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Cake day: August 30th, 2023

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  • So you’re arguing that selling out any supposed values you might have is fine as long as the check is big enough.

    Foo Fighters are a huge band. They aren’t at the whims of some all powerful manager. And Amazon’s crimes are not new, they’re not obscure information. They’re incredibly well known, frequently discussed, and go hand in hand with the mention of Amazon. They knew what they were doing, who they were doing it for.

    Now, if you want to discuss the power that record labels and their business relationships hold and their contracts with the bands they produce, that’s a possible explanation for this. But we’re talking about aging millionaire white guys. Chances are, they had veto power, knew what they were doing and probably could’ve accepted a monetary fine from the record company for defying a contract obligation if that’s why they were being forced to do it. And, honestly, probably would’ve leaked that information, gotten a ton of great press, maybe gotten into a public dispute with the record label if they chose to speak out about it, and then cashed in on that.

    But, like you said, they did it for a fat paycheck. They didn’t stick up for the well-documented abused workers of Amazon while cashing in on it — “virtue signaling,” as people say. They decided to do this. For money. From Amazon executives.

    And that’s…not better.

    The fact that this comes at the end of typical corporate purse string tightening at the expense of workers is really just the steaming shit nugget on top of this diarrhea sundae.





  • lol because that’s what this conversation is about. Excuse my omission of the word “could,” but the point remains. It’s not a good example. If anything, you’re kinda proving my point. It takes a special case, heavily regulated, in-the-public’s-best-interest situation for the government to dump off a money losing route onto a contractor instead of losing the route entirely—as long as you cap the price and force the private company to operate entirely on your terms, often with your equipment. But Uber doesn’t even operate with their equipment or the government’s. It’s the driver’s. I would assume Uber would provide the busses here, which goes against their business model. So I can’t see them investing in busses, and then operating nice and cheap so everyone can afford to ride.

    Two studies showing ride sharing companies contribute to the struggling of public transportation systems in a given city.

    But, look. I can understand where our difference in trust levels is coming from. I’m from the US. Where private companies never don’t fuck you over the worst they possibly can. It must be nice to come from a place where you can have faith that some guardrails have been put in place on private greed. But looking at the places Uber (a notoriously shitty company) has chosen to implement these “Uber shuttles,” they seem to be avoiding places where the government has that power (or desire). Uber’s entire existence is a ‘fuck you’ to poor people. “Oh you need a job? Well…you got a car? ‘Cause do we have the job for you. [evil laughter].” Their big “disruption” in transportation was getting drivers to foot the bill on the transportation costs. How…revolutionary.

    My point is, where they’re doing this, their entire company history, their business model, all point to the fact that this will not be good for people. It will cost the drivers and trick them into paying for their own job, it will hurt the rider and the public transportation system. There is not a single trusting bone in my body when it comes to a tech company trying to “disrupt” some new facet of our lives.


  • That’s…not a very good example.

    The EU has the Public Service Obligation law. So it’s an agreement to keep the rail routes that went private under obligation to be a public good, where, yes they do give private companies a monopoly on a certain route, but often the lines and sometimes even cars are owned by the government. But they impose regulations and price caps.

    So, again, it’s the state shoveling off the cost of running the day to day operations, while empowering a company to take the reins under pretty strict guidelines because the service is public. They’re given subsidies to operate and it still saves the government money, as well as assuring the lines that aren’t profitable enough for the state to run on their own are still running under government contract with private companies.

    So…not the same at all.




  • I mean, sure, I agree with you. Capitalism is the problem, no question. I would love a job-replacing tech so people could live lives of leisure and art. But…this system is being built for capitalist ends. It’s built by, funding by, and being put in the hands of the exact people causing the problem.

    I agree that in a hypothetical world, machine learning technology could very well help humanity. But the code and money is in the hands of people who aren’t interested in helping humanity.

    I’m no fan of forced labor for basic necessities. And I’m not advocating for that system by any means, but this tech, in this world, will drive the cost of labor down, drive people from the jobs they’ve been forced to rely upon, and it’s literally taking one of the few job fields where people actually got to express their humanity for their wages: art. Creative writing and design/visual art were one of the few fields people actually dreamt of doing. Because it offered us a living for creating. For being human. And that tiny outlet of humanity in the vast contrivance of capitalism is being devoured by this tech.

    That’s just one small part of my distrust of “AI.” But the underlying problem is as I stated first, which is that this tech, existing in this world at this point in time, isn’t going to free us. It’s another tool by the ownership class to cut costs, decimate the environment, and drive profit. While also killing the small little sliver of human creativity that was allowed to exist under capitalism.

    So again, hypothetically, yes, the tech could be a force for good and for human liberation from meaningless work. But it’s actually making our work even more meaningless, while sequestering another huge chunk of power for the ruling class. It would be great if it could reach its potential as a force for good. But given everything, that is not how it’s being implemented.


  • TheFriar@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.worldOpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game
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    1 month ago

    https://www.ft.com/content/61bd45d9-2c0f-479a-8b24-605d5e72f1ab

    https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/05/1084417/ais-carbon-footprint-is-bigger-than-you-think/

    https://hai.stanford.edu/news/ais-carbon-footprint-problem

    When the world needs to be drastically altering our way of life to avert the worst of climate change, these companies are getting away with accelerating their output and generating tons of investment and revenue because “that’s what the market dictates.” Just like with crypto/blockchain a few years ago, adding “AI” into any business pitch/model is basically printing money. So companies are more inclined to incorporate this machine learning tech into their business, and this is all happening while the energy demand for increased usage and the constant “updates” and advancements in the field are gobbling up way more energy than we can honestly afford—and really even conceive of. Because they’re trying to hide this fact, given, yknow, the world fuckin ending. Basically, the market and the entire system of media is encouraging and fawning over this “leap” in tech, when we can’t realistically afford to continue our habits we had before this market even existed. So they are accelerating co2 output, everyone cheers, and we all ride merrily to the edge of our doom.

    It’s capitalism once again destroying us and the planet for profit. And everyone who mindlessly jumps on board, ooh’ing and aww’ing at the stupid new shit they’re doing (while they infringe upon the work of all artists without compensation, driving human creativity out in the job market in favor of saving corporations some scratch by firing their artists and using AI instead…I genuinely can’t really conceive of how people seem so on board with this concept.