How much of that dread is contrived? It's honestly so bizarre how much the younger generations absolutely loathe AI and how that hate has become the hivemind online. We never see this with new technologies, usually the olds hate it more.
Nah. Luddites hate technology because they prefer the existing way of doing things. People hate 'AI' because it's garbage. Make something good and people will love it.
Comparing people smashing printing presses because they feared it would steal their livelihood (and for many of them, remember, it did. Just because large scale change happened and was a permanent shift doesn't invalidate that an enormous amount of people were hurt by it) to outsourcing human thought and work to a stupid LLM that is wrong 70% of the time is... a stretch.
No, im referring to the actual Luddites, the people who hated only one specific new technology because it impacted their jobs. They didnt hate technology in general.
Hank green just had a good video that discussed the topic if you're interested.
Well, that’s not the only reason why people hate AI. It’s also because it fundamentally does not work the way it’s advertised, and is being shoved in people’s faces in ways that don’t even benefit them, often with no option to opt out.
Google still does not have an option to permanently disable its AI in searches, the best you can do is add -ai to every search you make, which is just tedious
It's definitely ONE of the major reasons people hate AI though. And it's a valid reason: companies are fundamentally cheap, they prefer to peddle crap if it means they can save money so they outsource to countries with lower financial expectations and work quality standards, loose worker rights'/child labor laws etc.
The final step (the wet dream of the executives) is just a B2B agreement for generating images, videos and text with little to no humans involved in the process, even if the result is derivative crap that borders on copyright infrigment at times and looks lame and generic - the mass consumer won't notice or won't care.
So basically AI hits both: the creatives' industry, the very process of the creative endevour and the future generation of artists, writers etc. by lowering the value of these skills on the market and by directly hurting the education process by providing the tools that circumvent that process and accquiring artistic and intellectual skills leaving the younger generation dependent on AI with nothing to show for all those years in school - AS WELL as the consumers of those works, who actually value quality in what they read and watch by drowning worthwile content in the sea of mediocrity and often disinformation.
AI as a phenomenon is way more insidious if you take in the whole picture, it's just that people usually focus only on one thing at a time, usually related to their own experiences. And I haven't even touched on the global economic and environmental impact yet - people with any knowledge in thsoe are surely can supplement with their own list of grivences...
No, I actually think the comparison to Luddites is somewhat apt, it's just not the dunk he seems to think it is. It is accurate to say that many people opposed AI feel that way because they recognize, accurately, in my opinion, that AI is intended to enable employers/owners to get rid of workers. It is also absolutely not the product it's being claimed to be, steals knowledge and labor without any structure for collective benefit from that aggregation, and is being shoved everywhere to deny us any ability to opt out because there are so many people supporting the technology purely for personal gain with no real care for the consequences, so you are also absolutely right about the reasons the current implementation of these technologies sucks.
But many many people hate AI because it is an actual threat to their livelihoods, same as the Luddites recognized about the technologies they opposed. Disruptive technologies can often be good for society as a whole, but not for particular subsections. We need to do more as a society to take care of people who are hurt by changes in the way the world works if we want to see the world grow to be a better one without quite so much turmoil and pain.
For instance, sometimes google will return a panel on the right, next to your search results. Here's an example. It'll do this for locations, sports teams and all sorts of things and it's generally pretty useful.
the people who hated only one specific new technology because it impacted their jobs
I'm not sure why you're pretending it's so mysterious & bizarre in your first comment. Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on why young people are opposed to stuffing AI shit into every possible crevice.
Disliking LLM isn't being a Luddite. I like electric cars, robot assisted surgery, video calling, smart wearables, cloud storage. I detest LLMs being forced into literally every software I use where it isn't necessary.
I know the colloquial usage isn't the same, but the actual Luddites weren't against all tech by any means. They were opposed to the use of machinery to replace their positions with lower-skilled workers earning lower wages, and had very few non-violent means available to air their grievances. Machine-breaking was one path available to them.
Also yea no shit. Just like how the Invention of farming changed society forever. Are you gonna decry the existence of agriculture? "Yet you participate in society, curious" ass opinion.
