bsmall2Jan 6
> The Luddites’ problem was not with technology per se, but how it was applied- the way it was used to create unemployment, impoverish skilled workers, increase production while stagnating wages. One can see the shadow of this in such actions as the 2023 strike by the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild against the Hollywood studios.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/11/the-ai-boom-hype-power-and-the-coming-reckoning/
#JohnGrosso #AIBubble #AISalami #SalamiAI #LudditeAI
The AI Boom: Hype, Power and the Coming Reckoning

It is safe to say that since OpenAI first released ChatGPT in October 2022, AI has been the most widely covered and discussed topic in the U.S. By January

CounterPunch.org
Show threadbsmall2Jan 6
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> ... the original Luddites should not be understood as an anti-tech movement, but as a social protest rooted in early nineteenth-century England. The machines they smashed in protest, the stocking frame, were not new pieces of technology. By the time the Luddites burst onto the scene in 1811, the stocking frame had existed for more than two centuries. In fact, the Luddites can’t even claim originality since machine-breaking had a long history in English protests.
Show threadbsmall2Jan 6
> What Kind of Bubble is AI, tech writer Corey Doctorow writes ‘Tech bubbles come in two varieties: The ones that leave something behind, and the ones that leave nothing behind. Sometimes, it can be hard to guess what kind of bubble you’re living through until it pops and you find out the hard way.’ Past manias, such as the 19th-century British railroad bubble at least left useful infrastructure. It is hard to see what other uses there can be for all these data centers.
#CoreyDoctorow #TechBubbles #BubbleInfrastructure #BubbbleNothing
Show threadbsmall2Jan 6
> ... data from Pitchbook, AI startups received 53 percent of all global venture capital dollars invested- in the U.S., that percentage jumps to 64 percent... Much of this capital is flowing in something of a circle... Oracle, for example, which pledged a $300 billion investment in AI infrastructure with OpenAI now owes over $111 billion in debt. Quick FactSet reports that interest-bearing debt of the 1300 largest tech companies in the world has quadrupled over the past decade and now stands at roughly $1.35 trillion....
Show threadbsmall2Jan 6
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Lots of subsidies and manipulations go get disempowerng tech past the low part of the J...
> ... Eric Brynjolsson, co-author of The Second Machine Age and Race Against the Machine, posits that every new technology experiences a ‘productivity J-curve’, meaning at first, enterprises struggle to deploy it, causing productivity to fall. Eventually, when they learn how to integrate it, productivity booms. Indeed, it took decades for technologies such as tractors and computers to have a significant impact on productivity.
#EricBrynjolsson
Show threadbsmall2Jan 6
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> ... one shouldn’t overlook the anti-democratic ethos behind AI boosting. Offshoring problem-solving to AI, even if it can be done, means just concentrating power into the hands of a select few who own the AI. That appears to be precisely the point: ...
#SalamiAI
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> ... an MIT study came out showing that 95 percent of the generative AI implementations in enterprises have had zero return on their investment (that investment equals $30 to $40 billion)... think tank Model Evaluation & Threat put out a study involving a randomly selected group of experienced software developers to perform coding tasks with or without AI tools.. the study expected productivity gains for those using the AI... those in the AI group completed their tasks 20 percent slower than those working without it.
#SalamiCoding
Jan 6 at 12:42amWeb
Show threadbsmall2Jan 6
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> Data centers are the reason the big tech companies have openly blown past their.. green targets, not to mention a key factor in increased electricity use in the U.S. (after being flat for decades)... #EricSchmitt regarding #ClimateChange..: ‘My own opinion is that we’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we are not organized to do it and, yes, the needs in this area [AI] will be a problem. But I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.’ .. #SamAltman.. proclaiming that we need AI to solve.. #GlobalWarming..