this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2026
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Fuck AI

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https://archive.ph/2026.11.05-224738/https://www.ft.com/content/32fd4450-5880-437d-9bd9-df13289ada24

The US midterm elections — in which voters elected anti-data centre governors in Texas, Georgia and Ohio and passed 38 local votes in favour of restrictions on their development — have forced the tech industry to reflect on its failure to connect with the public.

“The reason is not that people are Luddites . . . it’s much like the protests against the masks in Covid. It has become a political symbol,” said Vik Bajaj, co-chief executive of the Jeff Bezos-backed AI start-up Prometheus.

. . . “As a profession, we have spent two years pretty dangerously telling people that AI will change the future of work for the worse — that they will be out of jobs, that their children will be out of jobs, their grandchildren will live in a world that’s unrecognisable. And then for the last year or so, we’ve also been flirting with the idea that it’s an existential crisis.”

“I think this election was a big wake-up call . . . to take a pause and think about what’s happening and approach this in a way that’s maybe a little more thoughtful,” said John Hanke, founder of Niantic Spatial, the AI world model company and gaming group that made Pokémon Go. “It’s been go, go, go, build, build, build, and some of that has been . . . with head buried in sand.”

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 6 points 34 minutes ago

... Then maybe goy shouldn't have invested trillions in that

Also, fuck you. You made me jobless, I have no empathy for any of you

[–] dmir@gehirneimer.de 9 points 55 minutes ago
[–] Deathgl0be@lemmy.world 1 points 2 minutes ago

Only boom I understand is 💥

[–] NoDignity@lemmy.world 1 points 7 minutes ago

Threaten data center boom? I think the title means threaten me with a good time.

[–] Wfh@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 hour ago
[–] artifex@piefed.zip 40 points 3 hours ago

Let’s just fix that headline to make it a bit more accurate:

AI backlash threatens make-believe trillion-dollar data centre boom before they have a chance to cash out, say tech leaders

[–] Zulu@lemmy.world 63 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

Comparing ai datacenter backlash to masking backlash during covid is insane.

If anything, being pro-mask is being anti-ai. Its just fucking logical.

Or, you know, the more likely approach is datacenters just make everyones lives worse in multiple unique ways. Maybe they dont want that if its a willing choice, unlike a pandemic.

[–] AmyAye@nord.pub 3 points 17 minutes ago

The comparison is also stupid because being "anti-mask", was literally a political symbol.

Also, people are not protesting data centers as a "political symbol". They are protesting them because it's a huge waste of energy and effort that provides mostly trash results that will never be efit most people in a meaningful way that is accelerating the already shitty climate problem.

Not to mention tech companies have spent a decade now obliterating trust in tech they spent the previous decades building. No fucking privacy, no choice to just use a product. It's all 10,000 ads or subscriptions that just go up and up and up for more features and improvements no one fucking needs or wants because everything has to "move fast." Then they just start forcibly hoovering up all the data, and even if you take a LOT of pain in the ass steps to avoid letting your data get sucked up they do it anyway by pulling your friends and relative's data about you and making it harder and harder to do anything with data protections in place line blockers and VPNs.

People are just tired of these shit fuck tech companies, in general.

[–] doleo@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 hour ago

The attempt to frame anti-ai sentiment as similar to anti-vax is a deliberate attempt to paint protesters as ‘emotional’, ‘illogical’ or just plain stupid. Fuck it, I don’t think it’s even worth arguing with people who say stuff like that.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

God I wish pro-mask had the support of anti-AI. COVID would have died out before it got out of control with 90% people taking it seriously.

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago

Threatening the data center boom is the whole point of the backlash.

[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 38 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Shut up booster.

Meanwhile, back in reality, it's AI's shitty unit economics doing this. A ton of laws have also been broken trying to build these data centers as fast as possible.

[–] AmyAye@nord.pub 1 points 16 minutes ago

No no no, it's not "breaking the law" it's "being disruptive!"

/s

[–] aburrito@sh.itjust.works 20 points 3 hours ago

Oh my god, not the data centers!

[–] shittydwarf@piefed.ca 24 points 3 hours ago

~~Data center boom~~ Data center bubble

[–] JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 hours ago

Boo fucking hoo.

[–] skip0110@lemmy.zip 26 points 3 hours ago

Their comments aren't self-awareness or introspection. Its just a knee jerk reaction to things not going in their favor.

Yes. Yes it does.

[–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Think of all that sweet sweet pennies on the dollar ram/GPU/sad/hdd that can flood the 2nd hand market

They'll at least make something back

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The problem with that is that a big chunk of that hardware is in formats that are no good for home use.

[–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

No good for home use 'yet'

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

You must have a way bigger home than me. No way am I going to be listening to that jet engine sounding hardware in my house.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 1 points 9 minutes ago

No, it's not the hardware that sounds like that. It's that they're using used jet engines to run the damn things. Which is insane.

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

We'll know the bubble is over when we can get $3/GB DRAM again. Until then we're still under it.

[–] addie@feddit.uk 2 points 57 minutes ago

Oh man. Currently rocking an AMD AM4-socket CPU with 64 GB of DDR4 - I did have 32GB but when one of my sticks failed, it was actually cheaper to upgrade to 64 than it was to replace an 8.

Haven't upgraded anything in my desktop in over 5 years. An entry-level AM5 setup would cost about three times as much as my entire computer did, and would be a much less powerful machine. Completely stupid. Just hoping all my components keep holding up until the whole bubble explodes.