It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnist
  • PhilosoDOOM@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 month ago

    I’m aware of his career and related, history.

    However it was Doctorow himself that mentioned his Burning Man attendance on a live tech podcast I was listening / watching 5 or so years ago.

    Here’s an excerpt from audience questions after a he gave on the AI Bubble (or Apocalypse as he puts it often), published on his blog Pluralist. Written by Doctorow

    “OK,” the young man said, “but what can we do about the crash?” He was clearly very worried.

    “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that. I think it’s already locked in. I mean, maybe if we had a different government, they’d fund a jobs guarantee to pull us out of it, but I don’t think Trump’ll do that, so –”

    “But what can we do?”

    We went through a few rounds of this, with this poor kid just repeating the same question in different tones of voice, like an acting coach demonstrating the five stages of grieving using nothing but inflection. It was an uncomfortable moment, and there was some decidedly nervous chuckling around the room as we pondered the coming AI (economic) apocalypse, and the fate of this kid graduating with mid-six-figure debts into an economy of ashes and rubble.

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      Okay. I’m not sure how that excerpt proves he’s an industry plant. It sounds like he’s talking about the massive financial crater that will be left behind when the fact that zero companies in the AI sector that do not manufacture hardware are profitable catches up with them and the bubble pops, which I personally think he’s right about.