Everyone in Seattle hates AI

This isn’t really a common-folk-vs-tech-bros story. It’s about one specific part of Seattle’s tech culture reacting to AI hype. People outside that circle often have very different incentives.

Seattle is going to tax the fuck out of big-tech, for better or worse.

I live in Seattle (well a 20 min ferry from Seattle) and I too hate AI. In fact I have a Kanji learning app which I am trying to push on to people, and I brand it as AI free. No AI was used to develop it, no AI used to write content, no AI is there to “help you learn”.

When I see apps like Wanderfugl, I get the same sense of disgust as OPs ex coworker. I don‘t want to try this app, I don’t want to see it, just get it away from me.

Lots of creators (e.g., writers, illustrators, voice actors) hate "AI" too.

Not only because it's destroying creator jobs while also ripping off creators, but it's also producing shit that's offensively bad to professionals.

One thing that people in tech circles might not be aware of is that people outside of tech circles aren't thinking that tech workers are smart. They haven't thought that for a long time. They are generally thinking that tech workers are dimwit exploiter techbros, screwing over everyone. This started before "AI", but now "AI" (and tech billionaires backing certain political elements) has poured gasoline on the fire. Good luck getting dates with people from outside our field of employment. (You could try making your dating profile all about enjoying hiking and dabbling with your acoustic guitar, but they'll quickly know you're the enemy, as soon as you drive up in a Tesla, or as soon you say "actually..." before launching into a libertarian economics spiel over coffee.)

Literally everyone I know is sick of AI. Sick of it being crowbar'd into tools we already use and find value in. Sick of it being hyped at us as though it's a tech moment it simply isn't. Sick of companies playing at being forward thinking and new despite selling the same old shit but they've bolted a chatbot to it, so now it's "AI." Sick of integrations and products that just plain do not fucking work.

I wouldn't shit talk you to your face if you're making an AI thing. However I also understand the frustration and the exhaustion with it, and to be blunt, if a product advertises AI in it, I immediately do treat it more skeptically. If the features are opt-in, fine. If however it seems like the sort of thing that's going to start spamming me with Clippy-style "let our AI do your work for you!" popups whilst I'm trying to learn your fucking software, I will get aggravated extremely fast.

Slop.

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Good for them. It turns out, the common folk have more wisdom than tech bros with regard to AI.

The article reports Microsoft SDEs complaining about Copilot and being forced to use it. It's "worse than competitors' tools."

No shit. But that's hardly everyone is Seattle. I'd imagine people at Amazon aren't upset about being forced to use Copilot, or Google folks.

206dev here...

Oh yeah, call out a tech city and all the butt-hurt-ness comes out. Perfect example of "Rage Bait".

People here aren't hurt because of AI - people here are hurt because they learned they were just line items in a budget.

When the interest rates went up in 2022/2023 and the cheap money went away, businesses had to pivot their taxes while appeasing the shareholder.

Remember that time when Satya went to a company sponsored rich people thing with Aerosmith or whomever playing while announcing thousands of FTE's being laid off? Yeah, that...

If your job can be done by a very small shell script, why wasn't it done before?