Might I suggest "Blind Lake" by Robert Charles Wilson. I read it when it first came out two decades ago, but it reads strangely similar to what we're seeing now, and the sinister edge is there, too.
Does this also say something more about the "coffee nap"?
Trump's second administration is ripping up parts of the country’s cyber playbook and taking many of its best players off the field, from threat hunters and election defenders at CISA to the leader of the NSA and Cyber Command. Amid a barrage of severe attacks like Volt Typhoon and rising trade tensions, lawmakers, former officials, and cyber professionals say that sweeping and confusing cuts are making the country more vulnerable and emboldening its adversaries. “There are intrusions happening now that we either will never know about or won’t see for years because our adversaries are undoubtedly stepping up their activity, and we have a shrinking, distracted workforce,” says Jeff Greene, a cybersecurity expert who has held top roles at CISA and the White House.
Bingo. (no mod points today)
I wish I had mod points for this. My son-in-law works in this stuff and he's been frustrated about resistance to carbon-reduction efforts. The specific one he mentioned a while back I believe involved adding a (possibly calcium-containing) base to let a precipitate fall onto the sea bed sequestering the carbon. People were worried about sticking basic chemicals into the sea without realizing that reducing acidity itself was good in addition to carbon sequestration - that they're actually related.
Came looking for this. From what I can see, the people pushing AI the hardest have their own agenda, and that agenda does not appear to be good for me in the long run. I've also read of some good things being done with AI, like protein folding and other science-related stuff that you don't hear much about. I would also suspect that in the sciences they understand the pitfalls of AI better and are being careful to at least try to not delude themselves.
Boy, I wish I had moderation points today. Sadly you've hit the nail right on the head. Back around 2016 we entered what I call "The Fiction / Reality Inversion," and I've had a tough time reading fiction ever since. If you had tried to sell the last decade as a plot to a story of movie more than ten years ago they would have scoffed at it as silly and impossible. Today it's where we live.
The rise of anti-intellectualism in the US is helping to throw away the nation's future. Wealth-hoarding is helping with that, too. (Pure science is practically never profitable in the short run, but almost always in the long term.)
Well as a former (retired in 2023) Marvell employee, I have to say that they were a great employer - I liked working there as an ordinary engineer.
I started with IBM in the days of the "good IBM" and watched it turn into the "bad IBM". Then IBM sold me along with a few thousand of my closest friends and a bunch of real estate to Global Foundries. Then after a few years Global Foundries dropped off of the leading edge technologies and sold me along with a few hundred close friends to Marvell, where I worked until I retired. Though I spent my career in the East, Marvell the company seemed to have more of the West Coast culture, which was in some ways closer to the "good IBM".
The biggest mistake you can make is to believe that you are working for someone else.
