Comment by jillesvangurp

> If AI can make things 1000x more efficient,

Is that the promise of the faustian bargain we're signing?

Once the ink is dry, should I expect to be living in a 900,000 sq ft apartment, or be spending $20/year on healthcare? Or be working only an hour a week?

>They are simply suggesting that the moral qualms of using AI are simply not that high - neither to vast majority of consumers, neither to the government.

And I believe they (and I) are suggesting that this is just a bad faith spin on the market, if you look at actual AI confidence and sentiment and don't ignore it as "ehh just the internet whining". Consumers having less money to spend doesn't mean they are adopting AI en masse, nor are happy about it.

I don't think using the 2025 US government for a moral compass is helping your case either.

>If AI can make things 1000x more efficient

Exhibit A. My observations suggest that consumers are beyond tired of talking about the "what ifs" while they struggle to afford rent or get a job in this economy, right now. All the current gains are for corporate billionaires, why would they think that suddenly changes here and now?

The Amish don’t ban all tech that can threaten community. They will typically have a phone or computer in a public communications house. It’s being a slave to the tech that they oppose (such as carrying that tech with you all the time because you “need” it).

You are thinking too small.

The goal of AI is NOT to be a tool. It's to replace human labor completely.

This means 100% of economic value goes to capital, instead of labor. Which means anyone that doesn't have sufficient capital to live off the returns just starves to death.

To avoid that outcome requires a complete rethinking of our economic system. And I don't think our institutions are remotely prepared for that, assuming the people runnign them care at all.

I was told that Amish (elders) ban technology that separates you from God. Maybe we should consider that? (depending on your personal take on what God is)

>Where are you going to draw the line?

How about we start with "commercial LLMs cannot give Legal, Medical, or Financial advice" and go from there? LLMs for those businesses need to be handled by those who can be held accountable (be it the expert or the CEO of that expert).

I'd go so far to try and prevent the obvious and say "LLM's cannot be used to advertise product". but baby steps.

>AI as a technology is almost impossible to stop.

Not really a fan of defeatism speak. Tech isn't as powerful as billionaire want you to pretend it is. It can indeed be regulated, we just need to first use our civic channels instead of fighting amongst ourselves.

Of course, if you are profiting off of AI, I get it. Gotta defend your paycheck.

> AI is just a tool, like most other technologies, it can be used for good and bad.

The same could be said of social media for which I think the aggregate bad has been far greater than the aggregate good (though there has certainly been some good sprinkled in there).

I think the same is likely to be true of "AI" in terms of the negative impact it will have on the humanistic side of people and society over the next decade or so.

However like social media before it I don't know how useful it will be to try to avoid it. We'll all be drastically impacted by it through network effects whether we individually choose to participate or not and practically speaking those of us who still need to participate in society and commerce are going to have to deal with it, though that doesn't mean we have to be happy about it.

If it is just a tool, it isn't AI. ML algorithms are tools that are ultimately as good or bad as the person using them and how they are used.

AI wouldn't fall into that bucket, it wouldn't be driven entirely by the human at the wheel.

I'm not sold yet whether LLMs are AI, my gut says no and I haven't been convinced yet. We can't lose the distinction between ML and AI though, its extremely important when it comes to risk considerations.

Oxycontin certainly worked, and the markets demanded more and more of it. Who are we to take a moral stand and limit everyone's access to opiates? We should just focus on making a profit since we're filling a "need"

This seems rather black and white. Defining the morals probably makes sense, then evaluating whether they can be lived or whether we can compromise in the face other priorities?

The age old question: do people get what they want, or do they want what they (can) get?

Put differently, is "the market" shaped by the desires of consumers, or by the machinations of producers?

> when the market is telling you loud and clear they want X

Does it tho? Articles like [1] or [2] seem to be at odd with this interpretation. If it were any different we wouldn't be talking about the "AI bubble" after all.

[1]https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-exec-asks-why-arent-mor...

[2]https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generat...

[flagged]

Some people maintain that JavaScript is evil too, and make a big deal out of telling everyone they avoid it on moral grounds as often as they can work it into the conversation, as if they were vegans who wanted everyone to know that and respect them for it.

So is it rational for a web design company to take a moral stance that they won't use JavaScript?

Is there a market for that, with enough clients who want their JavaScript-free work?

Are there really enough companies that morally hate JavaScript enough to hire them, at the expense of their web site's usability and functionality, and their own users who aren't as laser focused on performatively not using JavaScript and letting everyone know about it as they are?

Only in exactly the same sense that portrait painters were robbed of their income by the invention of photography. In the end people adapted and some people still paint. Just not a whole lot of portraits. Because people now take selfies.

Authors still get recognition. If they are decent authors producing original, literary work. But the type of author that fills page five of your local news paper, has not been valued for decades. But that was filler content long before AI showed up. Same for the people that do the subtitles on soap operas. The people that create the commercials that show at 4am on your TV. All fair game for AI.

It's not a heist, just progress. People having to adapt and struggling with that happens with most changes. That doesn't mean the change is bad. Projecting your rage, moralism, etc. onto agents of change is also a constant. People don't like change. The reason we still talk about Luddites is that they overreacted a bit.

People might feel that time is treating them unfairly. But the reality is that sometimes things just change and then some people adapt and others don't. If your party trick is stuff AIs do well (e.g. translating text, coming up with generic copy text, adding some illustrations to articles, etc.), then yes AI is robbing you of your job and there will be a lot less demand for doing these things manually. And maybe you were really good at it even. That really sucks. But it happened. That cat isn't going back in the bag. So, deal with it. There are plenty of other things people can still do.

You are no different than that portrait painter in the 1800s that suddenly saw their market for portraits evaporate because they were being replaced by a few seconds exposure in front of a camera. A lot of very decent art work was created after that. It did not kill art. But it did change what some artists did for a living. In the same way, the gramophone did not kill music. The TV did not kill theater. Etc.

Getting robbed implies a sense of entitlement to something. Did you own what you lost to begin with?

The answer is "the highest-ranked free one in a Google Search".

When a single such "actually good" AI-generated course actually exists, this question might be worth engaging with.

> if you combine the Stone Soup strategy with Clever Hans syndrome you can sell the illusion of not working for 8 billable hours a day

No thanks, I'm good.

> one of the most fastest growing user acquisition user base in history

By selling a dollar of compute for 90 cents.

We've been here before, it doesn't end like you think it does.