General Discussion

highplainsdem

(61,751 posts) Sat Mar 14, 2026, 06:20 PM Saturday

"The whole "AI" industry is just based on the hope that they can deskill people fast enough that they'll have to rent

back cognitive support systems. Forever.

It's like Uber. Just that they don't try to break existing transportation infrastructures but your brain."

The whole "AI" industry is just based on the hope that they can deskill people fast enough that they'll have to rent back cognitive support systems. Forever.

It's like Uber. Just that they don't try to break existing transportation infrastructures but your brain.
— tante (@tante.cc) 2026-03-12T21:08:48.584Z

Tante is followed on Bluesky by Gary Marcus, Gil Duran, Garrett Graff and Brian Merchant, among people I also follow.

Link to a Gizmodo article about Sam Altman making that statement:

Sam Altman Says Intelligence Will Be a Utility, and He’s Just the Man to Collect the Bills
https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-says-intelligence-will-be-a-utility-and-hes-just-the-man-to-collect-the-bills-2000732953

Some of the replies to Tante's post on Bluesky:

They saw that the web can be a global network of information and knowledge at nominal cost 24/7 because distribution is incredibly cheap, and they absolutely hated it.
They can't create anything of value, so they curate what other people make, drown everything else and charge for their "service".

In all the Idiocracy discourse, we focused too much on how ridiculous it was that society would become so stupid so quickly, and we never stopped to think that an entire trillion-dollar industry would arise and build their business model around *making* society that stupid, that quickly.

It isn't just de-skilling. They're foisting this on kids and destroying their critical thinking ability before it even has a chance to fully form.

They steal other peoples data, ideas, writing, art, personal images and voices, etc. etc. basically everything on the internet and then some and then they turn around and want us to pay them for it on a meter.

"Look we just want to rule over uneducated serfs as a godking forevercaste, is that so wrong?"

10 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

"The whole "AI" industry is just based on the hope that they can deskill people fast enough that they'll have to rent (Original Post) highplainsdem Saturday OP

Some more Bluesky comments on Tante's post, these taken from the Quotes section: highplainsdem Saturday #1

"You want to know your name? Pay me." dalton99a Saturday #2

Pay you???? dickthegrouch Sunday #3

*USELESS EATER NOTED FOR DELETION* durablend Sunday #5

Yarvin's neo feudalism Blue Full Moon Sunday #4

Not sure about CIA involvement, but they definitely want to disrupt society in favor of something highplainsdem Sunday #6

In-Q-Tel Blue Full Moon Sunday #7

The tech bros want us out of the way. Blue Full Moon Yesterday #8

They don't want critical thinkers. Johnny2X2X Yesterday #9

It's already happening... Happy Hoosier Yesterday #10

highplainsdem

(61,751 posts)

1. Some more Bluesky comments on Tante's post, these taken from the Quotes section:

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sat Mar 14, 2026, 07:41 PM

Saturday

‪
I've been banging this drum at my university. No one seems to care. The party line is that AI is wonderful, and it is my job to figure out how to get my students to use this amazing new thing. No concern that we might be keeping them from being self-sufficient thinkers for the rest of their lives.

OH "It's like if Uber hit you with a car and broke your legs so badly that you had to spend the rest of your life taking and paying for Ubers."

That's the entirety of it too. Look at the studies of AI coming out of MIT; that shit rots your brain

This week my management (we're lawyers, don't hate us) put out a policy that no one should use AI in their writing and if they did it would be considered misconduct and I was SOOOO HAPPY! They didn't rule out future use, so ehhh, but they did emphasize how unreliable it is now. I'll take the win.

As a note, doing things like reading, doing puzzles, learning a new language etc. slow cognitive decline.
I wonder what the Alzheimer's numbers are gonna look like in a few decades.

Build an entire society of brainless sheeple who will have no choice but to pay them

Sounds a lot like pay us to use your brain with information that may or may not be all wrong

This is why I'm not touching this shit with a 49 and a half foot pole. The way the industry is operating currently is so clearly trying to create a user base that's completely dependent on their product, then pull the rug out from under them and charge them up the ass.
AI: the first hit's free.

"We see a future where [fundamentally and quintessentially human trait] is a utility ... and people buy it from us" is so wonderfully amoral and dystopian. I couldn't distill a more blatantly horrifying evil sentence if I tried.

dalton99a

(93,928 posts)

2. "You want to know your name? Pay me."

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sat Mar 14, 2026, 07:59 PM

Saturday

dickthegrouch

(4,488 posts)

3. Pay you????

Reply to dalton99a (Reply #2)

Sun Mar 15, 2026, 03:38 AM

Sunday

Without a Universal Basic Income, how do you suggest we do that???????

durablend

(9,219 posts)

5. *USELESS EATER NOTED FOR DELETION*

Reply to dickthegrouch (Reply #3)

Sun Mar 15, 2026, 08:33 AM

Sunday

Blue Full Moon

(3,412 posts)

4. Yarvin's neo feudalism

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Sun Mar 15, 2026, 04:38 AM

Sunday

They want to remove women, minorities, anyone they just don't like. Hurt them financially. Deny college to everyone. Set themselves up as kings. They want to "disrupt" our society and government. They got their tech from the CIA and got their funding from the CIA.

highplainsdem

(61,751 posts)

6. Not sure about CIA involvement, but they definitely want to disrupt society in favor of something

Reply to Blue Full Moon (Reply #4)

Sun Mar 15, 2026, 04:19 PM

Sunday

more like feudalism. And they don't care if people can get a good education.

I've never forgotten Sam Altman telling a reporter for the New Yorker that when AI has eliminated most jobs and some sort of UBI is necessary, it won't have to be very much because, among other savings he felt could be achieved, people could learn everything they need to know from their smart phones.

Blue Full Moon

(3,412 posts)

7. In-Q-Tel

Reply to highplainsdem (Reply #6)

Sun Mar 15, 2026, 04:52 PM

Sunday

It's set up to bypass any and all congressional oversight. Uses dark money as well with unlimited resources. Launched Palantir, Anduril, Avatar AI veracity analysis system, MemSQL, Xanadu Quantum, Keyhole geospatial visualization. There are lots more.

Blue Full Moon

(3,412 posts)

8. The tech bros want us out of the way.

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Mon Mar 16, 2026, 11:44 AM

Yesterday

The same tech bros working on neuro chips with drugs are the same list as Epstein files and a lot of those same drugs
were found on the island
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/alex-karp-palantir-ai-higher-education-20260315.html

Johnny2X2X

(24,121 posts)

9. They don't want critical thinkers.

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Mon Mar 16, 2026, 01:05 PM

Yesterday

They see how easy it it to control MAGA blue collar workers who are just begging to be told what to think and what to do and think that they can end the opposition by ending educated workers.

Happy Hoosier

(9,524 posts)

10. It's already happening...

Reply to highplainsdem (Original post)

Mon Mar 16, 2026, 01:09 PM

Yesterday

My wife has noted her college students are rapidly declining in their ability to read and digest longer texts and their writing skills are rapidly declining too.... at least a large segment of them. She said the difference between this year and last is stark.

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