The tractor revolutionized farming and resulted in less farmers being needed. Lots of families lost the family farm, would you prefer going back to small three acre farms where 80% of the populace worked them?
Yes I did but tractors are not like GenAI in this analogy. Tractors aren't required to be built off of stolen parts to even exist. Every company didn't demand you swap your car for a tractor. They actively improve the work, not make it worse.
Its crazy to me how much redditors are willing to go to bat for copyright laws now. I remember when reddit was pro-piracy.
Also, GenAI does make things better. For example, photoshop has been using it for years now with AI Fill. Vibe coding does work. Sure, it might not be what you want to use for software development, but for data analysis it is more than good enough.
Right now you see companies using it in such a way to try and find where it is good or worth the reduced ability. For example, the infamous coca cola commercial, but the truth is, most people don't care how many wheels are on a semi truck in a 20 second ad.
The dread is not contrived it is from experience. Consumer AI labeled technology is garbage for 99% of people. there are probably a bunch of software developers across the country who have figured out how to make AI tools really work for them. There are likely a bunch of individuals who have harness AI capabilities for productivity or entertainment improvements.
But for 9/10 people you meet, their experience with AI is that it is adding bloat to their workflow, it is causing un-controllable issues with no clear solution, or it is being used as justification to literally fire real human beings they know.
The younger generation hates AI because it sucks and it's adding yet another layer of filth between them and being able to actually carve out a livable niche in the world.
Software engineer here. Yes, it is incredible at software and has permanently changed how that work is done and you can pry LLMs from my cold dead hands. The best engineers I knew before AI are also generally the best at using AI, and their output has like quadrupled or more.
I can crack open a couple beers and have a casual chat with Claude or Codex and get more done in two hours than I would otherwise do in like a day of stressful caffeinated grinding. Not because I’m particularly good at engineering or at using the tools. They’re just that good if you have a little bit of patience and whatever this new “prompting+iterating” skill is.
How it applies today (and more importantly in 6 or 18 months) to other domains, I can’t really say. Software is kinda the perfect match, as it’s generally relatively straightforward to provide the right kinds of guardrails/verifications, the training set is enormous, and it’s all just regular text.
The funniest part about this is people who say this are the ones who refuse to use AI, so they don't actually know this.
They just mindlessly repeat it because that's what they read and see on reddit/tiktok all day. The most disturbing part to me is how so many of you are unable to question popular narratives on social media.
Is it really "bizarre"?! Can you honestly tell me you can't think of at least 2-3 reasons why people might dislike AI and the recent insidious deluge of it everywhere online?
Personally, have you ever been impressed by anything you've watched online? Kiss that feeling goodbye forever now, thanks to AI. Everything can be faked and it's only getting more and more deceptive.
One of the most important truths to learn about society: C-suites are made of sociopaths who would slit your child’s throat in front of you if they thought it would help with the bonus and annual review. These are not and will never be decent, good humans.
Also: Any one of us would become that c-suite sociopath if we were offered the insane rewards they’re offered.
Right. Believe it or not, some of us who could've gone into finance (and know many who did) chose a different path because there was more meaningful work, with better peers, available to us. Hell, I know a Big Law guy who got out as soon as he could to do non-profit work.
Plenty of people turn down the opportunity to make more money, for any number of reasons.
In the early 2000s I worked for a company that developed new technologies for the US Department of Defense. There was a big cultural push around the idea that we were helping to save the lives of American soldiers. For a while that worked for me but then we were helping kill innocent Iraqis and I couldn't do it anymore, I left that industry.
Later I was offered a job with a company that was developing the amazing new technology of playing ads on gas pumps. I said no thanks, I want no part of bringing this evil into the world. My objections of course made no difference, that shit was going to happen either way. But every time I pump gas I know that I didn't help them do that to us.
I just left corporate technology after 10 years because I realized that no matter which company or positioned I joined I wouldn’t do much good for the world or people at large. The industry is rotten.
Back in school for occupational therapy now. Thinking about switching to environmental science though.
