this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I took a deep breath before writing this. Just so you know. I understand what I'm getting myself into. Again.

But no. They're not.

This is conspiracy thinking dressed up as insight.

They're not spending hundreds of billions of dollars building AI data centers because they secretly want to create a "digital prison." They're building them because they expect them to generate hundreds of billions in future profits. It's an investment in compute infrastructure, not some grand surveillance plot.

If governments or corporations want to surveil people, they already have far cheaper and more effective ways of doing it than constructing massive AI clusters.

Posts like this don't inform anyone or encourage serious discussion. They just replace evidence with paranoia and drag the quality of the platform down.

[–] SalamiDommie@lemmus.org 3 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

What they are more likely building is regional processing centers. Meaning most people have a tablet, a laptop, and a phone. All with ram, silicone, memory, and resources that sit the majority of the time. The phone gets more usage. But what if those tools were access points to a larger computer that did the processing for you? What if meant instead of having a stronger chip on your phone you just had sufficient speed of transfer for a larger computer to do the processing?

That would reduce the production costs of everything. Be easier to manage the supply chain, require fewer rare earth minerals

AND they can control/monitor all of the throughput? Security against enemies.

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

In a perfect world this sounds fantastic, but it will most certainly be exploited.

You know... Because people.

[–] SalamiDommie@lemmus.org 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Oh yeah, this will totally only be used altruisticly. No funny business.

[–] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

that's when they take the discs away

[–] SalamiDommie@lemmus.org 1 points 7 hours ago

Yup. Once they have crested a point of adoption they are okay with. They don't even need 50% of the population. They just need to split the room enough that we group ourselves according to arrow's fallacy.

[–] dan69@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

I don’t want the internet any mores. I want underwebs!!

[–] motruck@lemmy.zip 5 points 11 hours ago

*Already built and expanding

[–] huppakee@lemmy.world 24 points 17 hours ago

I remember 5-10 years ago looking at China and thinking this sounds too crazy to be true, no way they give their citizens negative points for walking a red light, no way you can't access the internet outside of China, no way you have to work 6 days 12 hours. Lately most of the times i thought 'no way ...' it was after reading news about the US.

[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works 50 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (2 children)

Lay flat. Seriously, society is like two weeks to two months from collapsing at any moment. All anyone has to do is literally just not go to work for two weeks in mass. The power goes out, water stops running, and the grocery store goes empty. You share your resources with your neighbors. You don't even need to get out of bed to collapse the system.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 65 points 18 hours ago (17 children)

literally

Probably not

two weeks in mass.

Bone apple tea!

  • in mass - that's like boycotting Church
  • en masse - as a group
[–] dsilverz@catodon.rocks 1 points 10 hours ago

in mass - that’s like boycotting Church

Which is not a bad idea, actually. After all the things that the Abrahamic Church had done (and still do in a socially-veiled manner nowadays), especially against the women, boycotting Church is the least we oughta do. All the Sisters and their Daughters who were murdered back in the so-called "witch-hunting" are still awaiting the due historical reparation as I'm writing this.

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[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 20 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I have heard many variations to this point but I would like to point out a counter example. The great depression in the US that lasted for a decade. The average income level for families fell by 40%. People regularly starved to death and even by WWII almost 50% of men were turned away from recruitment because they were malnourished.

Guess what? No revolution, no collapse just massive suffering.

[–] FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Motherfuckers can't even stop buying cheap garbage from Amazon, but we're gonna expect that they can sacrifice their personal livelihoods and risk starvation? Yeah right.

[–] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 hours ago

I'd put it more like people can't take one day to go vote (two if we count primaries).

Like you said- people aren't making this grand sacrifice and it's foolish to expect them to, especially given the sacrifice is far, far greater.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Thats why im going the opposite route, I'm trying to drag people into the stock market with me, get em all hype up on greed and the promise of being rich... then watch them lose everything and discover capitalism is a rigged game and bail.

[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works 6 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

The infrastructure kept on ticking for those that needed it. The ports kept on moving goods. The power generation kept on, the truckers kept on, society kept on. We're not talking about an actual collapse of society, more so a game of chicken with people who think they are in charge. The right people aka the ones who actually facilitate the basic functions of society just stay home a few days. That's enough to get the point across.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

That is not really accurate for the great depression as the infrastructure definitely collapsed, but I get your point.

I think there is a profound disconnect here about the power of the people. That is my bigger point that humans will suffer through far far far worse than what we are dealing with now without any sort of pushback.

In some ways it feels like this is almost a mythology when you compare people protesting to getting what they want. The only times this seems to happen is when the wealthy and the common man's goals align and increasingly in our modern world this is dictated by the persuasive propaganda of corporations. Basically people are convinced to go along with what the wealthy want.

The burn is that the wealthy can and will ignore the people regardless of their desires. The most recent riots and protests in France about raising the retirement age are a great example of this. The people protested violently and in the end the age was raised as the wealthy dictated.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we can't do anything. Simply put protesting isn't the power people think it is and civilization isn't going to revolt just because things get bad.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Great example with France, a population thats actually civically active and resistant to government bullshit

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 16 points 16 hours ago

The world cup has been a huge boon to AI surveillance.

