The AI Thread

[dinny_g]

Nobody is forcing yous to keep voting for people who'll let your dystopian vision happen.

Not suggesting we keep voting for people who'll let it happen but in truth, there's ZERO any UK Government can do to stop this coming.

[ZedLeg]

It would be very easy for the UK government to stop giving sweetheart deals to oligarchs building data centers.

[Mito Man]

It would be very easy for the UK government to stop giving sweetheart deals to oligarchs building data centers.

That wouldn't stop them. Local data centres are more for latency and security, and we're a small island, very close to France, which has excess energy, land and easy building permits so most of them are going there anyway.

[ZedLeg]

Right but what seems to be missing here is the idea that we tax companies using and building this infrastructure and automation in line with what we need for the country rather than letting this nihilistic, extractionist capitalism kill us.

Seems weird to me that people don't consider it.

[dinny_g]

Right but what seems to be missing here is the idea that we tax companies using and building this infrastructure and automation in line with what we need for the country rather than letting this nihilistic, extractionist capitalism kill us.

Seems weird to me that people don't consider it.

Perhaps this is why...

I have no faith that the government would do that. They've shown no interest in putting the population before company profits so far.

[ZedLeg]

Which goes back to stop voting for people who are pushing for ai expansion.

[dinny_g]

Ah... the:



approach...

[ZedLeg]

Well I also preach for guillotines for the lot of them but I don't think this is the right crowd.

[Gavster]

No government is going to row back on AI given that would be giving away perceived power akin to some form of global submissiveness.

[ZedLeg]

Which sounds like idiotic posturing to me

[Mito Man]

Open AI and Anthropic don't currently have data centres here yet they're very popular. Unless you want to vote for a party that implements a North Korea style firewall you can't stop something that exists online.

[ZedLeg]

I'm not saying we should try and stop ai existing.

I'm saying we should be looking at any tech that could cause mass unemployment as a risk and tax accordingly.

[Gavster]

I don’t disagree, because much of global politics is posturing.

[duncs500]

Ah... the:



approach...

You'll drive yourself mad trying to figure out where all this is going to end up. My philosophy is don't put all your eggs in any one basket, avoid media and social media as much as you can and put lots of value on holding on to time out doors and IRL connections with people. I don't think you can have too many regrets doing that.

[Beany]

It's going to end up with a global economic crash on par with 2008 or the dot com bubble, you know, those once in a lifetime crisis scenarios that I'm pretty sure I've gone through four of since leaving school....

[Gavster]

It's going to end up with a global economic crash on par with 2008 or the dot com bubble, you know, those once in a lifetime crisis scenarios that I'm pretty sure I've gone through four of since leaving school....

My lodger is in his twenties and is full of wild starry-eyed obsession with AI and he doesn’t believe me when I say it’s going to crash just like every bubble before it. He’s just not old enough to remember them…

[Beany]

He probably believes that vibe coded replacements for Photoshop etc work, too.

(They, er, don't)

[duncs500]

It's going to end up with a global economic crash on par with 2008 or the dot com bubble, you know, those once in a lifetime crisis scenarios that I'm pretty sure I've gone through four of since leaving school....

I think you're making it sound like everyone saw those coming which is hindsight. The very nature of economic catastrophe is that the obvious thing creates the obvious moves which changes the outcome.

I agree that is the obvious conclusion, and certainly all sorts of things are going to happen (and probably fast) but it's also rare that these things happen the way all but a tiny minority predict (and even with them it is just luck of the draw).

[dinny_g]

We learned in Economics in school that the global economy tended to have a catastrophic failure every 17 years. However, 1997 "Asian Flu" to 2008 "Global Meltdown" bucked this trend.

Covid has altered the timelines somewhat but it's fair to say, we're overdue another massive crash

[Mito Man]

Dot com bubble crash just took out the unprofitable free bits of the internet. That’s how we ended up with these mega online corporations who charge money for everything and micro transactions across the board.
AI bubble crash will do the same thing. All the free stuff will go, most of the AI companies will go bankrupt and we’ll end up with a few AI firms dominating the landscape. And it will be used ever more.