Oh sweet baby Jesus no, burn AI to the ground, humanity can't be trusted with it

[Agema]

Yep.

A key element here not really touched on in the video is that the only thing that's keeping AI afloat is insanely vast quantities of investor funding. The only thing that keeps investor funding pouring in is the idea that at some point there will be a massive economic return.

So how do companies persuade investors that they are going to get a return? By showing that lots of people use their AI, so when the companies can eventually monetise it effectively, it's going to be a massive earner. So they shove AI down our throats with buttons everywhere. And in particular, they drop those accursed little buttons in places where we are likely to accidentally click on them: and I'm willing to bet accidental clicks (which users immediately close) are going into their usage stats.

* * *

Incidentally, Meta approached our university (amongst others) with offers of a free support for an AI-based scheme to develop educational programmes. We, and I believe many other universities, turned it down: because we realised that what Meta really wanted was to effectively steal our skills and knowledge to train its AI.

 

[Chimpzy]

Microsoft pushes staff to use internal AI tools more, and may consider this in reviews. 'Using AI is no longer optional.'

Executive Julia Liuson recently told Microsoft managers to include internal AI tool usage when evaluating employee performance.

www.businessinsider.com

So you either don't use AI and can get fired, or you do use it but also reinforce the idea to management to reduce headcount and replace with more AI

 

[Agema]

Microsoft pushes staff to use internal AI tools more, and may consider this in reviews. 'Using AI is no longer optional.'

Executive Julia Liuson recently told Microsoft managers to include internal AI tool usage when evaluating employee performance.

www.businessinsider.com

So you either don't use AI and can get fired, or you do use it but also reinforce the idea to management to reduce headcount and replace with more AI

Not to forget of course that if you use AI and don't hit your targets, it won't be the AI that they get rid of.

After all, a key function of the few human workers to be left in the machine is so that there is someone to hold accountable when anything goes wrong.

 

[Agema]

The tech industry and UBI:

Big Tech's answer for AI-driven job loss: universal basic income

A new study reveals the strengths and limitations

theweek.com

I read a blog that unfortunately I'm struggling to find again, but the gist of it is that the UBI pushed by the tech industry wouldn't work. The article above explains why the tech industry is interested in UBI: they plan on putting many millions of people into unemployment. Obviously therefore there needs to be some sort of replacement income for the newly pecunious otherwise there will be a national crisis, and that's what welfare is for.

AI seems to be having a substantial impact on entry-level jobs, so it's hitting newer workers (often in lower skill professions):

Number of new UK entry-level jobs has dived since ChatGPT launch – research

Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32%, Adzuna finds

www.theguardian.com

However, Microsoft claims its AI is better at diagnosis than a doctor:

Microsoft says AI outperforms doctors at complex medical diagnoses

The tech giant’s AI tool made the correct diagnosis for the vast majority of patients in a small study.

www.euronews.com

If this is true, what professional jobs are safe? The AI industry is planning the mass immolation of professional jobs. Ironically, some of the first jobs it wants to destroy are its own software engineers. Those guys are a) expensive and b) powerful within their corporation. The sooner the tech bosses can neuter their own workforce the better.

Guys, if you're a decent time away from retirement, I suggest you consider retraining as a skilled manual labourer, e.g. a plumber. That's probably a relatively hard job for tech to replace, there will always be demand, and better salary for skilled than unskilled. However, be aware that with the mass impoverishment of the middle classes, the money available to pay the salaries of workmen is going to take a substantial dive, too.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

FT article archive link;

Oracle shares hit record high on $30bn cloud contract

archived 1 Jul 2025 13:40:39 UTC

archive.is

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-forecast-shows-shift-from-microsoft-to-softbank

OpenAI Is A Systemic Risk To The Tech Industry

Before we go any further: I hate to ask you to do this, but I need your help — I'm up for this year's Webbys for the best business podcast award. I know it's a pain in the ass, but can you sign up and vote for Better Offline? I have

www.wheresyoured.at

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Everyone loves. AI music. And if your cuzz. Always boos it. Astroturfed buzz. Then eschews it. Your opinions ours. You don't choose it

Talking about the Velvet Sundown, which is a very real band they swear.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Everyone loves. AI music. And if your cuzz. Always boos it. Astroturfed buzz. Then eschews it. Your opinions ours. You don't choose it

Is the picture supposed to be a tribute to the album cover of Abbey Road? Because if so, the AI didn't catch how each Beatle was dressed.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Also, which one of them is supposed to be secretly dead?

