Has an AI Backlash Begun? (wired.com)
- Reference: 0178225868
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/29/1747204/has-an-ai-backlash-begun
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/generative-ai-backlash/
"The pushback from the creative community ramped up during the 2023 [2]Hollywood writer's strike , and continued to accelerate through the current wave of [3]copyright lawsuits brought by [4]publishers , [5]creatives , and [6]Hollywood studios ." And "Right now, the general vibe aligns even more with the side of impacted workers."
> "I think there is a new sort of ambient animosity towards the AI systems," says Brian Merchant, former WIRED contributor and author of [7]Blood in the Machine , a book about the Luddites rebelling against worker-replacing technology. "AI companies have speedrun the Silicon Valley trajectory." Before ChatGPT's release, around 38 percent of US adults were more concerned than excited about increased AI usage in daily life, [8]according to the Pew Research Center . The number shot up to 52 percent by late 2023, as the public reacted to the speedy spread of generative AI. The level of concern has hovered around that same threshold ever since...
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> [F]rustration over AI's steady creep has breached the container of social media and started manifesting more in the real world. Parents I talk to are concerned about AI use impacting their [9]child's mental health . Couples are worried about chatbot addictions [10]driving a wedge in their relationships. [11]Rural communities are incensed that the newly built data centers required to power these AI tools are kept humming by generators that burn fossil fuels, polluting their air, water, and soil. As a whole, the benefits of AI seem esoteric and underwhelming while the harms feel transformative and immediate.
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> Unlike the dawn of the internet where democratized access to information empowered everyday people in unique, surprising ways, the generative AI era has been defined by [12]half-baked software releases and threats of AI replacing human workers, especially for [13]recent college graduates looking to find entry-level work. "Our innovation ecosystem in the 20th century was about making opportunities for human flourishing more accessible," says Shannon Vallor, a technology philosopher at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and author of [14]The AI Mirror , a book about reclaiming human agency from algorithms. "Now, we have an era of innovation where the greatest opportunities the technology creates are for those already enjoying a disproportionate share of strengths and resources."
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> The impacts of generative AI on the workforce are another core issue that critics are organizing around. "Workers are more intuitive than a lot of the pundit class gives them credit for," says Merchant. "They know this has been a naked attempt to get rid of people."
The article suggests "the next major shift in public opinion" is likely "when broad swaths of workers feel further threatened," and organize in response...
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/generative-ai-backlash/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/01/hollywood-writers-strike-artificial-intelligence
[3] https://www.wired.com/story/ai-copyright-case-tracker/
[4] https://www.wired.com/story/new-york-times-openai-erased-potential-lawsuit-evidence/
[5] https://www.wired.com/story/meta-lawsuit-copyright-hearing-artificial-intelligence/
[6] https://www.wired.com/story/disney-universal-sue-midjourney/
[7] https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/
[8] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/28/growing-public-concern-about-the-role-of-artificial-intelligence-in-daily-life/
[9] https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/kids-mental-health-chatbot-troodi-d5c646bb
[10] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/
[11] https://futurism.com/small-towns-ai-data-centers
[12] https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-overview-search-issues/
[13] https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/job-market-youth/682641/
[14] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-ai-mirror-9780197759066
Remote work undercuts unions (Score:4, Insightful)
> tech workers need to go union!
The demand for remote work undercuts any power unions had. A union's power is based on the ability to project power locally. Whether that is locking up a talent pool or deterring non-union replacement workers. With remote work they have zero ability to apply such pressure. The remote worker is beyond their knowledge or reach, sitting anonymously in their distant home.
It's hard when... (Score:2, Flamebait)
It's hard to feel good about AI and LLMs in general when really sh*tty, megalomaniac companies strong arm, steal, coerce, threaten, and just generally behave badly in their rush to spend ten trillion dollars (and they're going to want it all back, at yours and my expense) to get their technology into the main stream. You shouldn't trust these people to watch your dog or cat for the weekend let alone your child or your whole life. Just say no to crappy companies who aren't so "well-intention"-ed as they pr
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The IA that we have now, *such as it is* (good with the bad), took a whole lot of money to create. It's not the sort of thing that a few college grads with a kickstarter could have come up with. It is very much the production of the super-rich, and so it is natural that they are going to feel entitled to controlling it.
