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[+] -37 points 1 week ago (16 children)

"I hope my apartment building burns down because I don't like the people who live in the penthouse. Even though they have a helicopter on the roof and will just fly away, leaving everyone else, including me, inside to burn."

AI is the entire world's economy. No one is walking away from this unscathed, except the extremely wealthy who built the bubble or like, the bottom 1% economically who have already have nothing. The rest of us will be joining them. I'm not sure why so many people are excited for this, unless you like eating cat food and think retirement is overrated.

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/publications/report-brace-for-impact-protecting-people-and-the-economy-when-the-ai-bubble-burst

This is a 88 page report on what a bubble actually is (Spoiler: It doesn't mean AI or "big tech" or billionaires stop existing or suffer any consequences). Please read it and stop ignorantly cheering on large scale human suffering. Or just look at the section titled "NEGATIVE WEALTH EFFECTS AND IMPACTS ON WORKING FAMILIES." At the very least, read the summary, that alone should be enough to keep everyone awake at night.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    And how exactly did AI become the worlds economy? Oh right, by becoming a bubble. We wouldn't be in this situation if there was no bubble. It wouldn't be the worlds economy if it had popped sooner. And you're here telling us we should let it become even bigger because if it pops now it's going to suck ass. It's going to suck even more ass later because it will be an even bigger part of the worlds economy and there's no scenario where it won't pop. There's no riding it into some kind of an economic boom that offsets all the fucked up speculations the ultrawealthy have done. The sooner it pops the better is it for all us because while we're now stuck with it our pain will be less today than it will be tomorrow.

    And just as a reminder, the longer it continues the more data centers get built and the more natural resources get sucked up into this bubble and the worse the living conditions get for the people that are forced to live around those data centers. Even if it somehow magically doesn't pop our lives will still be worse off for it.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    I'm not suggesting we "let it get bigger." My point is that it's naive and cruel to be excited about it. There's no solution to this. The ship is sinking. We're all doomed. But guess what? The people everyone is giddy about punishing have access to the life boats. We're cheering for the ship we're on to sink, and we're the ones going down with it. It's absurd.

    Again: The tech isn't going away. The billionaires aren't going away. Your job, your savings, your retirement, your future... those are the things that are getting obliterated. There's nothing to celebrate here.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Where did you see the cheers? Maybe we're waiting for the nightmare to end. It won't be a pretty end but at least it'll be an end and we can start salvaging what remains of our lives instead of still sitting in this insanity.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 week ago

    I'm not sure how else to interpret "pls let today be the day" other than excited anticipation. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, and you're right, and everyone is just saying "rip the bandaid off." But across social media I frequently see "bubble pop when?!" type comments which I always read as something like, "Can't wait for the bubble to pop so..." either, "this dumb tech goes away." or "big tech gets what's comin' to them!" Neither of which will happen.

    Also, I know I'm just repeating myself here, but I have a lot of anxiety over this and I think it's going to be more like a beheading than a bandaid-rip. After all the dominoes fall, I'm not sure there will be anything left to salvage.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Uh, read the room. This is the “fuck AI” comm. People are mad for a variety of reasons and we want schadenfreude, if not guillotines!

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  • [–] -3 points 1 week ago

    The schadenfreude is a lot less schadenfreude'ey when you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. The Bad Guys aren't going to suffer here. They never do. The people naively excited for this are the ones that are going to get hurt the most.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago* (5 children)

    I think the majority already understand that. I'm not looking forward to seeing my retirement account and investments fall off a cliff and not come back up for years. But since we're already in a bubble that will violently pop, people would rather get it over with sooner than later.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 week ago* (4 children)

    Again I really encourage you to check out the report I linked. It's about 50 pages of actual reading but it's worth it. Every paragraph is damning. We are completely screwed. I don't think it will recover within our lifetime. GenX, Millennials, and probably even the older half of GenZ will never be able to retire.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Say we did read that report. What is the alternative to the bubble pop? What are you suggesting be done instead or to mitigate the fallout?

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  • [–] -3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    As I said above, I don't think there's a solution. I know we're doomed. I'm not suggesting anything. My initial point was only that it's foolish and mean to cheer on the pop, because it doesn't mean what a lot of people seem to think it means.

    Saying "Can't wait for this to pop!" to me reads like, "I can't wait for millions of people to have their lives ruined while governments divert all our funds to billionaires as they fly off to their islands to watch the hunger games." The only people who are going to be hurt when everything collapses is us.

    Also fwiw the report does have a "What we can about this" section, outlining what they think needs to be done to contain the fallout before it swallows everyone. That's kind of the real point of the document: "Here's 50 pages on how this is about to destroy the life of every living person. Here's how policy makers and business leaders can soften the blow." But it's all recommendations for government regulations, "no bail outs," and sound economic advice for the bubble-blowers. So, none of that is going to happen.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago

    So, forgive me if I have this wrong. You're saying that a bad thing is coming. The fallout of which is going to destroy life as we know it on a grand world wide scale, and there's basically nothing we can do except try to force politicians and corps to do things they are not going to do, but you don't want us to cheer on the bad thing (or have an outlet for our displeasure with how bad things have already gotten, and our wish to not continue to sustain the corps and politicians that are actively making it bad for everyone) because it'll be bad and we shouldn't wish that on ourselves or others.

    When something bad happens to you and it is the precursor to something worse that is inevitable, do you not expect to be able to pull any pressure relief lever available to you, or do you also complain and call for the downfall of whatever cause your current predicament?

    Like. I get that you're saying that people don't know how bad it'll get (unlikely given where you're making this statement and the fact that a lot of people have been warning about the fallout of this for years now on Lemmy). But at the same time even you admit that being forewarned isn't being for-armed and people don't expect things to get better when the bubble pops. Most of us expect it to get much worse.

    World markets are going to crash. Tax money and the general public the world over absolutely will be expected to try to bail out the corps that are causing this.

    We're looking at a full on Great Depression worse than the one that happened in the 1930's, and it'll be a world wide thing. We know full well our current way of life is over. People having been calling this the end times of late stage capitalism all over Lemmy for the last couple of years at least.

    The thought process is, "this is going to hurt us. It's going to hurt us badly, but there's not really a way to insulate yourself from that hurt by amassing a lot of money because what's coming is going to destroy rich people too." So the thought process is, if that's what it takes, and because we don't really have a choice, we may as well get to it sooner rather than later. What does your 50 page paper say about the difference in time frame if the bubble pops tomorrow vs in 5 years or whatever?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    AI is already having negative impacts on working families. It's sucking up a huge portion of the money in the economy, and the money is being spent on things that produce very few jobs (data centers). The stated goal of these companies is to reduce jobs, increase surveillance, and to make the war machine more deadly. Some state there's a good chance what they're actively working toward will destroy humanity. Some believe one company will create an ASI, starting the technological singularity, which will concentrate immense power into that single company that beats everyone else to it. Arguably, an AI crash is preferable to an AI "success."

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    This is an interesting report, although the authors are cautious, the data they present is damning, it's clearly a "when" not an "if" because none of the conditions to regulate and cool down the sector will happen, even if dems flip the midterms. Yes we're screwed but when the building burns down I'm confident this time we'll knock on the doors of those bunkers with pitchforks. Sooo since it's inevitable, telling people they are stupid for wishing it is even more stupid, better get done with it already. Please add another zero

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