 

[Gergar12]

The tech industry and UBI:

Big Tech's answer for AI-driven job loss: universal basic income

A new study reveals the strengths and limitations

theweek.com

I read a blog that unfortunately I'm struggling to find again, but the gist of it is that the UBI pushed by the tech industry wouldn't work. The article above explains why the tech industry is interested in UBI: they plan on putting many millions of people into unemployment. Obviously therefore there needs to be some sort of replacement income for the newly pecunious otherwise there will be a national crisis, and that's what welfare is for.

AI seems to be having a substantial impact on entry-level jobs, so it's hitting newer workers (often in lower skill professions):

Number of new UK entry-level jobs has dived since ChatGPT launch – research

Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32%, Adzuna finds

www.theguardian.com

However, Microsoft claims its AI is better at diagnosis than a doctor:

Microsoft says AI outperforms doctors at complex medical diagnoses

The tech giant’s AI tool made the correct diagnosis for the vast majority of patients in a small study.

www.euronews.com

If this is true, what professional jobs are safe? The AI industry is planning the mass immolation of professional jobs. Ironically, some of the first jobs it wants to destroy are its own software engineers. Those guys are a) expensive and b) powerful within their corporation. The sooner the tech bosses can neuter their own workforce the better.

Guys, if you're a decent time away from retirement, I suggest you consider retraining as a skilled manual labourer, e.g. a plumber. That's probably a relatively hard job for tech to replace, there will always be demand, and better salary for skilled than unskilled. However, be aware that with the mass impoverishment of the middle classes, the money available to pay the salaries of workmen is going to take a substantial dive, too.

Or you can start your own business after getting skills, white-collar or otherwise, like in China, where you have a bachelor's degree and sell street food only to get put out of business by year 10 max.

 

[Chimpzy]

Microsoft exec suggesting people who got laid off (and likely replaced with AI) should turn to AI for help.

Among all the big tech corpos desperate to insert AI everywhere they can, Microsoft sure seems the most cultishly devoted.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Microsoft exec suggesting people who got laid off (and likely replaced with AI) should turn to AI for help.

Among all the big tech corpos desperate to insert AI everywhere they can, Microsoft sure seems the most cultishly devoted.

Being an Xbox Games Division exec checks out. Seeing how they’ve been doing lately they’re probably racing towards replacing everyone with AI and this is just some sick, twisted reach-around.

 

[Agema]

Among all the big tech corpos desperate to insert AI everywhere they can, Microsoft sure seems the most cultishly devoted.

It's hard to know where to start.

1) That fuck obviously doesn't give a shit (otherwise he wouldn't be using people suffering to flog his company's product in the first place).
2) He's not "experimented" himself, has he? Either the company's PR dept. or a peon prepared it for him.
3) Should you really be encouraging people to use your untested product as therapy?

 

[Chimpzy]

It's hard to know where to start.

1) That fuck obviously doesn't give a shit (otherwise he wouldn't be using people suffering to flog his company's product in the first place).
2) He's not "experimented" himself, has he? Either the company's PR dept. or a peon prepared it for him.
3) Should you really be encouraging people to use your untested product as therapy?

The venn diagram between corpo and sociopath is pretty much a circle.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

3) Should you really be encouraging people to use your untested product as therapy?

If you're hoping that it results in suicides, it's a viable path....

 

[Agema]

If you're hoping that it results in suicides, it's a viable path....

Remember: every suicide is one fewer unhappy person to drag down the national average happiness.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

oh. huh

 

[Agema]

The AIpocalypse is starting...

AI summaries cause ‘devastating’ drop in audiences, online news media told

Exclusive: Study claims sites previously ranked first can lose 79% of traffic if results appear below Google Overview

www.theguardian.com

So, the idea here is that traditionally search engines worked on a simple basis. You, the user, get to find the sites that you wanted. Everyone running a web page got to have an audience directed to them, and the search engine mediates that.

Google is aiming to fundamentally alter that: to all intents and purposes, it looks like it is cutting the people who run webpages out. I should stress that this doesn't necessarily disadvantage webpage owners (although, in practice, there is high risk it will disadvantage many or most). But it does allow Google to be a genuinely terrifying mediator of information highways. It already is: recent research has demonstrated that for years Google has adapted its search functions to increasingly keep users on Google search pages (and associated Google-owned services like YouTube) to earn Google more ad money rather than depositing them out onto another non-Google website.

The idea is that you have a dialogue with Google AI, and it gives you an answer or, potentially, directs you to a website. However, Google's ability to control this is terrifying. Google is already biased: it tweaks its algorithm and has set up systems to give preference to some sites. But the more that the process is entirely done within Google, the more control it has, and the less visibility the users have of what else might be out there. If we need to see what tweaking AIs can do to their output, we just need to see the shitty memeAI that is Grok: turn it into MechaHitler with a few command prompts. A smart company could exercise far more devious and hard to see control. Thus companies can exert even more control over our viewing.