The notion that the rise in tech will create this utopian labor-free world where everyone is equal, is just naive. There will always be greedy people, and so long as there are always hiera
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> The notion that the rise in tech will create this utopian labor-free world where everyone is equal, is just naive. There will always be greedy people, and so long as there are always hierarchies of power, the greedy ones will claw their way to the top and ruin things for everyone else.
There will also always be lazy pieces of shit who contribute nothing (or the minimum they can possibly get away with), who feel entitled to what everyone else has, no matter how hard they worked for it, and all the while bitching and moaning about how everything is unfair and that nobody should have to work to have luxuries in life, let alone provide for their own needs.
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Is your comment meant as a rebuttal? Or is your comment there to make sure other SlashDotters know about the other extreme in personal views?
Because people operating on both these extremes are ff'-ing society up for everyone in between. In very different, but also very destructive ways. And the latter group is far larger than the groups of people acting on these extremes. Even when both extreme groups would multiply with each other.
Yet both groups are such a detriment to the rest, that eradication would be
Re: It's hard when... (Score:3)
Lazy people don't hurt me. Lazy people I can have a beer with. Heck half the time I'm a lazy person. Greedy people can go fuck themselves, I may be able to have a beer with them but why would I want to?
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Don't worry people...
We'll always have lazy people, greedy people, regular people who just go along with things (aka sheeple), power mad liars who run for office, umm, smart and dumb people, hot bitches who survive on their looks, nerdy businessmen to marry those hot bitches... apologies to anyone I didn't list or slag.
Nobody will make this different. No religious or political movement will change the wide distribution of weird and wonderful traits that make up the humanity.
Re:It's hard when... (Score:4, Interesting)
>> The notion that the rise in tech will create this utopian labor-free world where everyone is equal, is just naive. There will always be greedy people, and so long as there are always hierarchies of power, the greedy ones will claw their way to the top and ruin things for everyone else.
> There will also always be lazy pieces of shit who contribute nothing (or the minimum they can possibly get away with), who feel entitled to what everyone else has,
Indeed. We call these "trust-fund babies", the children of privilege.
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> Indeed. We call these "trust-fund babies", the children of privilege.
Or "GS- high-number " bureaucrats.
Backlash or opinion drifting towards the science? (Score:2)
Is there an AI backlash, or is there a movement away from the marketing and towards the science?
Plus more public awareness of the historic overpromises, or let's just call it optimism, on the pace that science is able to turn AI theory into practical application.
1950s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1960s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1970s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1980s: AI will beat a chess master in 10 years.
1990s: AI beats a chess master, we told you we would
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General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
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> General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
You can argue it was not reasoning but access to historical games/moves and examining possible series of moves and countermoves going forward, but don't honest to god grand masters do that too? Study historical games and memorize some interesting moves? Try to anticipate potential future moves and countermoves? Computers just memorizing more and/or looking farther ahead?
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>> General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
> Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
I think the point was he was beaten by a chess specific computer program, not AI or even an AI generated chess specific program.
I think the larger issue is that AI's limitations may be at least as important as what it can do. It may be that once you take humans out of the loop, it can't do anything useful. That its primary useful skill is its ability to manipulate human beings. We mistake that ability for human intelligence.
I am not sure any backlash against AI matters. It will get the response of the bull
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> I think the point was he was beaten by a chess specific computer program, not AI or even an AI generated chess specific program.
It was. Obviously. Thanks for demonstrating some people here still see the obvious, even if the person you responded to does not.
> I think the larger issue is that AI's limitations may be at least as important as what it can do. It may be that once you take humans out of the loop, it can't do anything useful.
It looks that way, yes. And it also looks like the human needs to be significanlty more competent than the one that did the job by themselves before. Example: Writing correct code is a lot easier than making sure code is correct that something else wrote, above a pretty low compexity level. Not that much higher in complexity, that check also begins to take far more time.
> That its primary useful skill is its ability to manipulate human beings.
As evidenc
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>> General AI still has no chance against a Grand Master (and probably below). The beating was done by a specialized automaton that cannot do anything else.
> Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Your post is agreeing with the post you were apparently objecting to.
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> By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
> Your post is agreeing with the post you were apparently objecting to.
Indeed. Thanks for pointing that out. It is suprising how much without insight some people are ...
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>> Garry Kasparov was beaten in 1996.
> By a specialized chess program that did nothing except chess. Not by a general AI.
