• eicker@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      16 days ago

      That’s the unsettling part. When billionaires spend fortunes shaping elections, it’s reasonable to ask whether they see voters as citizens to persuade or obstacles to manage. Democracy becomes a lot less inconvenient when you can fund the candidates, influence the platforms hosting the debate, and lobby the people writing the rules. All perfectly legal, of course.

  • eicker@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    16 days ago

    Turns out telling people your technology will replace their jobs, devour their electricity, and possibly end civilization isn’t the winning sales pitch billionaires imagined. Imagine spending hundreds of millions buying political influence, only to discover voters don’t enjoy being treated like obsolete hardware.

    • Karjalan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      16 days ago

      telling people your technology will replace their jobs, devour their electricity, and possibly end civilization isn’t the winning sales pitch billionaires imagined.

      “but what you guys aren’t getting is the fact that it’ll make me a lot more money.”

    • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      16 days ago

      AI is still not viable business. All that fear mongering is to create an alternative revenue sources.

      “look, I created a monster that can destroy us all. Please give me money to contain and tame it. We can’t destroy it because our enemies are creating their own monsters.”

  • Absurdly Stupid @lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    16 days ago

    their efforts aren’t buying the political capital they’d hoped for.

    Trump did get elected by “AI money” and they all celebrated on stage with him, you know.

    Midterms? Yeah, when you are an indisputably shitty President who has broken every campaign promise and is openly deranged, you will likely lose the midterms no matter how much you try to pump Republicans. Diminishing returns.

    Usually the “winning” party only holds power for a couple terms, then, after their incompetence has disgusted yet another generation of voters, they lose, only to be replaced by the other party that will repeat the process.

    bOtH sIdEs, YeS, oH My

    I vote in every election, and you should too. Because it’s funny

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    16 days ago

    Expect bipartisan legislation to increase the anonymity of PAC money before the year is over.

  • TrackenDaKracken@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    16 days ago

    I can only hope this is true. Most voters aren’t paying a bit of attention to where the money comes from.

    They’re using AI. They think it’s wonderful, they’ve barely heard about the controversy around data centers, and think “data centers are where the internet it, yOU lIkE thE inTErNeT, Don’T yoU?”

    The Top 10 AI Uses in 2025 (none of which it does very well):

    • Therapy and companionship
    • Organizing my life
    • Finding purpose
    • Enhanced learning
    • Summarizing content
    • Generating ideas
    • Generating code (for professionals)
    • Improving code (for professionals)
    • Creativity
    • Visual art and design
    • taiyang@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      16 days ago

      My thoughts exactly. I know two folks who are going all in with AI and haven’t even considered any controversy. Feels like they live on another planet. Hell, one of the guys was even showing off his pervert glasses and when I called them pervert glasses he laughed and said he hadn’t heard that before.

      I really hope those folks are in the minority.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      16 days ago

      So, you also cannot discern the difference in traditional DCs and AI DCs? I feel like you know and I’m missing something.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    16 days ago

    Which billionaires aren’t flooding money into politics to influence elections? They were doing it long before all the AI drama.

  • MortUS@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    16 days ago

    I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Futurism articles are just written by AI tbh…

    Low bar journalism and reporting.

  • Akasazh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    16 days ago

    Turns out that taking hubris to far, thinking that the public will suck it all up just because they always did does have its turning point.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    16 days ago

    By backfiring you mean they have nearly total control then yes. Those losers, it has totally backfired on them and now they are richer and more powerful than ever!

    • pigup@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      16 days ago

      I thought someone did the math and said if all US billionaires were slaughtered and the money divided amongst US population, we’d all get like $400k+.

      • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        16 days ago

        I always wondered if it would’ve been cheaper in Iraq and Afghanistan to just pay everyone to hand over their weapons and leave.

    • CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      16 days ago

      Musk should consider skipping the middle man and paying citizens directly for their votes. Proportional to his wealth. Like the taxes we used to charge the wealthy.