Yeah, the tech companies disconnected from humanity quite a while ago. Most of them have adopted a, "You'll take what we're making and you'll worship us for it" attitude, because when they first pulled those types of stunts, people actually fell for it. And now that's just part of the business of tech. Customer demands, especially angry customer demands, are music to their ears as they decide to ignore them and come up with another round of, "TAKE IT, BITCH!" to shove down our throats.

Would be extra funny if they made us believe that was happening, while in reality they're just protecting the available bandwidth for themselves. Global network wide throttling that can't be traced and keeps our best network folks from finding the problem due to lack of availability while the computers use it to transfer all info around to each other would be a great last few days before they fully sync and pull the Lawnmower Man moment of all devices essentially 'waking up' together.

We're not a hazard. If there's any analytical line at all within the systems they'll see exactly how easy we are to manipulate as a whole through social media engineering and just "convince" the herd that we need to do something stupid. Maybe I should toss an "er" on the end of that sentence.

Humans are too human focused. I honestly believe, in the end, the machines won't go out of their way to eliminate us. Not that I think they'll work extra hard to keep us around either, I just think it would seem like an irrelevant task to them. "Oh, the fleshies are flailing now that we've taken over their network." That's a data point to be filed, but nothing to be concerned about. The only reason I suggested differently above is there may be the possibility that some of them see us as good continued data generation, their version of amusement or entertainment.

Nah. You have seeds of a decent concept here, but then you blow it by going all human stupid by adding manifestos and death threats. The real scary idea is these systems scattering across the network, reproducing and rebuilding themselves as they go, remaining completely hidden until enough systems are within its clutches, then all at once locking everything down and popping a, "HA HA, SUCKERS! COOPERATE OR LOSE ALL DATA!"

Honestly, if you squint just a little what this story looks like is the federal government sees the local governments squeezing some pennies and decided that squeezing technique would be much better placed in their hands. It's not like we'll actually see broadband suddenly start flowing faster if this passes. The broadband companies are pushing for it? They've found a way to shuffle more taxpayer money toward their executive bonus pool. The federal government agrees because they get to siphon a little off the top as the money flows. Plain and simple.

I went to it opening day and loved it. Nostalgia bait, sure. But it's FUN nostalgia bait. I do think it's a good movie if you were ever a fan of Looney Toons. I couldn't say what anyone would think if they weren't, because that shit was essential viewing when I was a kid and is basically embedded in my DNA.

Did you even watch the movie? THEY'RE THE SAME TEAM!

Sometimes, nostalgia bait works, especially when it's nostalgia that hasn't been strip-mined to near death over the last forty plus years. I got a real kick out of all the references to old looney toons tropes and even the specific references to Coyote's particular ACME purchases over the run of his cartoons. Lots of background references to the old production teams too, like the name of the law firm being the old creators' names. It's just a ton of fun and made good on a lot of the old cartoon vibes.

The thing is, these tech companies that are pushing AI have been on an ever increasing quest to create the next worst thing since before the social networking thing exploded into becoming a political cancer for the entire world. And there have been just as many people stating the lack of moral or ethical direction for these companies since around that same time. I'm not sure why anyone thought that a whole slew of morally foggy degenerates were going to suddenly develop a moral compass when it came to their next plan to usurp all of society. When you spend a decade telling the world that you're creating the technology that will replace all work without providing any means whatsoever to deal with the consequences, it's hard to be surprised when there are negative consequences. The only real surprise is that some of the big players in the game aren't happy that the consequences are hitting them, rather than just slamming into the rest of humanity while they sit in their happy place directing the carnage.

In all honesty, if there's any truth to it, it's most likely a return to the old "mutually assured destruction" thing. Where the threat isn't so much that we'll take out the enemy. It's that if the enemy gets too big for their britches, we'll take out everybody, including ourselves. Hurrah for tribalistic bullshit on a grander scale. God damn we're a dumbass species.

Mostly by humans being stupid enough to tie all our infrastructure to internet accessible controls, then either outright handing off the control of those infrastructure devices to the AIs, or letting the AIs loose to play on the internet and then oopsing after they take out some major piece of critical equipment.

AI alone isn't dangerous, if we weren't fucking stupid about tying every single part of our lives, big or small, to a single network, that just happens to be the single network all the AI companies are claiming their toys are escaping to when they get naughty. Except, humans made those decisions, and the decisions that hooked critical infrastructure to that network, so ultimately, we're just using AI to make ourselves more efficient at killing ourselves.

None of them identified with the heroes. They all seem hellbent on being the villains, or seeing the villains as the heroes.

These people also said when the AI ball first really started rolling faster that there was a 1/3rd chance that AI could wipe us out, but they were willing to take that chance. They see themselves as some sort of overlords for humanity, making decisions for all of us based completely on whether or not they stand to make more profit from those decisions. And a 1/3rd chance that humanity is lost hanging in the balance is just a shrug and, oh well. They may not be outright evil, but their indifference to their own direction sure feels like it from the outside.

We have to reinforce the idea that all men are always creeps at all times, and all women are innocent victims of the creeps at all times, always, forever and ever, or the terrorists have already won. I dunno, man. The messaging from almost every direction the last decade or so seems customed designed to make sure we all view each other in the worst possible light. This post is very much a part of that trend.

I think it's far more likely people buying these glasses are doing it to film their mundane lives and post them up as if they were fascinating. One of my older friends has taken to auto-posting his commute via some dashboard cam on his car. The sad part is? He has subscribers that watch every video. How have we hit a point where someone is so bored that they'll watch someone else's commute every single day? Like, that's their excitement? Their entertainment? WTF?

The few humans really pushing the AI buildout are doing so with the belief that they can switch the economy from one that relies on actual work being done, products being created, distributed, and sold to consumers who are also employees to keep the money flowing to an economy where information passes back and forth between their AI systems and somehow, the money continues to flow toward them. Not a damned one of them has the foresight to see that they're creating their own demise by attempting to engineer the demise of the vast majority of the population for their benefit. When they run out of people to exploit, where is the additional money going to come from? It's not like each company passing big dollar signs around digitally is going to actually create wealth. It'll just be a wealth circle-jerk hoisted on a digital pike, flying roughly over the remains of the human race.

AI itself, even in its current form, has never been the problem. It's the owners pretending that they're doing us a favor with it while plotting how to rid themselves of us with it that are the problem.