That's awesome. Doctors get a lot of glory for helping people (deservedly, mostly), but occupational therapists are so damn important -- like most people, probably, I didn't really appreciate it until I had close family go through a major brain injury. (Environmental science is great, too!)
Aw thanks! Yeah I thought about med school but I really like where I live, and also my regular sleep schedule. Occupational therapy is an OTD, not an MD, where I am and doesn’t come with the same torturous practices like match, residency, and hospital rotations.
Oh, and to further your earlier point- my big brother is a chemical engineer. Was in Big Oil for years, but once he “earned his stripes” he moved over to trying to find a way to recycle EV car batteries.
You’re right in that there are a LOT of highly intelligent people who could make a lot of money fucking people over but choose not to.
Most people end up leaving Big consulting, Big law, Big Corp after a few years after they make “enough”. Very few people are truly Elon Musk types. But that doesn’t change how they might run a company.
Imagine you join a company as a manager or CEO or department head and get issued stock options for your bonus. The options are struck at the current stock price and have a term. If the price doesn’t go up over that term, you don’t get your bonus. So how do you make the stock price go up? You can’t just keep your current level of profitability. Valuation is based on future cash flows discounted to the present. Only if the profits go up would the valuation go up, or the discount rate goes down. You can’t really change your discount rate much, it’s mostly macro driven. So what do you do? Maybe you just raise price of some product a little here, cut the quality a little there, the profits go up, you get your bonus and then you leave thinking, well I didn’t make it that much worse.
Then your replacement comes in and his stock options are now set at the new higher price. He has the same problem as you had. He also just wants to stay 2 years, make his bonus and get out. So also does,the same thing, raise the price on a other product, cut expenses somewhere. The stock price goes up, he gets his bonus, then he leaves. Next guy comes in has the exact same problem. So over time, the prices go higher and the product goes to shit.
I lasted <5 years in consulting - what a drain of resources. We sold projects purely so one side could spend money on things and the other could say look what we did
A lot of this shit is done in isolation. What's the harm in raising the price on this one product line? What's the harm in making this one subscription a bit less feature rich? What's the harm in building on that one Native Burial Ground?
The biggest problems arise when that's quarter after quarter after quarter behavior. There's only so much growth out there...
This is absolutely the biggest issue. The needs for unlimited q2q profit growth for the rest of time. The second that arrow isnt as green as the previous quarter due to market saturation or any other myriad of factors, the enshittification and job cuts are then used to make it look like the growth is still continuing. There’s so many large corporations sitting on a complete house of cards right now that it scares the crap out of me. It looks like a house but the tiniest gust of wind and everything is going to crumble
Not really. Beause you don't just get plucked at random to sit in that position.
Except for nepo babies who inherit a company from their father, ending up in the C-suite is the result of numerous morally compromised choices that lead you there over a life time.
C-suites are made of sociopaths who would slit your child’s throat in front of you if they thought it would help with the bonus and annual review.
My dude. I'm always ready to rant about ruthless capitalists, but the problem with most executives out there is precisely that they are indirectly ruthless: They can pretend their actions have no immediate negative consequences, so they do. The problem is that "the C-Suite" is systemically separated from impact on other humans.
Slitting your child's throat is not on the (corporate) agenda, however. The sociopaths among them are not that type of sociopath, even if some of them cough healthcare in the US cough bear the weight of far more lost souls than the average serial killer.
Exactly, they wouldn't slit a throat. They would just fund their friend's profitable investment firm which happens to be investing in this new innovative think-tank that is writing new policy to bring sudden neck surgery in line with the modern era.
Correct, it’s more accurate to say that the CEO would have no problem with the company supply chain involving a significant amount of child throat slitting so long as it results in increased profits and he is shielded from any direct knowledge of the throat slitting and is protected from blowback that could occur if it’s uncovered by the media.
Some of us intentionally chose careers that felt helpful to other people and offered more meaning making. Most people in those low paying jobs had a chance to take a different, wealthier path. The world is full of compassionate, ethical people not by accident but by a series of choices that built their life.
Sounds like the hardest version of life to WISH you had a chance to be rich and an asshole.