Sure, but for computers, I'm not sure the separation between the two can remain as strict as it is for humans. With access to networking, the AI may run the specialized chess program as a sub-agent and access its skills - in fact, the AI can access a whole variety of expert systems, and integrate with those. In a way the sub-agents become part of the AI itself, while the top level ChatGPT or whatever component becomes the "conscious self" of the wider distributed intelligence.
I'm not a psychologist, but IIR
Hard to take this community seriously (Score:1)
When you write the conclusion to your story and just sit there cheerleading for 2+ years. Alleged nerds around here could go and use it and report back where you have had the greatest successes. But that might belt the fact your are not nerds but just tired washed up IT jockeys who need to retire already
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> your are not nerds
I consider myself more of a dork.
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obligatory cartoon: [1]https://i0.wp.com/arnoldzwicky... [wp.com]
[1] https://i0.wp.com/arnoldzwicky.s3.amazonaws.com/GeekDork.jpg
That AI backlash is here... (Score:2)
Here in the US, that AI backlash is already here. If people on social media find you have an AI generated picture or something is AI made, they will tear you a new exhaust port big enough for a trench run. People see AI used for two things... Disrupting communication (lies, fake pictures, nation-state propaganda, new ways to scam), and to take their jobs.
Sometimes I wonder if this in itself is a propaganda campaign similar to how nuclear was destroyed... AI is immensely useful if you know what to do with
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I’ve been thinking about this, and have sort of come to the conclusion that; deliberately or not, these AI companies have poisoned the well when it comes to knowledge and information on the internet.
Not long ago, it took a great deal of time, a fair bit of skill, and fairly costly software to fake a photograph. It took movie studio budgets to fake video. Now, in virtually no time at all, random people can make ‘convincing’ AI generated pictures and video to back up outrageous lies, and s
Begun (Score:2)
The AI backlash has. Shits, I give none. Win, greed will.
Technology can be used for good or bad (Score:2)
It's super-trite, but true: technology can be used for good or bad.
I love the productivity gains and breadth of instructional knowledge AI has given me.
I hate that when I'm on Facebook I have to spend half my time blocking groups that generate AI summaries of classic TV shows and characters (that I'm otherwise a big fan of and follow).
Save money live better (Score:2)
That was Walmart's tagline for years as they put small business after a small business out of work.
Consumers will go wherever the prices are the lowest. Boycotts don't work because after 45 years of market consolidation and zero antitrust law enforcement you can try another company but you're going to find its owned by the same people so it's doing the same thing.
Think of capitalism as your car. It needs regular maintenance. We stopped doing the maintenance 45 years ago. It's a wonder the car even t
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Walmart was nothing compared to Amazon...
If we are going to benefit from AI (Score:2)
Then it needs to benefit everyone and not the few
A.I has it's uses .. (Score:2)
AI can be usefull for sparking brainstorming material of inspiration that can jumpstart projects. However, its reliability crumbles when it hallucinates. Churning out fabricated quotes, nonexistent statistics, or entirely made-up events or people that sound convincing but lack any basis in reality. Until such errors are fixed. It has limited use to replace humans.
Backlash, yes -- but the target isn't AI. (Score:2)
Hard to tell whether this Wired piece is documenting backlash or just bottling it for resale. The outrage around Duolingo going 'AI-first' isn’t new—it’s just the latest stop on a very old road paved with pink slips and press releases, a road built not by technology, but by unchecked corporate ambition. We’ve been lashing back at machines since the first wooden shoe hit a Jacquard loom—because the problem was never the loom, it was who got to pull the thread. AI doom-casters
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very insightful and articulate
Grieving much? (Score:2)
So, we've moved on from Denial to Anger? I was wondering when that would happen.
Now we just need.. (Score:2)
An AI "work proctor" app to monitor the process of creation of works to prove it was entirely human effort. Damn robots are going to be our bosses within a decade.
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Not unless their intelligence levels go from 2.0 to 4.0 in the next decade. I've been using AIs lately to help me with optimizing fstabs and sysctl.conf settings for Linux and OpenWRT desktop OSes and routers. And the results are good, eventually, because I know enough to catch the BS the AIs have told me to use and correct it before their code recommendations crash my systems. I'd say they've contributed 50% brilliant code, 50% garbage. If I was a comp-sci instructor grading their performance, I'd give the