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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by supersquirrel@lemmy.ca to c/techtakes@awful.systems

I don't understand why Bill Gates still feels the need to do marketing work, he is already rich he doesn't need to do commercials and blatantingly shill for a product for money like this.

Also the ides that anyone should listen to Bill Gates about needing or not needing government regulation, nationalization or trustbusting is actually insane.

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[-] yesman@lemmy.world 49 points 2 days ago

Is it just me or does this "AI Doomsday" talk seem like coordinated messaging?

Chatbots that are smart enough to destroy humanity would be really impressive, right? "Powerful enough to change the world" and "powerful enough to destroy the world" are similar claims and maybe they're switching to the second one because nobody is buying the first anymore.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

OpenAI and Anthropic wants to stop training new models because they have run out of other people's money.

They want regulators to ban their competition because without spending untold money to stay like 4 months ahead of competitors, they are not viable businesses.

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

it's not just you

occam's razor says that in the face of faltering demand and sky-high expenditures, government cheese and regulation is an expected pivot

try to suggest that and the rats get very mad tho

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago

Hey it worked for cryptocurrencies.

[-] Delphia@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

The big organisations want it regulated to the point where upstarts get strangled by oversight and regulations and only the biggest established players will have the manpower and money to ensure compliance.

[-] ladicius@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

They want to shift responsibilities to their products and their users.

[-] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Gotta get that investment cash somehow, why not skynet?

@yesman @supersquirrel this has been one of the core critihype topics all along. It just gets more or less emphasis over time and I think they're intentionally cycling through them.
This was all established in the "Effective Altruist" scene that's at the root of this stuff well before they latched onto LLMs as the fake AI technology to use for the scam.

[-] grifferz@social.bitfolk.com 0 points 1 day ago

@yesman
I think it's fairly likely that we will see a very large scale calamity due to misuse of AI, such as a nation's power grid going down for days. Something that causes multiple attributable deaths. I think that AI companies know this and so are begging for gov regulation with doom talk, because they know that (a) no government is actually capable of that right now; (b) it pumps the stock; (c) when the biggie hits they will be able to say they asked for regulation that didn't come.

[-] StevenSavage@sfba.social 4 points 2 days ago

@yesman @supersquirrel its an op. Just another promo.

[-] Yolfen@chitter.xyz 3 points 2 days ago

@cstross @supersquirrel @yesman But who's buying the latter? Those already willing and able to destroy are already stoking the AI money furnace. What do the rest of us get out of consenting to stoke it, too, against our own best interest?

[-] cstross@wandering.shop 11 points 2 days ago

@Yolfen @supersquirrel @yesman It's aimed at the press and politicians. LLM model progress is visibly stalling so the next step is for OpenAI and Anthropic to go "Booga-booga-AI DOOM" and push for a regulatory environment that freezes out small upstart competitors/Chinese AI firms/self-hosted models. It's all about creating and exploiting a rental monopoly.

[-] thairanaru@bookstodon.com -3 points 2 days ago

@yesman @supersquirrel well, for one, didn't ai almost cause an attack on some chinese ship the other day?
I think they are always a mix of exaggeration and truth in these things

[-] lurker@awful.systems 4 points 2 days ago

Almost did. But that wasn’t “the AI is secretly super smart!!!” it was “the AI hallucinated some bullshit and people nearly forgot to actually fact check it”

[-] thairanaru@bookstodon.com 1 points 1 day ago

@lurker i don't think power is related to intelligence. Well, actually, yes, but only to get gain our trust. But regardless how AI progress, I do think they are partially honest I remember listening to some interview of a former employee of Anthtropic a week ago who say everyone is afraid. Plus, if you work in AI company, you are going to be biased for AI progress + be part of the echo chamber

[-] lurker@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah they’re all “honest”, except they’re all living in the rationalist/doomsday echo chamber that massively warps their perspective

[-] thairanaru@bookstodon.com 1 points 1 day ago

@lurker but to be fair, AI company ethics have also been a lot of doublespeak

this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
79 points (90.7% liked)

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