Nope, I have no interest in being a sociopath or hoarding wealth needlessly. I would like to be comfortable, but that doesn't mean selling my soul and purposefully screwing over other people.
If you offered me $5 million to be a dick for a year, maybe I would be. I definitely wouldn't keep doing that year after year after year trying to accumulate millions in wealth.
If you offered me an exorbitant salary package with a $5M severance if I got fired, I'd get myself fired and go enjoy my life.
Something that hasn’t been made clear: Firefox will have an option to completely disable all AI features.
We’ve been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I’m sure it’ll ship with a less murderous name, but that’s how seriously and absolutely we’re taking this.
I take the statement to mean they aren't going to hide it. Hopefully it will ask on the first launch, just like it asks if you want to import bookmarks. It will probably also be in the settings with the other configuration options.
Forks don't receive security patches as quickly as Firefox's main branch. Nor do they receive as much testing or scrutiny, simply because they don't have as many users.
Important add. Your core investors will often know "this is a scam". They know that it is a bubble and that it will pop. Don't assume that the CEOs and investors and the board are all dummies. Many aren't.
The difference is that compared to the rest of the public, they know more, are faster, have maybe some insider knowledge (that you wouldn't get dinged for and what do you know we currently have a government just doing blatant insider trading with itself) and able to react quicker.
Inflate the bubble as much as possible, and then dip out before it implodes so others are left with shit. This is how the financial crisis of 2008 went down where some made bank, others got bailed out with taxpayer money and the rest of the public holding those bad portfolios got the brunt of the hit. The rich profited, the rest went broke.
And then when everything's worth shit you can buy it all back up when they inevitably rise up in value to normal. This is how shocks like COVID despite dipping the economy ended up consolidating wealth even more in fewer hands.
To anyone trying to pull a "The Big Short", knowing shit's going to go down is one thing, timing the market is another and incredibly difficult and risky to pull off. Even that movie's plot had some of the protaganists nearly going under because they timed it wrong.
And the people who know the right time are the ones sitting in the board room and having a hand on the wheel.
This is completely wrong, makes no sense, and is not how the world works. The world is competing and many directors are afraid of losing competitive advantages. They have read books such as "who moved my cheese?" which shows over and over again the risk of complacency. AI does solve many problems, not every problem but it's easier to be wrong if everyone else is wrong.
Oh well if they read "who moved my cheese?" then there's certainly no risk that these powerful people could possibly be trying to use their influence to consolidate wealth. I'm embarrassed we ever thought such a thing could be possible, thank you for correcting our misimpression.
May thy bubble burst and shatter. I miss being excited for new technologies and not dreading them.
Yoinked to /r/unexpecteddune
https://www.reddit.com/r/unexpecteddune/comments/1pq2ofk/on_the_thinking_machines_artificial_intelligence/
How much of that dread is contrived? It's honestly so bizarre how much the younger generations absolutely loathe AI and how that hate has become the hivemind online. We never see this with new technologies, usually the olds hate it more.
It's the luddite movement all over again.
Nah. Luddites hate technology because they prefer the existing way of doing things. People hate 'AI' because it's garbage. Make something good and people will love it.
Comparing people smashing printing presses because they feared it would steal their livelihood (and for many of them, remember, it did. Just because large scale change happened and was a permanent shift doesn't invalidate that an enormous amount of people were hurt by it) to outsourcing human thought and work to a stupid LLM that is wrong 70% of the time is... a stretch.
I think its a lot of both depending on the context.
No, im referring to the actual Luddites, the people who hated only one specific new technology because it impacted their jobs. They didnt hate technology in general.
Hank green just had a good video that discussed the topic if you're interested.
Well, that’s not the only reason why people hate AI. It’s also because it fundamentally does not work the way it’s advertised, and is being shoved in people’s faces in ways that don’t even benefit them, often with no option to opt out.
Google still does not have an option to permanently disable its AI in searches, the best you can do is add -ai to every search you make, which is just tedious
It's definitely ONE of the major reasons people hate AI though. And it's a valid reason: companies are fundamentally cheap, they prefer to peddle crap if it means they can save money so they outsource to countries with lower financial expectations and work quality standards, loose worker rights'/child labor laws etc.
