A lot of this AI backlash feels less about the tech itself and more about people feeling economically exposed. When you think your job or livelihood is on thin ice, it is easier to direct that fear at AI than at the fact that our elected reps have not offered any real plan for how workers are supposed to survive the transition.
AI becomes a stand-in for a bigger problem. We keep arguing about models and chatbots, but the real issue is that the economic safety net has not been updated in decades. Until that changes, people will keep treating AI as the thing to be angry at instead of the system that leaves them vulnerable.
A major factor in the backlash is that the AI is obnoxiously intrusive because companies are forcefully injecting it into everything. It pops up everywhere trying to be "helpful" when it is neither needed nor helpful. People often experience AI as an idiot constantly jabbering next to them while they are trying to get work done.
AI would be much more pleasant if it only showed up when summoned for a specific task.
I've mentioned this elsewhere on HN yet it bears repeating:
The core issue is that AI is taking away, or will take away, or threatens to take away, experiences and activities that humans would WANT to do. Things that give them meaning and many of these are tied to earning money and producing value for doing just that thing. As someone said "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes".
Much of the meaning we humans derive from work is tied to the value it provides to society. One can do coding for fun but doing the same coding where it provides value to others/society is far more meaningful.
Presently some may say: AI is amazing I am much more productive, AI is just a tool or that AI empowers me. The irony is that this in itself shows the deficiency of AI. It demonstrates that AI is not yet powerful enough to NOT need to empower you to NOT need to make you more productive. Ultimately AI aims to remove the need for a human intermediary altogether that is the AI holy grail. Everything in between is just a stop along the way and so for those it empowers stop and think a little about the long term implications. It may be that for you right now it is comfortable position financially or socially but your future you in just a few short months may be dramatically impacted.
I can well imagine the blood draining from peoples faces, the graduate coder who can no longer get on the job ladder. The law secretary whose dream job is being automated away, a dream dreamt from a young age. The journalist whose value has been substituted by a white text box connected to an AI model.
> A lot of this AI backlash feels less about the tech itself and more about people feeling economically exposed.
This is what it is for me. I can see the value in AI tech, but big tech has inserted themselves as unneeded middlemen in way too much of our lives. The cynic in me is convinced this is just another attempt at owning us.
That leaked memo from Zuckerberg about VR is a good example. He's looking at Google and Apple having near absolute control over their mobile users and wants to get an ecosystem like that for Facebook. There's nothing about building a good product or setting things up so users are in control. It's all about wanting to own an ecosystem with trapped users.
If they can, big tech will gate every interaction or transaction and I think they see AI as a way to do that at scale. Don't ask your neighbour how to change a tire on your car. Ask AI. And pay them for the "knowledge".
Eh, it's way simpler than that. AI doesn't know when to STFU. When I write an email or document, I don't need modern-day Clippy constantly guessing (and second-guessing) my thoughts. I don't need an AI sparkle button plastered everywhere to summarize articles for me. It's infantilizing and reeks of desperation. If AI is a truly useful tool, then I'll integrate it into my workflow on my own terms and my own timeline.
Part of this the behavior around it too from some users. Like that guy spamming FOSS projects on github with 13k LOC of code nobody asked for and then acting forwarding the criticism from people forced to review it to the
Claude and copy pasting the response back to .
Triumphant Posts on linkedin from former seo/cryptoscam people telling everyone they'll be left behind if they don't adopt the latest flavor text/image generator.
All these resources being spent too on huge data centres for text generators when things like protein folding would be far more useful, billion dollar salaries for "AI Gurus" that are just throwing sh*t at the wall and hoping their particular mix of models and training works, while laying people off.
The constant stream of exaggerated bragging "hahaha we will fire and replace you all" from AI companies is not helping.
This tech cycle does not even pretend to be "likable guys". They are framing themselves as sociopaths due to, well, being interested only in millionaires money.
I think the anger towards AI is completely fabricated.
Where are the new luddites, really? I just don't see them. I see people talking about them, but they never actually show up.
My theory is that they don't actually exist. Their existence would legitimize AI, not bring it down, so AI people fantasize about this imaginary nemesis.
The internet dislikes a lot of things. It's meaningless.
A substack post is not anger, an HN comment is not breaking machines.
In IT specifically, people who dislike AI are simply not revolting. They're retiring or taking sabbaticals. They're not breaking machinery, they're waiting for the thing to crash and burn on its own.
I was clearly asking for examples of tech workers revolting.
If you want to bend the modern meaning to imply that Paul McCartney somehow belongs in the same group as hypothetical anxious tech workers, that's a problem I cannot help you with.
Data centers are better guarded than some government institutions. New luddites can't exactly go in smashing the servers.
The actual "new luddites" have been screaming on here for years complaining about losing their careers over immature tech for the sake of reducing labor costs.
I was talking mainly about tech workers though (this website target audience), and I didn't made that distinction in the comment you replied to, but I did make it down the thread way before you replied.
I think categorizing Tech Workers as a whole as being synonymous with this website's target audience isn't a correct assumption.
There's some social circles I frequent that are made up of folks that anyone here would qualify as a "Tech Worker" that - and I mean this without any exaggeration - abhor the community of commenters at HN. And I don't mean just folks outside of SV or other major tech hubs. There are people that very much believe the commenters here are the worst people in the industry.
And just to be clear, I'm not of that belief, but it's worth pointing out that the population of Tech Workers on HN isn't going to be indicative of Tech Workers as a whole.
Going back to the previous topic however; Those same people I'm referring to often have a complete overlap with those that are burned out by AI in any form (usage, discussion around it, being advertised to, being forced to use it).
And to some of their concerns, I genuinely empathize with them. That's probably best gone into via something like a blog post or anything else that lends itself to long form writing.
We missed our opportunity to actually organize during the boom as everyone thought their work was above unionization. Now layoffs are weaponized even more than before and the few left over tech jobs are valuable commodities that you hold onto for dear life.
> The actual "new luddites" have been screaming on here for years complaining about losing their careers over immature tech for the sake of reducing labor costs.
Implying that there is a critical organized mass that was aware of the possibility of layoffs.
You also said:
> Data centers are better guarded than some government institutions. New luddites can't exactly go in smashing the servers.
Implying that the only thing stopping this organized mass is the level of security in datacenters.
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Now you changed your opinion, and you portray a scenario with unhappy disorganized people that missed an opportunity.
I don't understand. It seems that you're just freestyling words.
I stand by my original assessment. This idea of a massive iminent backlash is mostly a fantasy, and although the layoffs are real, they're most likely due to the economic problems the US is facing right now.
Write that down: AI is going to settle into a disappointing miracle (like the microwave), and people will be mostly indifferent to it.
Really, where was the anger? When did it happened?
I see trash talk. We trash talk microwaves, for example, and that doesn't mean we hate them.
I do believe this supposed anger is fabricated. Not conspiracy style fabricated, just fabricated.
It's just attractive for a technology still full of problems to have an enemy. You can blame stuff on this imaginary enemy. You tell yourself that the guy trash talking your new toy is not right, he's just angry because he's going to lose his job soon, and you sleep better.
I also believe some people buy the existence of that enemy. There idea that people are anxious about losing jobs was repeated ad nauseam, so it stuck. But there is no real world evidence of this anxiety to the levels that it is attributed to.
AI becomes a stand-in for a bigger problem. We keep arguing about models and chatbots, but the real issue is that the economic safety net has not been updated in decades. Until that changes, people will keep treating AI as the thing to be angry at instead of the system that leaves them vulnerable.