The World Cup does not create the surveillance state — but it has become one of the most efficient mechanisms for funding, deploying, legitimizing, and permanently embedding it across the globe, one tournament at a time.

[–] Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world 11 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I sometimes wonder if people understand that the data centers get customers to fill the space in it. Like there's 40 customers in one data center. Randomly chosen number used for ease if explaining. Could be 10 or 100 different companies renting space for the services.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 7 points 11 hours ago

You're talking about a colo. Larger companies will have their own datacenters dedicated to their own services.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 31 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Eh.

The purpose of the AI is the surveillance...

It's all one thing.

The cameras record plates, the towers log phones. Everything records browsing data.

All that goes to a data center to be saved indefinitely.

AI constantly tries to organize it into profiles indexed via search tags.

Then if they want to look at anyone, they have a complete file on everyone ready at an instant. If they don't have someone to look at, they ask AI for a list of everyone that was in the right places at the right times. Then the AI looks at the browsing history of everyone and any redflags there or anywhere else.

It's 100% how they got Luigi, and if it comes out during the trial that the same file already exists for everyone in America, citizen or not...

The whole house of cards crashes down, because even the racists will be able to figure out that means ICE could just deport all the criminals if they wanted to. And everyone left of the racists (including the people who don't give a fuck) will be pissed for the right reasons.

[–] Zephorah@discuss.online 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

They got Luigi because a McDonald’s employee believed the bullshit about there being reward money for narcing.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 25 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

No.

Altoona police responded to the 911 call placed by the McDonald’s manager, who said multiple customers told her a person in the back corner looked like the man wanted by New York authorities for assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

They’re just really upset, and they’re, like, coming to me. And I was like, well, I can’t approach him, you know?,” the manager said.

During the 911 call, the dispatcher tried to get a description. The manager told her that because of how the man was dressed, it was hard to get a good look.

“Well, he has a beanie pulled down, so the only thing you can see is his eyebrows,” the manager told 911.

https://www.wtaj.com/news/local-news/911-call-released-in-luigi-mangione-arrest/

His bus stopped at a McDonald's and multiple "random" customers kept trying to get an employee to call, getting upset with them when they wouldn't but refusing to call themselves.

Even tho you couldn't see what he looked like.

That smells exactly like they knew he was on the bus, and needed a civilian to call in a tip to justify the huge response that magically showed up in the middle of nowhere in minutes.

The most likely explanation is all those super concerned citizens who didn't want the reward they were trying to get minimum wage workers to take were cops/feds.

[–] Zephorah@discuss.online 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

That’s a little convoluted and overly complicated for no good reason. “They” would just call or grab him.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

It's convoluted because they needed a parallel investigation to use in court.

  1. Use illegal means you don't want to admit in court.

  2. Locate suspect

  3. Manufacture a plausible excuse that suspect was found.

  4. Use that in court

It's not a hypothetical, it's fucking procedure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

No one knows everything, I'd encourage you to ask questions next time.

Quick edit:

That's actually the second time in a row you did that, if I stop replying, it's because I gave up on helping you and won't see anymore replies in the future

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 8 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

That smells exactly like they knew he was on the bus, and needed a civilian to call in a tip to justify the huge response that magically showed up in the middle of nowhere in minutes.

Why wait for pretext if they wanted him? You're guessing he was already under surveillance. If "they" wanted him they would have grabbed him. There was a nationwide manhunt for him. "They" were desperate for any details. You're giving "them" too much credit. "They" clearly didn't have capability and capacity to find him without a rando calling in.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 6 points 16 hours ago

Why wait for pretext if they wanted him?

They wanted a pretext that wouldn't require them to expose their surveillance state apparatus in court.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 5 points 17 hours ago

You would be extremely foolish to continue to underestimate those who are in power. “They’re all just dumb and weak! They couldn’t find him!”

Read up on Parallel Construction like that other chatter suggested.

[–] MightEnlightenYou@lemmy.world 27 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

Nah, they already have that

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The NSA has had it for decades.

...but also, we all have IP addresses. Internet wouldn't work the same without them.

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

It needs more compute.

Years ago (just before everything became AI this and AI that) there was a discussion about the collection of big data - essentially, the very plausible argument was that you can collect all you want but you just can't sift through it in time. There always were reports of how this terrorist's FB timeline showed his radicalisation - after they killed people.

So people called for small data instead: just collect the metadata. Not that I approve of that either, but it would have made more sense, also wrt environmental impact i.e. energy consumption.

But very soon AI came, Trump was already there, and suddenly it was all Big Data again - plus AI.

This is where we are now. And speaking for the devil: the infrastructure needs to grow to keep up with all the exciting new possiblities.

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[–] MisterCurtis@lemmy.world 17 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Nah, when the bubble collapses there are going to be all these large vacant climate controlled warehouses to use as for profit concentration camps.

[–] decolo@piefed.social 12 points 19 hours ago

the ones they managed to populate with computers will be used for surveillance, the ones that are sitting empty will be the prisons

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 6 points 16 hours ago

You think the concentration camps are going to be climate controlled?

We'll get the bare minimum heat in the winter to keep us from freezing to death too fast before they can get 'enough' work out of us. And absolutely nothing in the summer, not even ventilation fans.

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