The final step (the wet dream of the executives) is just a B2B agreement for generating images, videos and text with little to no humans involved in the process, even if the result is derivative crap that borders on copyright infrigment at times and looks lame and generic - the mass consumer won't notice or won't care.
So basically AI hits both: the creatives' industry, the very process of the creative endevour and the future generation of artists, writers etc. by lowering the value of these skills on the market and by directly hurting the education process by providing the tools that circumvent that process and accquiring artistic and intellectual skills leaving the younger generation dependent on AI with nothing to show for all those years in school - AS WELL as the consumers of those works, who actually value quality in what they read and watch by drowning worthwile content in the sea of mediocrity and often disinformation.
AI as a phenomenon is way more insidious if you take in the whole picture, it's just that people usually focus only on one thing at a time, usually related to their own experiences. And I haven't even touched on the global economic and environmental impact yet - people with any knowledge in thsoe are surely can supplement with their own list of grivences...
Good points, I’ve edited my comment to include that it’s not the ONLY reason people are opposed to
No, I actually think the comparison to Luddites is somewhat apt, it's just not the dunk he seems to think it is. It is accurate to say that many people opposed AI feel that way because they recognize, accurately, in my opinion, that AI is intended to enable employers/owners to get rid of workers. It is also absolutely not the product it's being claimed to be, steals knowledge and labor without any structure for collective benefit from that aggregation, and is being shoved everywhere to deny us any ability to opt out because there are so many people supporting the technology purely for personal gain with no real care for the consequences, so you are also absolutely right about the reasons the current implementation of these technologies sucks.
But many many people hate AI because it is an actual threat to their livelihoods, same as the Luddites recognized about the technologies they opposed. Disruptive technologies can often be good for society as a whole, but not for particular subsections. We need to do more as a society to take care of people who are hurt by changes in the way the world works if we want to see the world grow to be a better one without quite so much turmoil and pain.
https://tenbluelinks.org/
Some really awesome Redditor posted this a bit ago and it's been great not seeing the AI summary bullshit.
I love that it gets rid of the AI Summary but it looks like it also gets rid of the extra functions that were actually useful.
Which features?
For instance, sometimes google will return a panel on the right, next to your search results. Here's an example. It'll do this for locations, sports teams and all sorts of things and it's generally pretty useful.
You can always just change your search engine to "AI Free Web" using these instructions.
I'm not sure why you're pretending it's so mysterious & bizarre in your first comment. Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on why young people are opposed to stuffing AI shit into every possible crevice.
It includes people of all stripes, not just those working in IT.
So no, i really don't. Why would a Starbucks worker care for example?
Their jobs being the existing way of doing things at the time.
Is this adding something?
Hank Green lost all credibility after the knitting video and "apology".
I wouldn't trust him to depict the Luddites in anything other than a condescending and derogatory way.
Why did he lose credibility for that?
Because he had a good discussion with an intelligent author and expressed opinions that would get hundreds of downvotes on reddit?
Disliking LLM isn't being a Luddite. I like electric cars, robot assisted surgery, video calling, smart wearables, cloud storage. I detest LLMs being forced into literally every software I use where it isn't necessary.
I know the colloquial usage isn't the same, but the actual Luddites weren't against all tech by any means. They were opposed to the use of machinery to replace their positions with lower-skilled workers earning lower wages, and had very few non-violent means available to air their grievances. Machine-breaking was one path available to them.
Luddites all over again is a good thing. They fought the replacement of workers not just "technology bad"
But you only know stuff by asking grok so you can piss off.
No they didnt.
They fought specifically for their jobs only, not against technology's displacement of workers.
And keep in mind, they themselves benefited from prior technological development that displaced workers. You obviously can see the parallels today.
So..it's bad to not want to lose your job?
Also yea no shit. Just like how the Invention of farming changed society forever. Are you gonna decry the existence of agriculture? "Yet you participate in society, curious" ass opinion.
