David GerardMar 7
i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
Show threadJPMar 7
@davidgerard yeah i think the most common pitches for either appeal to different self-identifications and impulses. crypto was/is bag culture, everyone around you is a cash machine, entrepreneurship is the only remaining form of social mobility so best get hustling. the LLM hype that targets programmers hardest is about appealing to "intelligence", productivity/status insecurities, and becoming a manager. most of them were already comfortable so the threat is the removal of that comfort.
Show threadJPMar 7
@davidgerard what they have in common is their ability to select for people with holes in their social-political consciousness who can be persuaded to dismiss arguments about social externalities.
Show threadDavid Gerard
@jplebreton also ~100% of crypto bros fell for the chatbot
Mar 7 at 3:18pmWeb
Show threadJerMar 7

@davidgerard @jplebreton crypto bros are about the hustle. GenAI is the current hustle.

Same group of guys will move to whatever the next big thing is. If there is no next big thing when GenAI investment collapses, they'll be the guys either jumping out windows or consolidating their money depending on whether they were able to sell at a high or not

Show threadJPMar 7
@davidgerard building a grift around a product that will tell you literally anything you want to hear is inevitably going to be way more broadly persuasive than crypto's "get rich doing nothing (actually you have to work a shitty and obviously evil telemarketing job)" pitch. so it's not too surprising that the crypto venn circle is mostly nesting inside the llm circle.
Show threadEntitasMar 8

@jplebreton @davidgerard

The amount of damage done by techbros convincing themselves that they are very smart, while being the dumbest and most credible people alive for any sort of buzz that vaguely promises to tell them they're special, has been catastrophic for society as a whole.

Show threadShephallmassiveMar 8
@TheEntity @jplebreton @davidgerard the west has a very bad history with tech bros and the far right - no one wants to look at the lessons learned but every important powerful committe org or board without women on it is like a dead canary in a coalmine. On a screen near you at the moment bros making decisions as the women, children and powerless are pulled from the rubble..