alt Hacker NewsSorry, do Memphis residents get to control xAI's production? I think we're already in this situation.
Replies
ben_w • yesterday at 8:07 PM
Fleet Street in London used to print all the UK newspapers. They had unions who resisted automation.
In the 80s, Rupert Murdoch built, in secret, a new fully computerised printing plant built in Wapping.
The workers went on strike, so he fired them. Didn't even lose a single day of output*:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute
That is what you should fear from AI. Not the data centres themselves, that we could all be fired and the rich lose nothing as a result.
* [citation needed] :P
➕ show 1 reply
> we're already in this situation
xAI’s datacenters aren’t currently measurably replacing labour. So no, we’re not. If AI becomes economically competitive with broad sections of human labor, those who control it do have the power to replace humans.
But banning domestic datacenters doesn’t stop them from existing; it just stops them from existing here. If that precondition arises, that’s just a recipe for domestic deindustrialisation.
If you believe AI will replace human labor, blocking datacenters is silly. You want labor (or the public) to build and control them. I’m not convinced AI will replace labor, so I’m not yet at that step.