Those who keep up with AI will have more job security than those who refuse to touch it, that much you can be sure of.
It's not inevitable or guaranteed. It needs to be burned down along with everyone pushing it.
The tractor revolutionized farming and resulted in less farmers being needed. Lots of families lost the family farm, would you prefer going back to small three acre farms where 80% of the populace worked them?
No but that's entirely unrelated and you know it.
You are the one who brought up farming!
Yes I did but tractors are not like GenAI in this analogy. Tractors aren't required to be built off of stolen parts to even exist. Every company didn't demand you swap your car for a tractor. They actively improve the work, not make it worse.
Its crazy to me how much redditors are willing to go to bat for copyright laws now. I remember when reddit was pro-piracy.
Also, GenAI does make things better. For example, photoshop has been using it for years now with AI Fill. Vibe coding does work. Sure, it might not be what you want to use for software development, but for data analysis it is more than good enough.
Right now you see companies using it in such a way to try and find where it is good or worth the reduced ability. For example, the infamous coca cola commercial, but the truth is, most people don't care how many wheels are on a semi truck in a 20 second ad.
The dread is not contrived it is from experience. Consumer AI labeled technology is garbage for 99% of people. there are probably a bunch of software developers across the country who have figured out how to make AI tools really work for them. There are likely a bunch of individuals who have harness AI capabilities for productivity or entertainment improvements.
But for 9/10 people you meet, their experience with AI is that it is adding bloat to their workflow, it is causing un-controllable issues with no clear solution, or it is being used as justification to literally fire real human beings they know.
The younger generation hates AI because it sucks and it's adding yet another layer of filth between them and being able to actually carve out a livable niche in the world.
Software engineer here. Yes, it is incredible at software and has permanently changed how that work is done and you can pry LLMs from my cold dead hands. The best engineers I knew before AI are also generally the best at using AI, and their output has like quadrupled or more.
I can crack open a couple beers and have a casual chat with Claude or Codex and get more done in two hours than I would otherwise do in like a day of stressful caffeinated grinding. Not because I’m particularly good at engineering or at using the tools. They’re just that good if you have a little bit of patience and whatever this new “prompting+iterating” skill is.
How it applies today (and more importantly in 6 or 18 months) to other domains, I can’t really say. Software is kinda the perfect match, as it’s generally relatively straightforward to provide the right kinds of guardrails/verifications, the training set is enormous, and it’s all just regular text.
AI is constantly wrong about everything. It's not intelligent it just remixes correct original sources into incorrect slop.
I love new technology from space rockets to fancy cars to VR to cool python modules but this isn't a good one.
The funniest part about this is people who say this are the ones who refuse to use AI, so they don't actually know this.
They just mindlessly repeat it because that's what they read and see on reddit/tiktok all day. The most disturbing part to me is how so many of you are unable to question popular narratives on social media.
I use and test it weekly for my work.
Is it really "bizarre"?! Can you honestly tell me you can't think of at least 2-3 reasons why people might dislike AI and the recent insidious deluge of it everywhere online?
Personally, have you ever been impressed by anything you've watched online? Kiss that feeling goodbye forever now, thanks to AI. Everything can be faked and it's only getting more and more deceptive.
The degree of hate is 100% bizarre yes.
Ai is great at certain things.
It's not great in a lot of the places, a vast majority of places, that it's being used right now.
One of the most important truths to learn about society: C-suites are made of sociopaths who would slit your child’s throat in front of you if they thought it would help with the bonus and annual review. These are not and will never be decent, good humans.
Also: Any one of us would become that c-suite sociopath if we were offered the insane rewards they’re offered.
No we wouldn’t. Stop projecting
Right. Believe it or not, some of us who could've gone into finance (and know many who did) chose a different path because there was more meaningful work, with better peers, available to us. Hell, I know a Big Law guy who got out as soon as he could to do non-profit work.
Plenty of people turn down the opportunity to make more money, for any number of reasons.
