57% of Americans think AI is bad for society, 66% oppose new data centers, and Silicon Valley’s response is to build more data centers so AI can explain why the public is wrong. Apparently »democratizing AI« means giving billionaires the power to ignore democracy at industrial scale.
The technology has a few use cases where it is appropriate and useful. It’s the braindead MBA narcissism that wants to shove it everywhere and replace everyone that is the real problem. That’s the existential threat, not AI per se.
Well yeah it’s bad, look at the people pushing hardest for it and that tells you all you need to know.
Billionaires will use AI in every way they can to profit from you, whether it be taking your works to train it, serving you slop, trying to rope you in to paying monthly to support their multi-billion dollar boondoggle, or attacking and killing brown people, liberals, and other “undesirables.”
To be honest, I was initially in favour of the emergence of AI, but the more I use it, the more disillusioned I become. Rather than feeling like an intelligent system, it often seems rigid, lacking in genuine understanding and designed to serve the needs of only certain groups. At times, I even find it less reliable than a conventional search engine. Perhaps the real disappointment is not that AI has failed to meet every expectation, but that something presented as a remarkable leap forward can still feel so far removed from genuine intelligence.
It is less reliable than a conventional search engine. It’s lied to me before. It’s just quicker and easier than chasing down links and reading through stuff to get the info you need.
Man I have noticed a severe drop in intelligence lately.
I’m getting beyond the most basic dumb questions from people that have been in the industry long enough to know better. I know they could have answered it themselves earlier. Basically I’m getting either hard questions that the AI can’t answer, or really dumb questions that the AI chokes on because the question doesn’t make sense (“How do I log into a directory?” Yes, someone forgot about cd and asked it in such a weird way the AI was unable to understand it)
I wouldn’t say AI itself is bad for society, but billionaires and this current AI gold rush is.
Ai isn’t inherently bad. It’s just bad to have it in a society where your ability to get food, housing, and medical care are inherently attached to you having a job. Also, all the art that was stolen.
The poll is here and includes many questions beyond this one that grabbed headlines: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2026-10/ABC-Post-Ipsos Trend Topline 10.21.pdf
Including these two questions:
Pretty consistently, about 4/10 Americans polled are irredeemable pieces of shit. Really closer to half.
Not enough
More garbage futurism ads getting glazed.
Is this just like, a thing on Lemmy? I thought this was the website for media literacy.
We’ll happily consume anything that hates on AI.
I guess but Futurism may as well be AI slop, though - and these articles keep popping up on my lemmy feed from tech - it’s wild.
It is how they are going about it that rustles my Jimmies.
Everyone is getting free sledgehammer. They will be delivered to your home at a time of our choosing in the method of our choosing. Property damage is a known side effect, but we hold no liability. Sidenote, your electrical bill and water bill will be going up tremendously to offset the tax breaks we’ve been alloted to harvest the lumber and ore to manufacture the sledgehammer.
Also, sledgehammer might take your job. We’ll see.
Using llms to summarize and learn information can be really useful, but check sources, just like you should for other online tools, and at the library too. The same best practices apply to this and education is important for proper tool use, like with anything, understand how to use it right. Lots of morons use tools wrong and cause problems and fatalities, doesn’t mean the tool should be banned. Learn how to use tools right is an old lesson.
A majority of people have been convinced of many different things, many times, but that doesn’t make any of them true or good. Unchecked, open weight, charging to protect from itself and accelerationist ideas don’t sound good, and it should be used for good and peace, so don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, another old one lol.
Good thing American majority opinion is worth diddly squat, then.
Well, sure. But how do they feel about SI?
The reason why AI would be bad for society is because of the system that gives only a handful of individuals ownership over the collective intelligence, not the technology itself.
Public opinion wasn’t on the power loom’s side either.
Tech that is genuinely useful is basically impossible to roll back. AI is here to stay no matter what the AI company bubble does.You know we’re talking about AI, not tech that’s genuinely useful, right, sparky?
AI is genuinely useful. You don’t have to trust me for it. Linus Torvalds uses it too.
