I've always used the analogy of 90's Wall Street to explain the Tech industry behind the curtains. Our 2008 moment will be when society realizes AI is nothing but a tool for wealth transfer from what remains in the middle class to the top ultra wealthy.
We had a brief window in the mid 2010s when folks started to throw rocks at the tech buses where I thought people were starting to realize it. Around Bernie's presidential run - which makes sense because he preached wealth inequality. But somehow during COVID tech slithered back into everybody's good graces.
* I don't condone people throwing rocks at the buses for both the humanitarian reasons and the fact that few if any executive or social changes could result from that behavior. But it struck me as a microcosm of the prevailing sentiment towards technology workers.
> AI is nothing but a tool for wealth transfer from what remains in the middle class to the top ultra wealthy.
Is that inherent to the technology, or is that just inherent to the way we've chosen to organize society? Really, any technological paradigm shift going back to the industrial revolution has mainly served to enrich a small few people and families, but that's not some immutable property of technology. Like you say, it's a tool. We've chosen (or allowed) it to be wielded toward one end rather than another. I can smash my neighbor's head in with a hammer, or I can build a home with it.
At one point in the United States, there was political will to update our social structures so that the fruits of technological and economic progress did not go disproportionately to one class of society (think early 20th century trust busting, or the New Deal coming out of the Great Depression). I'm afraid we find ourselves with a similar set of problems, yet the political will to create some other reality beyond further wealth concentration seems to be limited.
Fundamentally and writ large, tech makes us more efficient. Efficient means doing more with less labor. Which is good because it is deflationary: things get cheaper over time from tech advances, and without any tech we would all be subsistence farmers.
But it also means that yes, tech intrinsically enables capital to do more with less labor, thereby shifting the balance of power towards capital and empowering those with more capital.
What ‘we decide’ to do with that is another largely unrelated matter.
Those big anti-capital actions took bold class-betrayals from the inside. Notably Teddy Roosevelt (born with a silver spoon but wished he’d been in a log cabin) going after Standard Oil after taking their money for the campaign.
> AI is nothing but a tool for wealth transfer from what remains in the middle class to the top ultra wealthy.
Refreshing to hear that stated so clearly.
On your general point, I don't know if I feel the same optimism at this stage, much as I'd love to be proven wrong. Populations seem to never tire of jumping from one tech fairy tale to the next.
Developers seem to never tire of burying their head in the sand either, and I sometimes wonder if the two are correlated.
Why do you think this recent AI push will be the straw that breaks the camel's back? What if the camel just keeps plodding along?
Tech provided some means to stay connected during that time, so it’s not surprising. People felt even more disconnected initially and extroverts were not getting their needs met as easily. However I think the added exposure to algorithmic feeds caused an acceleration of social decay and a growing disenchantment with social media in some camps.
I've only been reading HN for about six years, and a member for less than that. Has this anti-tech view always been around? I'm not commenting if it is founded or unfounded, it is just surprising to see it so prevalent on what seems like it should be a place for tech people to hang out and discuss tech ideas.
My perception is that there's always been some dissonance between loving tech intrinsically for itself vs. the Silicon Valley venture capitalist business model. Conflating tech with its dominant business model enables the paradox where a person deeply in love with tech can also be anti-tech.
Nevertheless the "parasite" "no societal value" reputation of Banking remains. I would suggest however, that doing M&A is less parasitic and has greater social value than any ad-tech.
I loathe ads as a consumer. But I can’t agree they’re parasitic. If I put myself in the shoes of a small business selling something I created, a well targeted IG ad can keep me alive where I’d have no chance against a company that can make (traditionally) a TV, Print, or billboard ad.
I do support the notion that tech monopolies have killed a lot of the software industry dynamism by subsidizing anti competitive products. Like Android being free where Windows Mobile needed to make revenue from OEMs.
Your post reminded me of circa-2017 when I emerged from the subway station, wearing my Facebook shirt (which was a normal thing to do for years) but now noticed the sneers of hatred and disgust from people on the street. They’d look at my chest, recognize, then look in my eyes and nonverbally insult me.
We had a brief window in the mid 2010s when folks started to throw rocks at the tech buses where I thought people were starting to realize it. Around Bernie's presidential run - which makes sense because he preached wealth inequality. But somehow during COVID tech slithered back into everybody's good graces.
* I don't condone people throwing rocks at the buses for both the humanitarian reasons and the fact that few if any executive or social changes could result from that behavior. But it struck me as a microcosm of the prevailing sentiment towards technology workers.