In the early 2000s I worked for a company that developed new technologies for the US Department of Defense. There was a big cultural push around the idea that we were helping to save the lives of American soldiers. For a while that worked for me but then we were helping kill innocent Iraqis and I couldn't do it anymore, I left that industry.
Later I was offered a job with a company that was developing the amazing new technology of playing ads on gas pumps. I said no thanks, I want no part of bringing this evil into the world. My objections of course made no difference, that shit was going to happen either way. But every time I pump gas I know that I didn't help them do that to us.
Thank you for your lack of service, fuck those ads
Try pressing the second from the top button on the right hand set of buttons, this mutes most of them in my experience.
I just left corporate technology after 10 years because I realized that no matter which company or positioned I joined I wouldn’t do much good for the world or people at large. The industry is rotten.
Back in school for occupational therapy now. Thinking about switching to environmental science though.
That's awesome. Doctors get a lot of glory for helping people (deservedly, mostly), but occupational therapists are so damn important -- like most people, probably, I didn't really appreciate it until I had close family go through a major brain injury. (Environmental science is great, too!)
Aw thanks! Yeah I thought about med school but I really like where I live, and also my regular sleep schedule. Occupational therapy is an OTD, not an MD, where I am and doesn’t come with the same torturous practices like match, residency, and hospital rotations.
Oh, and to further your earlier point- my big brother is a chemical engineer. Was in Big Oil for years, but once he “earned his stripes” he moved over to trying to find a way to recycle EV car batteries.
You’re right in that there are a LOT of highly intelligent people who could make a lot of money fucking people over but choose not to.
Most people end up leaving Big consulting, Big law, Big Corp after a few years after they make “enough”. Very few people are truly Elon Musk types. But that doesn’t change how they might run a company.
Imagine you join a company as a manager or CEO or department head and get issued stock options for your bonus. The options are struck at the current stock price and have a term. If the price doesn’t go up over that term, you don’t get your bonus. So how do you make the stock price go up? You can’t just keep your current level of profitability. Valuation is based on future cash flows discounted to the present. Only if the profits go up would the valuation go up, or the discount rate goes down. You can’t really change your discount rate much, it’s mostly macro driven. So what do you do? Maybe you just raise price of some product a little here, cut the quality a little there, the profits go up, you get your bonus and then you leave thinking, well I didn’t make it that much worse.
Then your replacement comes in and his stock options are now set at the new higher price. He has the same problem as you had. He also just wants to stay 2 years, make his bonus and get out. So also does,the same thing, raise the price on a other product, cut expenses somewhere. The stock price goes up, he gets his bonus, then he leaves. Next guy comes in has the exact same problem. So over time, the prices go higher and the product goes to shit.
I lasted <5 years in consulting - what a drain of resources. We sold projects purely so one side could spend money on things and the other could say look what we did
Eeeeh.
A lot of this shit is done in isolation. What's the harm in raising the price on this one product line? What's the harm in making this one subscription a bit less feature rich? What's the harm in building on that one Native Burial Ground?
The biggest problems arise when that's quarter after quarter after quarter behavior. There's only so much growth out there...
This is absolutely the biggest issue. The needs for unlimited q2q profit growth for the rest of time. The second that arrow isnt as green as the previous quarter due to market saturation or any other myriad of factors, the enshittification and job cuts are then used to make it look like the growth is still continuing. There’s so many large corporations sitting on a complete house of cards right now that it scares the crap out of me. It looks like a house but the tiniest gust of wind and everything is going to crumble
Not really. Beause you don't just get plucked at random to sit in that position.
Except for nepo babies who inherit a company from their father, ending up in the C-suite is the result of numerous morally compromised choices that lead you there over a life time.
My dude. I'm always ready to rant about ruthless capitalists, but the problem with most executives out there is precisely that they are indirectly ruthless: They can pretend their actions have no immediate negative consequences, so they do. The problem is that "the C-Suite" is systemically separated from impact on other humans.
Slitting your child's throat is not on the (corporate) agenda, however. The sociopaths among them are not that type of sociopath, even if some of them cough healthcare in the US cough bear the weight of far more lost souls than the average serial killer.
