One need not exclude the other, and the thinking is not based just on tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories.
Has anyone said this type of thing? Mostly no, but we do know that places like China and Russia have already implemented similar systems.
We also see trends toward software as a service, cloud-based computing, digital ID laws, and a slew of ongoing anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices over the last two years.
Again, no one has said that this is a plan, but if you told me that half a dozen billionaires were pushing it, I wouldn’t be surprised. Any one of those things would be frustrating, but all of them at once? For most of these people, the goal is likely just “make line go up,” but when that line inevitably goes down, what you have is a collection of infrastructure that is almost perfect for digital surveillance and control, not just software, but the internet at large.
I agree that most of this is just late-stage capitalism at work, but most of us here are pretty savvy. We’re mostly in the tech, engineering, or finance sectors. We all have 20+ years of chronic online time, we self-educate, and we’ve watched the world change in fine detail over the last 20 years. It doesn’t matter what the powers that be are saying. It matters what they’ll have the capability to do when the AI bubble bursts, and what modern history, especially Russia, has taught us about market and state collapse.
Personally, I do think that some big players are doing this intentionally. The AI bubble is hurting the personal computing and hobby PC-building industries, and if any of these data centers actually get built, they can easily be bought out or taken over by something like Microsoft.
Market volatility doesn’t just mean some people’s pensions get wiped out. It means market change, asset transfers, and consolidation. Even without a data center being built, if the hardware has been built and it falls into Google, Amazon, or Microsoft’s lap after a bubble bursts, then that’s vertical integration and market capture.
There may not be money in AI, but everyone caught up in the frenzy is helping to push us toward a surveillance state, even if no one has said as much.
And it’s not cool to ignore which way the water is flowing because people are panicking as we approach that waterfall in the distance.
Granted, we’re talking about factors that I can’t fully predict, but we do seem to be seeing heavy short- and mid-term investment in a restructuring of computing, and no one is talking about it because it is all being done in the shadow of AI and whatever political distraction is happening that day.
I know this is meandering, but my point is that we are moving in a very specific technological direction, even if not everyone with a hand on the wheel is driving toward the same goal. They’re all pushing in the same direction (minus a few zigzags, obviously).
It’s not a conspiracy to sound a major alarm about these things when we know for sure that the next hundred years are going to be devastating from a climate perspective. There is going to be some dark shit that happens, and I don’t really know what that will be, but I guarantee that if I can see it, and all of the experts can see it, then someone with a security clearance and a budget has seen it too.
The problem is that “could happen” is doing an enormous amount of work here.
Almost anything could happen. The existence of a capability isn’t evidence that it’s the intended outcome or even the most likely one. It’s reasonable to discuss risks and how technology can be misused, but it’s a mistake to treat possibility as probability.
The world is usually far less spectacular than the elaborate scenarios people imagine. Most of the time, the explanation is simply incentives, competition, bureaucracy, and companies chasing profits, not a coordinated march toward some grand end state.
We should absolutely be wary of surveillance, anti-competitive behavior, and excessive centralization. Those are real concerns. But once the argument becomes “they’re building infrastructure that could someday be used for X,” you’ve entered speculation. Capability alone isn’t evidence of intent, and it certainly isn’t evidence that such an outcome is inevitable.
One need not exclude the other, and the thinking is not based just on tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories.
Has anyone said this type of thing? Mostly no, but we do know that places like China and Russia have already implemented similar systems.
We also see trends toward software as a service, cloud-based computing, digital ID laws, and a slew of ongoing anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices over the last two years.
Again, no one has said that this is a plan, but if you told me that half a dozen billionaires were pushing it, I wouldn’t be surprised. Any one of those things would be frustrating, but all of them at once? For most of these people, the goal is likely just “make line go up,” but when that line inevitably goes down, what you have is a collection of infrastructure that is almost perfect for digital surveillance and control, not just software, but the internet at large.
I agree that most of this is just late-stage capitalism at work, but most of us here are pretty savvy. We’re mostly in the tech, engineering, or finance sectors. We all have 20+ years of chronic online time, we self-educate, and we’ve watched the world change in fine detail over the last 20 years. It doesn’t matter what the powers that be are saying. It matters what they’ll have the capability to do when the AI bubble bursts, and what modern history, especially Russia, has taught us about market and state collapse.
Personally, I do think that some big players are doing this intentionally. The AI bubble is hurting the personal computing and hobby PC-building industries, and if any of these data centers actually get built, they can easily be bought out or taken over by something like Microsoft.
Market volatility doesn’t just mean some people’s pensions get wiped out. It means market change, asset transfers, and consolidation. Even without a data center being built, if the hardware has been built and it falls into Google, Amazon, or Microsoft’s lap after a bubble bursts, then that’s vertical integration and market capture.
There may not be money in AI, but everyone caught up in the frenzy is helping to push us toward a surveillance state, even if no one has said as much.
And it’s not cool to ignore which way the water is flowing because people are panicking as we approach that waterfall in the distance.
Granted, we’re talking about factors that I can’t fully predict, but we do seem to be seeing heavy short- and mid-term investment in a restructuring of computing, and no one is talking about it because it is all being done in the shadow of AI and whatever political distraction is happening that day.
I know this is meandering, but my point is that we are moving in a very specific technological direction, even if not everyone with a hand on the wheel is driving toward the same goal. They’re all pushing in the same direction (minus a few zigzags, obviously).
It’s not a conspiracy to sound a major alarm about these things when we know for sure that the next hundred years are going to be devastating from a climate perspective. There is going to be some dark shit that happens, and I don’t really know what that will be, but I guarantee that if I can see it, and all of the experts can see it, then someone with a security clearance and a budget has seen it too.
The problem is that “could happen” is doing an enormous amount of work here.
Almost anything could happen. The existence of a capability isn’t evidence that it’s the intended outcome or even the most likely one. It’s reasonable to discuss risks and how technology can be misused, but it’s a mistake to treat possibility as probability.
The world is usually far less spectacular than the elaborate scenarios people imagine. Most of the time, the explanation is simply incentives, competition, bureaucracy, and companies chasing profits, not a coordinated march toward some grand end state.
We should absolutely be wary of surveillance, anti-competitive behavior, and excessive centralization. Those are real concerns. But once the argument becomes “they’re building infrastructure that could someday be used for X,” you’ve entered speculation. Capability alone isn’t evidence of intent, and it certainly isn’t evidence that such an outcome is inevitable.
Speculation and preventative measures are absolutely nescessary, im sorry
I think when you say speculation, what you really mean is skepticism.
maybe im quite comfortable with the knowledge that I need to make decisions under uncertainty, not just hunches, the foot needs to be placed forward