There's another major ramification: if you are spending all your time on a Google website in dialogue with its AI, Google is earning all the advertising revenues. For news organisations, this is potentially devastating in terms of loss of income. There is room here for the mass improverishment of a huge amount of creators by shutting them out of view. Or, alternatively, setting them up for greater exploitation:

Google already takes money from advertisers to privilege what Google shows to its users. Now imagine vendors relying on Google to direct custom. When you buy stuff from Amazon, Amazon slices a staggering ~50% of the sale price for themselves (and their search function is just about the most appalling, compromised and inadequate one in existence). Imagine if web searchers effectively turn into the same model, so Google can now use its AI model with monpolistic pressure to force vendors to fork over huge quantities of money for sales via AI search to Google in much the same way - otherwise the AI will marginalise them. You, the customer, may be forced to pay a lot more for your goods.

Spoiler: quick technical note

Note here that Amazon has monopolistic power. So many people go to Amazon to buy anything that not being listed on Amazon risks massive sales losses. If Amazon therefore takes 50% of the end sales price, it is pretty much doubling the cost of what you buy on Amazon. But it's worse than that: in order to sell on Amazon, vendors are not allowed to sell cheaper anywhere else online: because of that, Amazon is doubling the cost everywhere online. It's just bad for customers. I suppose one thing we could wonder here is whether Google (and others?) could actually improve things for customers by creating an alternative vendor system to break Amazon's monopoly. However, a quick look through reality tells us that the big firms will form a cartel. Yes, I know that's technically illegal, but they've been finding ways to sidestep the law and lobby politicians and judges into acquiescence for decades.

* * *

FYI I have been "de-Googling" my life as much as possible. There are limitations: for instance, your choice of Phone OS is pretty much either shitty Google or somewhat less shitty Apple, but I dislike Apple products that much.

 

[Drathnoxis]

“I wanted AI to fold the laundry so I could make art and write, not AI that could make art and write so I can fold the laundry.” - Some guy on Youtube.

The AIpocalypse is starting...

The Alpocalypse already happened 14 years ago.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

wish there was another option that worked for embedding podcast episodes here, I tried the list of alternatives claimed in media URL prompt window to no avail, not even podbean the name i secretly desired to succeed above all else

In part one of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how the US stock market rests on the back of GPU sales, and how a lack of any real business returns spells doom for the AI bubble long-term.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

a trilogy of futile ignored reminders the industry is a growing debt bubble with no signs of managing to claw any profit back at all

In part two of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how little money there is in generative AI, how Anthropic and OpenAI are killing their own customers, and why there may never be a profitable LLM company.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

In part three of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how AI agents don’t really exist, how deceitful AI marketing has become, and why everything is brittle as a result.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

god I hope this bites the genocide profiteering anti,-trust corporation in the arse sooner than later

"Microsoft is thriving," claims CEO, doubling down on AI after 9000 employees lost jobs in latest layoffs

"Microsoft is thriving," said CEO and chairman Satya Nadella in a statement following a round of layoffs earlier this month that cost 9000 employees their jobs.

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Agema]

“I wanted AI to fold the laundry so I could make art and write, not AI that could make art and write so I can fold the laundry.” - Some guy on Youtube.

I believe that quote is from an author, Joanna Maciejewska.

a trilogy of futile ignored reminders the industry is a growing debt bubble with no signs of managing to claw any profit back at all

It's worth applying some context here. Zitron points out that AI has sucked up, USA 2025 alone, some $350-400 billion in investment, for a return of around a tenth of that. That is bad. However, the US economy is ~$30 trillion (advanced economies ~$70 trillion, global economy ~$120 trillion). So 2% of the US economy or 1% of the advanced economies would put AI comfortably in profit.

I don't think AI's going to get anything like that much money off the general public: it's really going to struggle to sell enough $10 a month subscriptions. However, think of all the companies who are dreaming of replacing a substantial chunk of their staff with AI. A lot of companies will be creating these sorts of AI-backed services as we speak.This could devastate employment in many lower skill jobs (e.g. customer services, replaced by AI chatbots), and even professional ones: imagine tech firms being able to release half their software engineers. Not just the salaries, but the infrastructure to go with them (offices, equipment, etc.) The public are allowed to use it for free now to drive the hype, but at some point there will probably be a pivot where free public access is colossally gimped, and the AI companies will turn their servers towards work that earns big, fat fees off corporate clients.

So, can AI capture about half a trillion in revenue - let's say from advanced economies (assuming the rest of the world is well behind in AI adoption or likely to use Chinese AI). There's a very real chance that it can. Can investors keep it going to get to that stage? Also very possibly, yes. Much as a substantial part of me would prefer it to either fail, or turn out to be far less than the hype.