Exactly, they wouldn't slit a throat. They would just fund their friend's profitable investment firm which happens to be investing in this new innovative think-tank that is writing new policy to bring sudden neck surgery in line with the modern era.
Bingo!
Correct, it’s more accurate to say that the CEO would have no problem with the company supply chain involving a significant amount of child throat slitting so long as it results in increased profits and he is shielded from any direct knowledge of the throat slitting and is protected from blowback that could occur if it’s uncovered by the media.
You get it, man.
Some of us intentionally chose careers that felt helpful to other people and offered more meaning making. Most people in those low paying jobs had a chance to take a different, wealthier path. The world is full of compassionate, ethical people not by accident but by a series of choices that built their life.
Sounds like the hardest version of life to WISH you had a chance to be rich and an asshole.
Nope, I have no interest in being a sociopath or hoarding wealth needlessly. I would like to be comfortable, but that doesn't mean selling my soul and purposefully screwing over other people.
WTF? LOL
If I had $5 million tomorrow, I would retire.
If you offered me $5 million to be a dick for a year, maybe I would be. I definitely wouldn't keep doing that year after year after year trying to accumulate millions in wealth.
If you offered me an exorbitant salary package with a $5M severance if I got fired, I'd get myself fired and go enjoy my life.
https://coywolf.com/news/productivity/firefox-is-adding-an-ai-kill-switch/
Will AI be enabled or disabled by default?
Probably enabled, but so long as it's really easy to find the kill switch I'm okay with that
Most people won't know about it.
I take the statement to mean they aren't going to hide it. Hopefully it will ask on the first launch, just like it asks if you want to import bookmarks. It will probably also be in the settings with the other configuration options.
In better news, Waterfox doesn't need a Kill Switch(TM) because it has the AI features hard locked out.
Forks don't receive security patches as quickly as Firefox's main branch. Nor do they receive as much testing or scrutiny, simply because they don't have as many users.
Does it support the same extensions?
I would switch browsers immediately
Switched to librewolf
Important add. Your core investors will often know "this is a scam". They know that it is a bubble and that it will pop. Don't assume that the CEOs and investors and the board are all dummies. Many aren't.
The difference is that compared to the rest of the public, they know more, are faster, have maybe some insider knowledge (that you wouldn't get dinged for and what do you know we currently have a government just doing blatant insider trading with itself) and able to react quicker.
Inflate the bubble as much as possible, and then dip out before it implodes so others are left with shit. This is how the financial crisis of 2008 went down where some made bank, others got bailed out with taxpayer money and the rest of the public holding those bad portfolios got the brunt of the hit. The rich profited, the rest went broke.
And then when everything's worth shit you can buy it all back up when they inevitably rise up in value to normal. This is how shocks like COVID despite dipping the economy ended up consolidating wealth even more in fewer hands.
To anyone trying to pull a "The Big Short", knowing shit's going to go down is one thing, timing the market is another and incredibly difficult and risky to pull off. Even that movie's plot had some of the protaganists nearly going under because they timed it wrong.
And the people who know the right time are the ones sitting in the board room and having a hand on the wheel.
Yes and this is why the the current public company paradigm is awful and needs to go away.
This is completely wrong, makes no sense, and is not how the world works. The world is competing and many directors are afraid of losing competitive advantages. They have read books such as "who moved my cheese?" which shows over and over again the risk of complacency. AI does solve many problems, not every problem but it's easier to be wrong if everyone else is wrong.
Oh well if they read "who moved my cheese?" then there's certainly no risk that these powerful people could possibly be trying to use their influence to consolidate wealth. I'm embarrassed we ever thought such a thing could be possible, thank you for correcting our misimpression.
You have no idea what you're talking about and live in a fantasyland.
Thank you for your powerful and convincing defense of CEOs and board members of large corporations.
Thank you for your teenager understanding of the world where someone explaining that things don't work that way means that they're defending someone.
You aren't explaining anything, you're just saying they're wrong with nothing to back it up
What am I supposed to back up? There's no evidence to refute in the original comment.
I feel like a better person just by looking at this.
I feel like a better person just by looking at this.