alt Hacker NewsThe literal pitch these guys have been using is:
* We've built a technology that has obliterated entry level hiring
* That technology might obliterate all the other "normal" person white collar jobs. The kinds of jobs you can clock in and out and not think about them outside of that. Instead, every new job will be a managerial one working with 500 agents.
* Loaning all the money to build these data centers and train these models costs so much it cranks rates through the roof, so we've frozen the real estate market and nobody can move or buy in
* The past 10 years of American politics have been defined by how the last time we did a broad replacement of labor event like that for a group of people. Their standard of living permanently shrunk (the NAFTA disrupted working class), and we may end up doing that to you guys again. The only solution is that the government is going to have to do some sort of UBI or redistribution (which the last time they did during COVID, it was followed by the greatest inflation we've seen in our lifetimes)
* This technology might literally destroy the world in the next 10 years, and we keep accidentally releasing it into the world like its Skynet. But we are not responsible for it, and by the way its unavoidable with this technology. Somewhere on the other side, utopia will arise (No really your standard of living will actually go up after losing your job this time unlike everyone else, trust me.)
Then half the people in this thread is smugly are acting baffled at why people don't want this, and going "Hey they don't know that much about data center logistics but still oppose this. What is up with that?." Forget about if a data center actually ends up being a net drag if its near you and the standard nimby stuff. Even if it weren't, what benefit does marching towards this future have for anybody not in the top 10%? Sure, you can make a bunch of economic theory arguments: growth is always good, stagflation, Luddites, etc. But in practice, economic advancement and technology over the past 30 years has advanced so fast people can't even comprehend it, and in return everybody is becoming stupider, more unhappy, polarized, and the median standard of living has dropped as rich people have 20x their net worth. Why would a normal person want more of this?
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The current framing of US politics is basically "vote for us because the other party is an existential threat" and data center proponents have adopted a similarly retarded position "we have to build data centers or China wins."
For this framing to work, you need a base of reliable supporters already all-in on your cause regardless of how you actually perform, and the data center proponents have done virtually everything imaginable the last four years to drive people away. Why AI investors are shocked (shocked) is really beyond explicable reason; American on both teams have never responded well to this kind of brain-dead gambit.
Exactly. The most baffling thing about the backlash is how shocked the tech boosters are at it. I know tech can be a bubble, but it's stark to see just how out of touch people inside can be.
Most American's lives have been made worse by AI so far, rather than better. They are deeply skeptical that future gains will be freely shared with them rather than horded by a few tech oligarchs. Based on pretty much all of modern history, they're right to be skeptical.
This is apparently incomprehensible to many AI proponents, but many people would genuinely rather live next to a farm than a data center. They don't care that you can vibe code a hobby project or a jira ticket 10x faster than before. They do want cheaper utilities and a secure economic position, and they are well aware that AI is providing the opposite for them.