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Departing Meta staffer posts biting anti-AI video internally amid mass layoffs
(www.motherjones.com)
this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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The difference between this and computers or any innovation and what its prior is the pace of change which determines the social cost. Few would object to innovation if the innovation replaced them as they retired from the workforce instead of forcing them to bear the social cost mid-life. A family, a community, a region that goes through serious deskilling event is't a happy place. All sorts of real measurements of misery and illness go up. So this process isn't popular and frankly it shouldn't be acceptable. The situation we find ourselves in North America, prior to the AI shift, is to a large extent the result of a string of such events. A situation where nearly half the population wants to see the other punished. AI is promising to do a massive shift and quicker than many previous events, including at the uppet end of the payscale.
So yeah, it's not the technology, the innivation. It's how our capitalist systen rolls it out. At what social cost, borne by whom, and whom reaping the upside. AI promises a fast, painful change at a time when everyone is already struggling, without welfare to soften the blow, while concetrating the benefits in fewer hands. Benefits that also translate to power, economic and political. So people rightfully reject this proposition. The tech is getting tarred with it.
This is what annoys me about “fuck AI” being the new trendy/cool thing. The issue is not AI itself, and if done right, can be a huge benefit to humanity as a whole. The issue is all the greed of the rich capitalists in control of it. And, also, when it’s needlessly shoved down our throats when it truly has no benefit, or in fact only drawbacks.
The system we have pretty much guarantees it won't be done right and you know it. I can safely assume that. Then I don't have to be too bothered by the distinction. If there's two options in theory but only one in practice, then why bother uhm-akshually it myself? No point - "fuck AI" is good enough. Don't mean I won't (have to) use it and navigate the landscape. I just bought a couple of R9700s for local inference for family and friends, to fuck AI.
AI can bring enormous societal benefit in non-capitalist systems. The AI we have today. That won't be us though. We're in for pain.
I agree that we’re in for pain, given that capitalism runs the show, but there is a world where AI takes mostly all of the jobs, where we use renewable energy, and capitalism crumbles by necessity. If everything is automated, and electricity becomes essentially free, then all necessities become essentially free. Of course, it is much more likely that the oligarchy prevents that from happening and we have no jobs and we have to pay for everything that costs them nothing.
I guess what I want to say is that the technology shouldn’t be villainized; the villains should be villainized. The solution isn’t to get rid of AI, it’s to get rid of the ultra-wealthy and work towards a society not run by late stage capitalism.