit and specifically how it has to exploit workers in order to be useful to capital; it matches so closely with the development of AI that we are seeing.
I’d feel a lot less annoyed at my code being used to train the AI (without my consent) if the AI’s benefits weren’t funnelled into private pockets.
I’d feel a lot less annoyed at AI if it wasn’t constantly use to replace jobs and then fail at it. Actually, AI isn’t replacing jobs, it’s being used as an excuse to do layoffs while pretending your company is being innovative, so as not to scare off investors.
Without a profit motive there wouldn’t be ChatGPT Health, which is just faking medical skills while being wrong as often as a coin toss, in exchange for money. If I did that I’d be sued for negligence and/or fraud.
The problem is always techbros. Large Language Models, Deep Learning, these kinds of things are potentially valuable when put to work in the right arena.
A techbro will never put them in the right arena. It’s always a false promise built on flimsy reputational credit.
Exactly. It should all be treated as another tool in the toolbelt. To me, it reminds me of when GUI editors came along in IDEs like Visual Studio. It honestly feels the same. Tech CEOs immediately clamor to say that tech jobs are dead, the market for engineers dips. Engineers freak out and refuse to learn the technology while others learn what it is. Those who learn and use it as a tool elevate themselves and move faster. There is a non-trivial group of people who refuse to use the GUI tools on principal. Eventually the CEOs realize they made a mistake, and then more work comes in faster than ever before. Eventually over the years/decades everyone starts using the tech as a tool.
It’s the same with an AI. Like it’s following the exact same pattern to a T. CEOs starting to realize that it’s just a tool that can be used, but it needs people at the helm to know how to use it. Devs are split, some it’s accelerating their work if they know what it’s doing, others see a useless boondoggle and refuse to use it but are probably only hurting themselves because every interview is asking “are you using AI”. I’d say we’re finally starting to normalize on it’s usage as a tool.
That’s fair. A huge difference is how much money is behind the crazy hype machine, and how desperate they are to keep the hype going. Most actual tech people I know, work with, and are connected with in the field have normalized on tech usage. Knowing when to use it and when not to use it. It’s only the tech bros at the top who are still like “Yeah bro it’s totally going to get rid of labor bro we’re all gonna have androids who do all the work bro just trust me just 200 billion more dollars bro I promise”
In the hands of experts these are definitely useful. I’ve always felt that.
Ai should be used to augment humans, not replace them.
Unfortunately we have idiots making decisions looking at the sycophant BS machine without knowing what the job actually does
Hot take: AI is not the enemy; capitalism is.
You can read Marx’s chapters on technology in Capital volume 1, and what he describes from his own time about how tech is developed and for whose benefit and specifically how it has to exploit workers in order to be useful to capital; it matches so closely with the development of AI that we are seeing.
Yes.
I’d feel a lot less annoyed at my code being used to train the AI (without my consent) if the AI’s benefits weren’t funnelled into private pockets.
I’d feel a lot less annoyed at AI if it wasn’t constantly use to replace jobs and then fail at it. Actually, AI isn’t replacing jobs, it’s being used as an excuse to do layoffs while pretending your company is being innovative, so as not to scare off investors.
Without a profit motive there wouldn’t be ChatGPT Health, which is just faking medical skills while being wrong as often as a coin toss, in exchange for money. If I did that I’d be sued for negligence and/or fraud.
Exactly, when you dig into all the complaints people have about this tech, they’re ultimately just symptoms of the underlying capitalist relations.
The problem is always techbros. Large Language Models, Deep Learning, these kinds of things are potentially valuable when put to work in the right arena.
A techbro will never put them in the right arena. It’s always a false promise built on flimsy reputational credit.
Techbros are the result of the capitalist mode of production. You have to get rid of capitalism to get rid of techbros.
🙏 Inshallah
Exactly. It should all be treated as another tool in the toolbelt. To me, it reminds me of when GUI editors came along in IDEs like Visual Studio. It honestly feels the same. Tech CEOs immediately clamor to say that tech jobs are dead, the market for engineers dips. Engineers freak out and refuse to learn the technology while others learn what it is. Those who learn and use it as a tool elevate themselves and move faster. There is a non-trivial group of people who refuse to use the GUI tools on principal. Eventually the CEOs realize they made a mistake, and then more work comes in faster than ever before. Eventually over the years/decades everyone starts using the tech as a tool.
It’s the same with an AI. Like it’s following the exact same pattern to a T. CEOs starting to realize that it’s just a tool that can be used, but it needs people at the helm to know how to use it. Devs are split, some it’s accelerating their work if they know what it’s doing, others see a useless boondoggle and refuse to use it but are probably only hurting themselves because every interview is asking “are you using AI”. I’d say we’re finally starting to normalize on it’s usage as a tool.
Remember when they built a $50 billion server farm in my back yard to run a GUI IDE?
I think your attitude toward AI in the abstract is pretty good, it matches my experience in tech, but also theres something much larger going on here
That’s fair. A huge difference is how much money is behind the crazy hype machine, and how desperate they are to keep the hype going. Most actual tech people I know, work with, and are connected with in the field have normalized on tech usage. Knowing when to use it and when not to use it. It’s only the tech bros at the top who are still like “Yeah bro it’s totally going to get rid of labor bro we’re all gonna have androids who do all the work bro just trust me just 200 billion more dollars bro I promise”